At The University of Manchester any day you go on campus, you will see it buzzing with students! That is why, after a quick breakfast, getting to campus is the best part of the day. Unless you are late for your lecture or you are stuck behind a slow walker!

On a typical week as a final-year student, I am working on my dissertation and preparing for my upcoming lectures. I usually take notes from the resources on BlackBoard (university’s system) and if possible, do some readings on the upcoming week’s topic!

This year, I have two modules; both are quite special and unique! One of them includes presentations from different lecturers based on the topic each week, which gives us a better understanding of separate subject areas! Another advantage of this module is that we are joint with students from other programmes. This is rather unusual for my relatively small course thus I am trying to enjoy being in these lectures and get that real ’University feeling’!

After my first lecture, I have a lunch break before moving to a different building for my smaller classroom lecture. While this is a regular class on my course, it requires a lot of work. For the whole semester, we are working in a group to create a new Conservation Management Plan for one of the sites in Manchester, which brings me to my next favourite thing – field trips!

As an Environmental Management student, I do not just have lectures on campus, but I also have a few field visit days. Although it’s not a weekly event, it is nevertheless an important part of our learning process, which allows getting some practical experience on site and directly communicating with stakeholders involved in project management!

Thus, after a lecture-heavy day and a potential field visit, I have some free time to work on my dissertation more, just before having a group meeting the next day. As I mentioned, my latest module requires some group work, and to get everything done I have a weekly meeting with my group, accompanied by a small online session with my lecturer to ask questions.

While this might already sound quite interactive, we also have to regularly present our findings. Undoubtedly, smaller classes have an advantage here as I don’t have to present in front of a room full of people. Nevertheless, even a typical week gives me lots of skills and competencies, which I must have to secure a graduate position.

During my final semester, things can get a bit busy due to lectures, meetings and studying, I still make sure to set some time aside and relax. This takes the form of attending weekly socials within the Hungarian Society, going to Volleyball training on the weekend or just going out for lunch to catch up with a friend before spending some more time in the library to get tasks done!

Written by Zsófi, current BSc Environmental Management student at The University of Manchester.

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