A Day at MHC: Shweta Kiran Cavale
“I love MHC because the environment is very supportive of me being a student-athlete in STEM.”
Class: sophomore
Hometown: Chennai, India
Major: biology
Minor: chemistry
7:37 am: This morning I woke up early and made my bed so that I could have an organized room before I start my studies. I don’t have any class on Tuesdays but there is quite a bit that I would like to get ahead on before my classes start this Wednesday.
8:08 am: I started by studying psychology (psych 101) because I have an exam coming up this week. I study by using an exam guide provided by my professor. The topics that I am focusing on today are learning and emotion and motivation.
9:24 am: Ate my breakfast (a banana) to make sure I don’t get hungry till my next meal. On the days that I have class at 8 am I eat cereal, but since I don’t have class today I decided to eat fruit. I find bananas to be light but filling, so I prefer them over other fruits.
10:02 am: Finished my asynchronous Intro to Gender Studies preview video for week 5. I had finished half of this video last night but since I got too tired I decided to complete the rest of the video this morning. For this week, we are looking into public space and governance.
10:29 am: Completed my COVID-19 screening online for athletics. I am part of the tennis team and before practice every day, we need to complete an online screening so that our symptoms can be recorded and monitored. This is not the same as the physical screening that takes place twice a week.
12:08 pm: I just picked up my lunch from the Dining Commons and today I was not feeling particularly hungry, so I decided to get some rice, carrots and hummus. I came back to my room and decided to microwave some Indian lentils to go with my rice. The carrots and hummus will be saved for a snack before my practice.
12:51 p.m: This time is set aside to do my independent study work. I work in the Woodard Lab at Mount Holyoke College and currently my interest is the process of autophagy in fruit flies, and how ecdysone signaling affects it. I am now reading a lab report to understand different experiments that can be done around this topic.
2:43 p.m: Recently, I have gotten into bedazzling some of my belongings. I needed a break so I am bedazzling my pill bottles and I am still learning but they seem to be turning out just fine :)
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4:15 pm: Since I am part of the tennis team, I have to go to practice every day of the week from 4:15 to 6:15 pm. I was particularly tired during practice today but Coach Santiago and Coach Cestero kept pushing me to do better and so I felt encouraged. |
6:50 pm: I just picked up dinner from the Dining Commons and came back to my res hall. The first thing I did was shower and now I am eating dinner, which consists of rice, vegan chicken and vegetable potstickers.
7:27 pm: A friend of mine had ordered a lot of cake and she offered some to me so I am eating that now without any guilt :)
8:57 pm: The last thing on my agenda is to watch a documentary about the beginning of life for my psychology class. My friend and I are going to watch it together and take notes so that we can remember the important points.
11:35 pm: It’s the end to a very tiring day and I just wrote out my schedule for tomorrow, brushed my teeth and turned on my fairy lights.