Liza Emesibe, Pitt in London Spring 2020
You might be thinking to yourself right now, “How does one even establish a quotidian routine as a foreign student?” Well, allow me to explain.
Moving to an unknown city may seem like a stressful and intense experience, let alone an unknown city that is also known to be as one of the world’s largest metropolises. I like to consider myself a pretty adaptable individual, but I will admit that it took me a while to achieve a so called “routine.” For myself, every day consisted of unexpected new experiences and was filled with a multitude of new memories. However, certain days I did have an approximate schedule to follow. I would wake up at around 8 am and get dressed to head to my internship. I lived in Camden Town and the commute to Earl’s Court where my internship was based took a minimum 45 minutes. Therefore, I had to leave pretty early in order to avoid being late or experiencing any unexpected delays with the tube. Typically, I would have breakfast at my flat, bur I won’t lie–sometimes I was lazy and chose to grab a coffee on the way.
My internship was located in the neighborhood of Kensington and Chelsea and was a simple 15 minute walk from my school where classes took place. I interned at a legal advice center, therefore, a typical morning would consist of me updating the company’s website articles and social media pages, as well as catching up on the daily lives of my coworkers. At around 1 pm, I would head out of my internship to grab some lunch from Pret a Manger as I walked to the CAPA center for my afternoon class. Aside from Wednesdays, I typically had one class a day in the afternoon from 2:00-5:30. I would usually eat lunch quickly and then go to class but some days I would just bring my food to class and eat it there. Pret a Manger is similar to a Starbucks, meaning buying lunch there all the time was not the best decision for my financial budgeting. The days where I didn’t want to spend money I would simply meal prep ahead of time and bring a lunch to go.
After my class was over, I would head back to Camden with my friends, catching up with them and planning what we were going to do for the evening. My friends would head back to our building, whereas I would head straight to the gym nearby. I had purchased a gym membership when I arrived in London in order to maintain a similar lifestyle as the one I had back home. After my workout, I would return home and shower and then hang out with my roommates as I cooked dinner. On some days, we would head out for dinner somewhere together. After that, I would usually visit all my other friends in the building and work on some homework. Our entire building was occupied by study abroad students from our program. Therefore, we didn’t really have any locals living amongst us which, in my opinion, was very cool and made living abroad a completely different experience. Sometimes, we would all visit each other’s flats and hang out. However, Thursday-Saturday evenings would turn into us getting ready for a fun night out.
Overall, this is what a typical day for me would look like. In terms of budgeting, food was my largest expense, so I attempted to meal prep a week in advance to ensure I had all my meals ready to go. That way I wouldn’t have to cook or spend money buying food elsewhere if I was feeling lazy. This is what a typical weekday routine would personally look like for me as a study abroad student in London.
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