A Day in the Life: Bachelor’s Thesis
By Zlatoslava
What happens when you start doing your Bachelor’s thesis at WUR? How does your day look? What do you do?
Welcome to a day in the life of a Bachelor’s student at WUR, currently doing their thesis!
I’m going to keep it real with you, so this will be a very realistic blog, with the goods and the bads, because let’s be honest, sometimes plans change.
Let the Day Begin
Goooodmorning! Last week we had the most amazing weather in the Netherlands, enjoying 28 °C. This week, however…let’s just say the weather has been compensating for all the sunrays we got, and it is pouring like crazy. ☔
I got up, had a nice breakfast, prepared for the day, and started heading to university. When coming to the Netherlands, you have to be prepared, especially for the weather conditions. I have a raincoat and even rain pants..but this time the rain was so much that they gave up on me.🥲
I am taking the Honour Programme, and with a couple of other students, we are doing an experiment on self-made tofu! Today, we had to prepare some samples, so I had to enter the lab fast after arriving at uni. As you can imagine, having wet pants wasn’t ideal, but luckily, I managed ot dry myself during a break.
That aside, during the 1st semester of my 3rd year, I decided to do an exchange and leave the thesis for the second half of the year. My thesis is a literature study, meaning I haven’t been in the lab since the end of my 2nd year. As a Food Technology student at WUR, where you get to be in the lab so often, that break felt like an eternity. Thanks to this Honours project, I managed to reconnect with the lab again, haha. Strangely, I’ve started to miss it, and it felt nice to be back in the place where you once wondered, “How many more hours am I going to spend here?”
Thesis Writing
Thesis, thesis, thesis – we can’t skip it! Especially near the end of the semester, there is more work as you are wrapping up and trying to finish as soon as possible. As you can see, on some days, there are other tasks too, but usually, during this finalising period, I try to leave as many hours as possible in a day for writing my thesis.
I went to the Forum, and it was time for productive writing (hopefully)! I love sitting in the open area and not the library, because you can freely walk, snack and basically “camp” there as much as you need until you finish your work ahaha.
Unwinding
It sometimes takes a long time to focus and get into the writing mood, but when I do, I want to continue as much as possible. As much as I had wished to put in a couple of more sentences, it is nice to move around and unwind after hard work. This is easily forgotten by students since we want to stay on the “productivity wave” for as long as possible, but it is essential. Having activities to alternate between your studies is super helpful for preventing burnout.
Therefore, I went to the gym at the Bongerd, which really helped me put my thoughts into place.
Afterwards, I got back home, took a shower and cooked a yummy dinner. We had a FaceTime call with my family, which was the highlight of the night. I love calling them and getting to see them and talk about my days, just as I do with you now here.😄 Something that is specifically heartwarming during these calls is when my parents start showing our dog. My sister also studies in the Netherlands, so we both miss him a lot, and getting to see him, even through the phone, always puts a smile on our faces.
If you are curious what student life’s like during the 2nd Bachelor’s year, check out the previous blog in this series!
Was this day how you imagined it?👇
See you around,
Zlatoslava
