Blog

Prior to studying with SFS in Panama, I worried that my days would be so packed that I would never have any free time while simultaneously worrying that we would have so much homework that we would never do anything fun! I want to emphasize, every day is truly different and on average, about 2-3 days each week also have a field trip. However, days at the center are just as fun so here is an extremely detailed – non field trip – day in the life at SFS Panama.

7:30 AM

Wake up 5 minutes before my alarm. When we get to bed early (last night our bungalow went to bed around 10:15) I almost always wake up on my own, which is lovely. Some people, like one of my roommates, wake up earlier to work out, do homework, or journal.

7:40 AM

Brush teeth, put on a sweatshirt, make bed, unplug computer and put in bag for the day (I find it easier to carry my things in a tote bag so I always have my computer, notebook, journal, pencils, and earbuds for little free moments).

8:00 AM

Breakfast bell rings! Today we had a Panamanian fry bread, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, patacones, beans, salsa, and fruit. You go through and tell the kitchen staff what you would like and how much as they put it on your plate. Then you grab toppings (like Nutella on the fried bread was so good), coffee, juice, etc. and sit down at a table to eat.

8:30 AM

Clear off plate, go back to bungalow to grab water bottle, change into clothes, put away dirty clothes.

8:45 AM

Our wellness director, Sydney, gives us announcements for the day, then the student of the day gives us the question “what color do you most identify with?” (lots of fun answers!). After that, she leads a game called poison dart frog.

9:00 AM

Tropical Coastal Ecology with Dago! First class is about coral reefs so we take notes and ask questions.

9:45 AM

Break. I fill up my water then join in a game of hacky sack.

10:00 AM

More class with Dago, this time learning about quantitative methods for marine research. This class, we have an activity sheet to fill out during lecture, practicing measures of species diversity, evenness, etc.

12:00 PM

Break before lunch, work with a group on our marine field guide, identifying pictures from our snorkel the other day.

12:30 PM

Lunch! Today was rice, a potato squash mix of sorts, chickpeas, and salad, so good!

1:00 PM

Short hacky sack sesh with professors Leon and Daniel.

1:30 PM

Tropical Forest Ecology with Daniel, today we are prepping for our hike to look for frogs, specifically identifying tropical frogs we might see.

3:00 PM

Free time. Personally, I’m heading to work out, then a quick swim across the street and work on our forest field guide that’s due later this week.

5:00 PM

Meet up to plan our community engagement for this coming Saturday. We are heading to Isla Popa to go bird watching and play games with the kids there!

6:00 PM

Dinner! We all sat and talked about the day and our plans for surfing this weekend as well as a movie we might watch later tonight.

7:00 PM

Movie night. We all sat in the classroom and watched a movie with snacks and blankets, such a great way to end the day!

9:00 PM

The movie finished so I went to facetime my sister for a bit before bed time. Service and wifi here are usually pretty good despite the occasional outages and as long as we use the bandwidth correctly, it’s not too hard to stay in touch with home.

10:00PM

Get ready for bed with roommates. We chatted about our day, got ready for bed, then stretched together since we all are pretty sore from various activities (running, swimming, hiking, etc.)

10:35 PM

In bed ready to hit the hay!

Thanks for following along for a detailed day in the life!