A Day in the Life of a Creative Writing Graduate| Carenza Bramwell

When I was still a student, I would make posts about my daily activities and what I got up to as a student. Now that I have graduated (which even two months later feels very weird to say), I thought I would share a day in the life of a creative writing graduate. This is what a typical day in my life looks like now.

Morning

I use my mornings for content creation. While I am job hunting, I have made the decision to go full time with my content creation on my various platforms. So a morning for me could look like writing blog posts, writing tweets, planning content or taking bookstagram photos. Basically writing, planning or a photography session. 

I try to work from around 9:30 until I have lunch at 12. I do take a little break if I start to feel a bit tired or like I need to change up what I'm doing. I really like my morning routine as it gets some of my key tasks done and makes me feel quite productive. 

Afternoon

After having lunch with my family, my afternoons are for two things- job hunting and teaching myself about social media marketing. Now that I've finished my degree, the next stage in my life is to get a job. So far, it's a slow process of lots of applications and rejections. I tend to work on applications for max two hours as I do find it emotionally draining. 

Once I've had enough of scrolling through jobs and looking for ones to apply for, I do some work on teaching myself about social media marketing. This is to help me improve my own social media platforms and to help me develop key skills for the types of jobs I'm applying for. I have a social media marketing book for dummies that I'm slowly making my way through. I'll read and make notes on things I believe are relevant as I go. I do miss learning so this is one way for me to keep that side of me going. 

Evening 

I tend to finish my tasks for the day at around 4pm. My evening consists of reading, doing my daily Duolingo, household tasks and watching something. I like to get about an hour or so of reading done before I have tea with my family. I'm trying to be a bit stricter with it as sometimes I can get sucked down a YouTube wormhole. Before finishing my degree, I was just taking French on Duolingo but now I've started learning Italian and Japanese as they are languages I've wanted to learn for a while. I only do about 10 minutes a day, but I really enjoy it. 

I then help with whatever household tasks require me before going back to reading or watching something. Sometimes my parents and I will go for a walk before we do our evening routines, which I do like. I find it hard sometimes to fit a walk into my day with wanting to get so much done, so I like going for walks with them.

And that concludes a typical day in my life. I miss having a routine so I'm trying to build one up for myself now that I'm a graduate as it could be quite a while before I get a job. I hope you liked this post. 

A Typical Day in My Life as a Uni Student| CarenzaOnBooks

As someone who watches a lot of studytubers, I thought it would be interesting to share my experiences and day to day life as a Creative Writing student. A lot of student bloggers/vloggers etc I feel are studying more "traditional" courses and often we don't get to learn what it's like to be an art student. I thought that it would be helpful for anyone interested in studying Creative Writing or wondering what it was like to study Creative Writing to share what a typical day in my life looks like.

I would like to start this with a tiny disclaimer- obviously, every day of my life isn't like this and I am going to be merging what I do to give a broader picture. My experience is also unique to me, so what I do as a Creative Writing student might be very different from what other people do.

Gym, 6-9am, 4 times a week

Depending on what my day looks like, I like to try and go to the gym. I have a membership to my university gym, which is a 10-15 minute walk from where I live. I am not your typical gym buff, I don't think I really know how to use the gym properly, but I try my best. At the moment, as I haven't been to the gym at all over the summer and I'm getting used to being back at uni, I'm only going for 20 minutes in the morning. I like to use to cross-trainers and that's about it. I am hoping to increase my time at the gym once I've worked out my schedule properly, but for now, I go for 20 minutes 4 mornings a week. Typically, I try to get there around opening time and I like to be home by 9am, ready to start working. I started going to the gym in my second term of uni as I wasn't getting any exercise and by paying for it, I feel that I need to get my money worth out of my membership. It's a really nice way to start my day.

Lectures, 9am-5pm, 3 times a week

Due to the nature of studying Creative Writing, my contact hours are a lot smaller than some other degrees. I have 12 hours a week split between 4 modules. I don't always start at 9am, but I do finish at 5pm every day. Typically, on my longer days, I'll be in uni all day and work in between my lectures. I'd recommend this rather than going home as it means when you go home you have less work to do and you have a clearer separation between work and home. I will say that this is very different compared to my first year of university. Second-year is a lot more intense and you are expected to do a lot more by yourself. I quite like my timetable this year as the amount I'm in uni isn't daunting but it feels like I'm still learning lots. I've also discovered that I do quite enjoy spending more time at uni and getting work done there.

Studying, various, almost every day

Most of the time when I get home from uni, I try to get as much work done as humanly possible. I do have a bit of a problem when it comes to working, but I am trying to fix it. Sometimes I only do under an hours worth of work, others I work until I am exhausted. It depends what I have to do and when I have to get it done by. On Monday's, for example, I have a lot of lecture notes to write up, so I spend a lot of time on that. But on Tuesday's, as I have the next day off, I feel less bad about taking time off and not working. It all depends on what I've got the next day and what I want to get done, whether that's for uni or for my own personal enjoyment.  

Other Activities, various, almost every day

Obviously, my whole life isn't eat, sleep, study, repeat, I do do other things with my life and I have to try and fit them in. Typically these activities can involve- blogging (I set aside three days a week to work on my blog), running my social media accounts (I have been bad at this recently, but I do tend to do work on at least one of my accounts every day), work (I have a casual part-time job), chores (sadly I have to do these every single day) and reading (I also have to do this every single day). Typically, I'll tidy my room up first thing in the morning. I'll also make sure that at some point during the day, I do my dishes. Reading I tend to do just before bed and although I've been really bad at reading, I always try to make time for it during the day as it's something relevant to my course but it's also something that is important to me as a person.

I hope that this depicts an accurate picture of what my a day in my life is like as a Creative Writing student. I know that this looks daunting, but I promise you that this is a manageable load and is just what it's like to be a Creative Writing student.

Carenza :) x