As you may know, the purpose of my blog was to document my journey into becoming a pharmacist, and I can finally say that today marks the end of my Freshers Week and my first week at university! It's been such an amazing fortnight, and I'm so excited to see where the year takes me. I haven't been insanely busy over the summer, but I'm happy to have cut back on my volunteering hours and finally returned to learning!
Freshers Week was probably one of the more tiring weeks; due to immense paranoia (something I'll have to sort eventually), I've been struggling to fall asleep at night, and so it was hard to get back into routine, but thank god I wasn't learning anything I'd need to take in for an exam! Although it was all still very helpful information, I'm glad I went, as I got to meet new people.
Monday was one of the easiest and possibly most boring days. I'd been on a pub crawl the night before, and my friend was nice enough to let me stay at hers for the night, so I didn't have to have an early commute. She was also right next to a Tesco, so I was able to pick up a meal deal (now they have mini rolls in the meal deal section! Like what? I'm so chuffed!), whilst I waited for a girl on my course who I'd met through TikTok, and we were going to meet up with another girl I met at the Partner's Academic Summer School (PASS). I'll call them Abigail and Becca, respectively. Abigail and I walked up with her flatmates, who were all doing biomed or biochem, which apparently have a lot of mixed sessions. I'll be honest when I say I know nothing about the two degrees, so I'm not sure how similar they are. Anyways, Abigail and I met up with Becca right before we were let into the lecture theatre, and we were able to kind of weave between the groups and get to the front by the door. So we got quite good seats for the lecture (also, I say lecture, but I don't think it is technically a lecture). It was two separate sessions (one 2 hours and the other 1 hour), one after another; the first one was a little bit boring, as it was kind of reiterating things I knew from PASS, though it was a helpful reminder, and they also told us the dates for all of our assessments (not all of them have set dates yet). The second one was on academic advisors and how to essentially use them to our advantage, as well as some other things; the lady who did this session seemed so sweet. I wish she was my academic advisor!
Anyways, after that finished, we all split off to our different academic advisors - the place I needed to go was the furthest away out of me, Becca, and Abigail; I still got there on time, though! I also, coincidentally, sat next to a girl who knew me from TikTok! It was kind of unsettling when I thought about it afterwards, as I thought I was more hidden than I actually am - not that the girl was weird; she was so lovely; I just thought I was more anonymous than I actually am. It was lovely to meet her though! I didn't really get much from my academic advisor meeting; I was just eager to get away and have my meal deal because I was starving. I met up with Becca and Abigail again for lunch, and we had a quick look through the student wellbeing fair before splitting up again as we all had different plans.
My plan? To go to the library to borrow a book. Our Stage 1 Lead did the first 'lecture', and he was lovely! He told us that he would be teaching us chemistry, and during that session, he recommended two organic chemistry books to go through. I could only find one in the Walton Library. Apparently, the other one is in the Philip-Robinson Library, but I'll probably borrow it after I finish the other one. I thought it was kind of crazy, though, because I have 20 weeks until I have to return the book (unless someone requests it and then I have 7 days to return it), which is so good. I thought it would be a maximum of like 2 weeks. It's only 80 pages, so I'm hoping to finish it by next week.
When I went home the day after picking my stuff up from my friend's flat, I went home and finally finished my induction. Yay, all done! I was so pleased for it to be over with.
Freshers Week Day 2
This day felt like it lasted forever. I'll be honest, I fell asleep late because I was too focused on a task, so I only got about 6-7 (hehe) hours of sleep - which sounds like a lot, but I function better on 8-10 hours of sleep, so the day was already off to a poor start!
I got the 7:45 train, which would get me there with 40 mins to spare (enough time to get a meal deal hehe), but it was also, unfortunately, the busiest train of the day due to people commuting to university, school, and work. So I didn't get a seat, and it was boiling; I thought I was going to pass out! Luckily, I managed to get a seat for the last like 10 minutes of the trip, so thank god. My first plan was to go to Tesco and get a meal deal - the only thing in the meal deal that I like is the Caesar salad, so that's what I was on the lookout for. The first Tesco I went to, unfortunately, did not have it (despite how large it was), so I went to the next one (thank god there were two on the way), which thankfully had a Caesar salad! It was so full of workers, though, so I struggled to get out! I got to the session room (the session was called "Context Cafe") about ten minutes early, but I was too scared to go in. I eventually went in after some other people went in before me, and we were able to get Border biscuits and tea (I didn't get any tea, though).
I had no idea what to expect from the name, but when I got there, it seemed to me to be an icebreaker. We were given strips of paper with different table letters on, so I assumed we had to go around to different groups to speak to new people. I was only partially right. It was like a carousel where we went between PharmSoc members, a fourth-year student, and professors. They were all telling us tips for first year, explaining the courses & placements, the expectations of the course, and giving us a chance to ask questions. It was actually really helpful and somewhat comforting to know what to expect. But then after this, I had 4.5 hours between that and my next... session.
Whilst I was in the library, I just spent my time working on my blog (I was a little behind, whoopsies), and applied to the NCL+ Award. I also looked into this programme called the University Wide Language Programme (UWLP) - the university offers free courses in 8 different languages and at a variety of levels, which is worth 10 credits alongside your degree. I applied to do the elementary level Spanish; I didn't do too badly at GCSE Spanish (I got a 7), but I really can't remember much and was never any good with verb endings anyways. I hope they have space on the course for me; if not, I put a backup for beginner German. I'm really trying to take full advantage of the nearly £10,000 a year I'm spending. I want to get as much experience as possible! I hadn't filled in the application yet, as I had to ask my Degree Programme Director if it was something I could do, and she said yes! She replied within about half an hour, which I was really grateful for.
However, I filled in the application on the train because I was going to my next timetabled event. I'd been dreading this since I saw the email come through - a blood test. I'd never had one before, and so I was extremely nervous and scared about it. I got there about 10 minutes early, but I was seen about 15 minutes after I was scheduled to be seen. I, embarrassingly, had a bit of a sob before it happened, but the man who was doing it was very nice about it, talked me through it, answered all of my questions, and then it was over and done with quickly. There was also a hepatitis B vaccination scheduled for that appointment, which I wasn't aware of. My blood test was to check me for TB, and if I was TB-free, then I was to go back for another blood test in a month; I need two more hepatitis B vaccinations, and I also need to receive my BCG vaccine at some point. I'm so happy my university is organising this for me!
Freshers Week Day 3
This was my shortest day of the week by far. I didn't have anything scheduled, but I still went in because I wanted to have a look around the societies & clubs fair to narrow down my options. Before going around, I think I had like eight or nine societies I wanted to join, but I managed to narrow it down based on how often they met and where their events were. I met up with Becca for this, as Abigail was with her flatmates going for the Freshers Freebies. I debated going, but the line was huge, and I wasn't that interested anyways. Becca and I managed to see every society we each wanted to speak to before her workshop started! After we separated, I saw that the Poster Sale was still up, so I decided to have a look since there weren't many people there. I bought three posters of some of my favourite singers (Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, and Sabrina Carpenter), which came to £21, and since I spent over £20, I got a free packet of white tack!
I went home after this and immediately hung the posters over my door. It was slightly scary to do, as I was balancing on my stool, but I managed to do it with no falls or injuries! I was only in Newcastle for about an hour and a half before I headed home, but it was still a great day and an extremely helpful one. I joined the First Aid Society, Pharmacy Society, OSCE & Simulation Society (though I'm going to try to refund this, as I found out yesterday it's just for medicine students), Book Club, and the Teddy Bear Hospital. I'm really looking forward to all of these, and I hope I'm not filling my schedule with too much stuff; I could also drop my volunteering if I am, as my education comes first and I am spending a lot on this degree.
I forgot to mention this initially, but I also received a phone call on this day inviting me for an interview! I hadn't had a job interview since Summer of 2025 (didn't get the job), so this was my second ever job interview! Keep reading to First Week day 2 to see how it went.
Freshers Week Day 4
Another short day! All I had was an 11-12pm lecture on Fitness to Practice and the Code of Conduct. It basically just went over the professionalism expectations on the course, explained PIN to us, and how things could escalate (e.g. multiple occasions of late submissions or extremely late arrival). The lecturer who delivered the lecture seemed really nice, and I think he handles OSCEs, so I'm not sure if I'll see him much (I'm not sure how frequent OSCEs are; maybe they get more frequent as you go through the course?). This was only about 40 minutes, so afterwards, Becca and I went to have lunch by the famous Newcastle University arches, where we ended up seeing a boy I went to sixth form with! I had no idea he was going to Newcastle, but it was nice to see him; he's so kind. We (just Becca and I) then went to have a look around the Language Resource Centre before quickly finding out we had to sign up for membership, so at least we got that sorted. She also signed up for the ULWP, not for the same language as me, but we would both be using the centre if we got in, so I suggested we have a look before her blood test/vaccination appointment this afternoon. Obviously, it was short-lived since neither of us had signed up. So I just decided to go home and walked her to Costa Coffee so she had somewhere to wait for her appointment.
I didn't really do much when I got home; I've been quite tired since I've been doing a lot of walking with my heavy bag. Today, I walked over 3.5 miles and did over 8,500 steps. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's a lot more than I've done over the summer holidays. I'm happy to be back walking a lot. I hope I can improve my stamina, lung capacity (I run out of air very quickly when I do things), and I hope carrying my heavy backpack most of the time will help strengthen my back muscles. I did go over the Stage One Handbook; to be fair, it was really helpful as it had a lot of the assessment expectations in it. I have a formative integrated report coming up, which I'm quite anxious for as I haven't done any long academic writing in a while. It's 2,000 words for the summative integrated report, but I think the formative is optional, as it's a chance to get feedback on your draft of the summative, I think? I'm not entirely sure; I think I'll hear more about it next week during the lecture "Intro to Integrated Report". I hope it goes well!
Freshers Week Day 5
Unfortunately, this day was probably the most boring.
It started off strong with a library services talk. The two ladies who did this lecture were so lovely, but a lot of what they were telling me either didn't apply to me, I already knew from PASS, or I didn't care about because I was desperate for the toilet. In all honesty, it was an extremely helpful lecture, but, in my opinion, it went on for too long, and I was desperate for the toilet in the last 45 minutes. I was sat bang in the middle, with the entire row full, so I was too embarrassed to disturb the whole lecture to go to the toilet (and I would have to disturb people TWICE). I was far too awkward to do that because the lovely ladies doing the lecture did not deserve to be distracted by me disrupting everyone in my row. But I learned my lesson to not sit in the middle of a row during a long lecture again.
I then had a 2-hour break, so I decided to use it wisely and work on my blog! I think I got a lot done, but then I was late meeting Becca for the next session. I felt so bad because somehow my brain messed up my plan from being "leave at 12:15 to meet Becca at 12:30" to "leave at 12:30 to meet Becca at 12:45." Which seems harmless until my stomach dropped when I saw her texting asking where I was at 12:30 when I was only JUST starting to pack up; fortunately, I got there in about 10 minutes, but I felt so bad. This session was like a drop-in to sort our DBS checks. We were 15 minutes early to the start time, and the queue was still MASSIVE. For some reason, there was a queue on either side of the door, so it was kind of like a game of chicken over which person at the front wanted to go first. It took an hour and a half of queuing for me to finally get in to do my DBS check. Only for me to make a mistake. I thought my driving licence expired on the 19th, but it was the 18th. Luckily, the lady who was doing my appointment let me sit off to the side and fix it, then come back when she was available, meaning my other documents didn't have to be reviewed again! Thank goodness for her kindness; I felt so embarrassed about my mistake, but she just said it happens a lot and they're easily able to fix it, especially since it was just one little error.
A quick mention that it was whilst I was queuing for my DBS check that I got the email saying my application for the UWLP elementary Spanish was successful! I can't remember what day my timetable came through, as it took a while, but my lessons are every Thursday 17:00-19:00, which is what I was hoping for, as the other option was Fridays 15:00-17:00, and I wouldn't have been able to make all of those sessions. I was also really happy to see I was automatically enrolled on the semester two course for it as well! I really look forward to starting it.
After that, I could finally head home. Yay! Unfortunately, my train is only hourly. So I had to wait about 40 minutes for the train. Then it was delayed 20 minutes due to trespassers on the track. ONLY 20 MINUTES, BEAR IN MIND. But then they started cancelling stops. The train was only going to 'major' stops. My small town is not a major stop. Thankfully, my blesséd mam works in one of the major stop places and would have finished right before the train got there, so she picked me up, meaning I didn't have to get the bus. She then, bless her, drove me to our local train station (meaning she had to drive the opposite direction from home) so I could pick up my car and drive myself home. I love my mother! So that day was somewhat tragic for me. I got home about an hour later than expected, so I was starving.
Freshers Week Day 6 & 7 (haha)
Funny number.
I didn't do much over the weekend; I even forgot to write in my diary, which is something I'm trying to make a weekly thing. I was so tired after an event-filled week, and I was still somewhat recovering from my cold, so I just decided to stay in the house all weekend. Well, except Sunday, when I went to the supermarket to buy ingredients for chicken fajitas. Well, some of the stuff was already in the house, meaning I didn't have to spend too much money (luckily for me). I've never made or had fajitas before, so I was really just putting in what I felt like and experimented with the seasonings; it turned out so nice, though! I did a side of sweet potato fries, which were very yummy (but I can't figure out how to get them crispy in the air fryer! It's harder than you'd expect, apparently). My parents also said that the mix I had made for fajitas was lovely! I have enough to last me for the next few years, since only a little bit fits in each wrap.
So nothing was really done over Saturday and Sunday. I'm not even sure I worked on my blog at all.
First Week
First Week Day 1
Monday was another long day, unfortunately. Initially, I only had two 1-hour lectures in the afternoon, but then about mid-Freshers Week, I had two 2-hour 'practicals' added to the morning timetable, so I was actually there 9:00-16:00. The practicals were more like seminars, I think, with the first one being a group activity discussing two patient scenarios and how we'd handle them, then feeding back to the room. I actually really enjoyed this; it was fun to interact with different people, and I learnt that it's a northeastern thing to call food 'bait', as it was mentioned in one of the scenarios, and the other people in my group were confused, thinking it had something to do with fishing, which was a little funny, in all honesty. The second session was on the different roles of a pharmacist, so I got to do blood pressure checks (both manual and automated), make a poster for a public health campaign (mine was a bit rubbish), and check patient prescriptions for errors.
I had an hour break after those, so I had my Tesco meal deal lunch and just relaxed in the Walton Library for a bit. It's so nice in there, but yesterday at lunch was the busiest I've ever seen it! I might have to start considering booking the study rooms.
The lectures after that were actually quite informative and helpful. The first one was on the Personal Extenuating Circumstances (PEC) process, which was a bit boring, but it was useful to know - it was really annoying, though, because there was a group of girls who were very loudly mumbling to each other, which was so distracting that the lecturer had to call them out on it twice to get them to finally stop. The second one was an Intro to Canvas, which I thought would be boring as I did that during PASS, but it actually covered some other things around the MPharm degree that were really helpful to know.
First Week Day 2
Tuesday was a well-deserved day off! Kind of...
I had an 8:30 GP appointment about my birth control top-up, where she did the manual blood pressure check... I don't know how it works, but I'm sure I'll learn! Then I had to head to volunteering at the Royal Voluntary Service (RVS) immediately. I felt so bad because I was slightly late, as I was let into my appointment late, and I had to set a reminder because my prescription would be ready to pick up the next day.
Volunteering was very easy; it was quite quiet, so unfortunately there wasn't much to do, but I still enjoyed it; I was just happy to be back, in all honesty. It'd been about a fortnight since I was last there, but it felt like I hadn't been there in ages, and so I was very bored. I was grateful because they let me leave at 12:30 instead of 13:00, so I could get to my interview on time. Luckily, I was 30 minutes early, but I wanted to make sure I got there on time in case there was, like, a crash or something that was on my route, or if it was just busy in general.
I think my interview went okay; it was quite informal, and I was only asked a couple of questions, and they then gave me a go at doing one of the everyday tasks (slightly wary of sharing the business I was interviewed at, as I don't know how professional it is). In my opinion, it went well. They were meant to interview a girl before me, but she didn't turn up, and then they had two more people to interview the next day, so they said I'd find out the results in the next few days. Obviously, I think it went well; they might have thought I was rubbish, but they were all nice, so I kind of hope I get the job, but I'm not too sure. It all depends on the other candidates; for all I know, they could be fully available, which is obviously more desirable than my 'only available on weekends'.
First Week Day 3
This is when I began to burn out... All I had on Wednesday was the peer mentor meeting session, and then I was going to go to the BPSA talk. But then I decided I already knew what I wanted to know about the BPSA, so I didn't go; I was going to go to the PharmSoc academic intro instead, until I finished the peer mentor session and realised I was too tired to do anything. I decided to instead go to the Language Resource Centre instead to see what was there, and it was so quiet that I decided to stay there for a bit and get some work done. So I completed some of my pre-reading!
As I mentioned before, this is when I started to burn out for the week. I hadn't even done much, but it had been so long since I'd done anything that this week and a half had felt sooo tiring for me. Still two more days left.
First Week Day 4
Today was a day from hell. Whoever designed my timetable is genuinely out to get me, because why did I have six back-to-back 1-hour sessions? Luckily, some of them finished early, so I had a chance to eat and stuff (I struggle to eat when chewing), but my GOD, was I exhausted afterwards. I had my first proper lectures today, though, so I wanted to go to the library to make some revision material for what I'd learnt and do some other things. I didn't finish anything, though, because I'm still trying to figure out what a lot of the biology stuff was, and so I went back to annotate my lecture slides more, which I think helped. I still need to finish watching some of the videos and annotating my lecture slides - I also haven't even begun to make any biology flashcards. Luckily, the chemistry lecture I had today was very easy; it mainly felt like an A-Level recap with some extras, so I found it easy to make notes and then make flashcards from there.
I felt so silly because I wanted to go home for 18:00, but I accidentally left too late, as I forgot that the medical school is 30 minutes away from Central Station and not 20 minutes away, so I just changed my ticket to one so I would be home by 19:00. Yay. I just sat in Greggs whilst I waited for the next train and got some more work done - typing it out makes it sound like I did a lot, but I don't feel like I did a lot. I was so embarrassed on the train because the conductor scanned my ticket and it came up as invalid - he was nice about it and accepted the ticket anyways when I told him that I had missed the previous train and changed my ticket on Trainline to the current one. Thank God he was nice about it. I can imagine some conductors would have been rude about it!
Today was also 1 week until my Spanish lessons start! I hope I don't end up hating it when they start, because right now I'm actually sosososososo excited for them to begin. Before starting secondary school, I used to really like the idea of learning another language (my primary school taught us French, which I hated and never really paid attention to), but then I started secondary, and I really hated learning Spanish. I think it was mostly just the classroom environment, as no one really took it 'seriously', so it made it hard to learn. Although I got a 7 in my GCSE Spanish, I haven't spoken it in ages, so I'm just going to do the A1 level. I'm okay at Spanish, but I can't remember when to use the different verb endings, tenses, and just a lot of important words and rules for sentence structure. I'm looking forward to learning Spanish!
First Week Day 5
Finally, on to my last day, which was meant to be a day off, but I ended up with a 9:00-10:00 lecture scheduled. This was an easy lecture; it was mostly about molecular shape and bonding. There wasn't much that was difficult; it was mainly A-Level content, such as the laws for how the electrons arrange themselves in shells and orbitals, which we already knew (or at least we were taught them), but we were told the names of what they were.
That lecture only lasted about 50 minutes, and I was so tired that I just went straight home. I knew I would be able to catch up on making flashcards over the weekend - especially since I already understood the lecture. It really does help when you enjoy the subject! I genuinely thought I was going to fall asleep when I was on the train; I think my late nights and early mornings were finally catching up to me... Luckily, I managed to pull myself together before driving home and to have a meal before having a 20-minute nap. I would have napped for longer, but I had to go volunteering!
I spent the first half in the smaller coffee shop, which was frustrating because the card machine there had stopped working for some reason; I think it's something to do with the WiFi? We're always having WiFi problems, and I was hoping the hospital would have fixed it by now. Oh well, I suppose. I was then placed upstairs after 2 hours, which is where it's much busier and actually requires two people. But bless, my 'manager' had done her back in whilst she was there. She tried to just continue working as normal, but then eventually decided to just shut down 2 hours early. She wasn't able to bend over or really do much in terms of turning, so she talked me through how to do the closing procedures - I was kind of like her little puppet! It was a fun new experience, but I felt so bad for her. She texted later in the evening that she was going to take next week off to heal her back. I hope she gets well soon!
So Friday ended up being a short day too! I was expecting to be busy from like 9:00-17:00, but I was only busy 9:00-15:00.
