Tufts Blogs

College is unique to everyone and being a student athlete varies from sport to sport and teammate to teammate, but here is an idea of what a typical Monday this semester for me looks like as a senior on the swim team studying biomedical engineering.

It’s 6:30am, my alarm goes off. I roll out of bed and get dressed for lift in the morning. I meet my housemates in the kitchen as we grab some granola bars to snack on as we walk over the gym. We meet up with the rest of the swim team in Gantcher (the indoor track) to do a team warm up and cheer to get hype before we lift. Varsity athletes have a separate gym with mostly free weights, and we have strength and conditioning coaches that coach us through team specific workouts and make sure we have good technique. I lift three days a week and the days I don’t lift in the morning I usually am sleeping in.

After lifting, my housemates and I head back home and whip up some protein smoothies for some breakfast. I take a quick shower, and a 30 minute power nap before my 10:30 class, modern optics and photonics. I am more into biomaterials, but it’s a very cool class where we go over applications of optics in medicine and imaging and the forever debated topic, is light a particle or a wave? After class I walk over to Dewick Dining and grab some lunch. I sit down with a bunch of other swimmers who just finished class as well. Dewick is always bustling and lively. After we devour firsts and seconds, we delve into conversations that go in all directions. Lately we have been catching up about what everyone was doing this summer: lifeguarding, internships, vacationing—working out is what has been most common though. Around 1pm people start heading to their 1:30pm classes and I leave as well; I have some time before my 3:30pm practice and my next class isn’t until 6pm, so I head over to the SEC.

The Science and Engineering Complex (SEC) is my favorite spot on campus. It’s lively and I always have friends to help me with work or distract me if I am in a procrastinating mood. I spot two friends at a table as I walk in the atrium, and I sit down at the last empty chair at the table and pull out my laptop to see what work I have to do. After some jokes are exchanged the three of us grind out some homework. For me, I have to critique a journal paper, so I give the paper a good read through and make some notes for when I write my critique. A lot my classes also have problem sets which is when working in groups and collaborating is very helpful. At around 3 I take a break from my work and head back to the gym for practice.

After two hours of swimming it’s time for my 6pm class, psychopathology. The class is offered as a hybrid class where you can attend in person or on Zoom. I opt for the Zoom version and make my way back to the SEC to take the class. Psychopathology is one of my HASS (Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences) electives as an engineer so it’s a change of pace from my math and science classes, but there is still a lot of biology involved. After class I head back home and cook some dinner with the rest of my housemates. After dinner we will do some work in the living room together or watch some TV before going to bed, depending on our schedules.