Student blogs

 

Hello, all!

Let me just introduce myself– I’m Jelle, a first-year biochemist. It’s pronounced kind of like ‘yellow’ but if you forgot what you were saying halfway through, like “yell-uh?”.

You’re probably reading this, if you’re a prospective applicant or offer holder (congratulations!) for the same reason I read the blogs last year (and the reason I’m so excited to be writing one this year!) : it’s just really nice to have someone give that frank, real-talk account of what life is actually like here. The Imperial website can tell you, for example, which modules you’ll be expected to take as a first-year biochemist, but it won’t tell you that should work on the first cell-biology essay far in advance. It can tell you that move-in day is the 4th of October next year, but it won’t tell you how to cope with being initially (temporarily) friendless. If you want facts, check out the website; it’s not the easiest thing to navigate but it has every bit of information you might need. If you want an account of life here, to see if it might appeal to you, to decide if you want to be living this life for the next few years of your life, have a read here!

I’m writing this blog for two reasons. First, as I mentioned, I wanted to be a part of the blogging team and experience since it was so useful to me last year. Second, I wanted to keep at least a vague account of what I’ve been doing in uni so far–so much happens on any given day that it’s hard to remember a full week, let alone the two months I’ve been here. (Move-in day feels like years ago…)

 

I plan to write about aspects of student life here (living in halls, cooking, life around South Kensington/London/the UK, social life, etc) and about the course and university itself. Fair warning: I’m massively interested in biochemistry. More so every week, in fact. So if that’s your thing too, welcome!

 

Cool facts:

• A human body, at rest and unstressed, consumed 1.5 kilograms of ATP per hour.

• At around the age of 70, bowel cancer starts to build up; if nothing else has laid you low by 110, that probably will.

• The field of optogenetics consists of the engineering of mutant organisms whose neurons respond to light impulses, effectively allowing scientists to manipulate genes quickly and without invasive procedures. Basically you can zap an optogenetically engineered mouse with a laser and it will start to fire different neurons, altering the nervous system activity and from there behaviour.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.