A day in the life of an ATT student
Hello! I’m Tom, a second-year ATT student at the RCSI. No two days are the same but here’s how a typical day goes for me from my commute in the morning to the last bit of my routine before I go to bed.
I’m lucky to have a fairly simple commute. The Luas is a short walk from home, it’s a simple routine and not having to think about it is a small comfort before I’m fully awake. It’s a pleasant walk when the weather plays along.
I like to get in with some time to spare before my first lecture. It gives me a bit of time to fully wake up and prepare for the day ahead. If a friend of mine is around we usually end up at the pool table. Other days when we have a later start and I have some more time to kill in the mornings, I might find a nice spot on campus to read a book or if I’m up for it, go to the gym. I wouldn’t call it chaotic but it’s never planned. Mornings in ATT are mostly lectures. We cover a diverse range of topics, it could be some immunology, pharmacology or even some computer science to start the day. While we do get to cover a lot of topics, it doesn’t stop us from covering the latest developments in the field. While the content gets difficult at times I find it incredible that we get to learn exactly how the human body does what we take for granted every day. Recently, two of my favourite topics have been autoimmune diseases and haematology.
Breaks follow the same pattern as my mornings. Lunch with friends is the obvious one, if we didn’t make lunch in the morning a few of us usually make our way to the canteen. If we’re in a very good mood, we sometimes make our way down Grafton street to find something for lunch. Most of us gather around the pool table so a few games will typically follow. If we’re looking for a quieter lunch we might find a spot in the new building at 118 St Stephen's Green. If I have a workout set by my rowing coach, lunch is generally where I find the time to do it.
My favourite part of the course is the lab sessions. They’re an absolute world apart from lectures. It’s one thing to see a topic on a lecture slide and another to actually get hands on. This semester we’ve done diagnostic tests that would be performed on real patient samples in the workplace and worked with real immune cells to study their response to various pathogens.
Once lectures and labs have wrapped up for the day I say goodbye to my friends and look for a spot to get some work done. I’m a bit of a night owl so I keep most of my study to the evenings. The library is never full so I sometimes pop in there but most days I just find a comfy chair somewhere on campus.
Life at RCSI isn’t just lectures and labs all day. There is loads of fun to be had too! There are so many clubs and societies to choose from and there’s always something to do. Rowing club keeps me busy, a few evenings a week I make my way out to the river for training. On rest days and when I have the time I might look to see what some other societies are up to. I have friends involved in societies ranging from archery all the way to chess so I sometimes pop into one of their sessions.
Once I get home I start making dinner. While I’m eating that I look at my calendar for the next day to see if I need to bring my lab coat in or any gear for a rowing session. To relax I usually say hello to my cat and put on a TV show. I’m making my way through ER at the minute.
That’s a typical day for me! If you have any questions about RCSI or ATT feel free to reach out on the Unibuddy platform.