by Ruth A. Dan, YourPace Student Contributor

Hi, I’m Ruth, and I’m a YourPace student at The University of Maine at Presque Isle (UMPI). I started the YourPace program in January 2025 for my bachelor’s degree in English, and I’m graduating this March. YourPace is UMPI’s fully online program for students who want the flexibility of asynchronous classes. All of my classes are asynchronous, and I submit projects instead of tests. Once I finish one course, I can move on to the next one right away; no need to wait for the next semester. The reason I chose the YourPace program is that I wanted the flexibility to travel and work on my projects at my own pace. For example, for the past three months, I’ve been in Copenhagen, Denmark, and have been able to continue my studies seamlessly despite the time difference because everything is asynchronous. That’s just one of the advantages of YourPace; there are many more. But with that, let’s get into what a day in my life looks like.

I generally wake up around 10 or 11 am. Yes, I wake up late. I am not a morning person, and I have no classes to get to, so I can. I like to take my mornings slow, especially during winter, so I can warm up slowly. The weather here is pretty similar to the weather in Presque Isle. I’m usually finished getting ready and leaving the house by 12:30–1:00 pm. I take a quick walk and check if the ice on the lakes in Copenhagen is thick enough to walk on. This year, it’s been frozen for a while, and the ice is usually full of people, locals and tourists alike. It’s not regularly so freezing in Copenhagen, so the Danes get excited to be able to walk on the lakes in the city center. My favorite is Sortedams Sø, which I normally walk across.

I make my way to one of the many museums in Copenhagen, like the Christiansborg Castle. I finish around 4 pm, and I start walking back home. Copenhagen has excellent public transportation, and by the afternoon, I’m pretty lazy, so I’ll try to catch a bus or metro instead of walking.

By the time it’s dark around 5:30 pm, I sit down to actually do some schoolwork. I like to work on multiple courses at a time, because I want to finish them quickly and avoid getting bored with one class and burning out. When I don’t feel like doing one course, I can choose another. That’s also a fantastic benefit of YourPace: I can choose which class to take and when. I typically sit on one project for around three hours, and that’s if I wasn’t distracted by my phone. Otherwise, it’s longer, unfortunately.

Around 8 pm, I start making dinner, normally some pasta or a sandwich with salad. I don’t really eat out in Copenhagen, though it is a big restaurant hub. I often sit down to watch a movie or a show while I eat, and then I get distracted by whatever’s caught my attention on the internet that night.

I check on my project once more around midnight to make sure I want to submit it, and then sometimes I work on an article for the University Times, either research or writing, or read a book if I’m feeling productive, and doomscroll if I don’t. I get to sleep around 2-3 am, and since I don’t have a class to wake up to, I wake up late again.

And that’s a day in my life as a YourPace student living in Copenhagen.