Ever wonder what a day as an IEDP student looks like? In this article, Katya Pastushenko shares a typical day in her life as a first-year student! From working as an Admissions Student Assistant to balancing classes and making time for friends, there’s never a dull moment!
I live pretty close to campus, so most mornings I just walk to class along Walnut Street. It’s a quiet, residential neighborhood with lots of old houses and trees, which makes the walk especially nice in the fall. Definitely one of the things I like about living in West Philly :)
Besides being an IEDP student, I also work as an Admissions Student Assistant at Penn GSE. Today our office hosted an event for undergrads interested in the Accelerated Bachelor’s to Master’s program. It was pretty relaxed and friendly, and I got to spend part of my day helping out and chatting with prospective students!
Afterwards, I had my Education and International Development class! Today, we explored different development paradigms through a feminist lens. I really liked how many different activities we managed to fit into one class: we had a quiz on feminist development theories, watched and discussed a documentary about indigenous approaches to gender in Pakistan, talked to a second-year student about their internship in gender research, and discussed the articles we’d read for class. A lot going on, but that’s exactly what made it so interesting!
After class, I walked back home along the same Walnut Street, listening to some music on the way. Once I got home, I decided to take a little break from being productive: took a nap and watched the latest episode of The Challenge. Sometimes you just need to turn your brain off for a bit…
In the evening, I met up with a friend from the Counseling program for a little study session at Insomnia Cookies near campus. One thing I really like about GSE is that I’ve made friends from so many different programs. It’s fun to hear about what everyone else is studying and working on, and there’s always someone to grab a coffee (or ice cream) and get some work done!
And to finish off the day, I came back home and celebrated my roommate’s birthday with cupcakes and hot chocolate! We’re saving the actual birthday party for Saturday, since we all have work, internships, or classes tomorrow. So tonight was just a small, cozy celebration at home, which was really nice in its own way.
And that’s pretty much what a day in my life as an IEDP student looks like! 🙂
