Wow it has been so long since I have posted a blog! Many things have occurred since my last update in June, post-exams and we’re now midway through autumn term at Imperial! To new readers: greetings. To old readers (i.e. my parents): sorry I haven’t been posting for a while! I’ll do my best to catch you up with what’s going on in my life at the moment.
For one thing, the student bloggers are having a photoshoot done today to update our pictures that appear on the blog. Although the finished products always look great, the process of the photoshoot itself is very cringey and involves standing in a small room striking random poses until the photographer puts you out of your misery. This will be my third year of blogging and last year I missed the photoshoot by accident so I’m looking forward to no longer looking like a small little first year in my blog picture!
Third year is well underway and I have just started my second lecture course of the year. Our courses differ from second year in a number of ways. For one thing, there are no compulsory courses so you really do get to do whatever you like and whatever you’re interested. Second, the choice is massive. Instead of two or three options for each block, there are about eight! The diversity is huge so whether you’re in to cells, microbiology, conservation, ecology or bioinformatics, there’s something for you. Third year biologists and biochemists also have the option of taking most of the same courses, apart from a couple in each block that are just for one or the other. As a result, you can expect to meet lots of new people in your third courses! I’m currently taking Symbiosis, Plant Immunity and Disease (SPID for short) and there are only eight of us in the class! This is slightly terrifying, as there is literally nowhere to hide when there are so few of you in such a tiny room with the lecturer, but also good as you can easily ask questions and get a lot of personal feedback from the lecturers. Definitely a change from first and second year when classes were generally 50-150 students!
With third year comes the pressures and responsibilities of real adult life, namely, The Job Hunt. I have been applying for graduate schemes and masters courses relentlessly for what feels like months. Things tend to come in waves, so right now I’m doing online aptitude tests and writing personal statements and trying to remember what I scored in my GCSEs (which were four years ago at this point so it’s definitely challenging…) and in the new year I’ll (hopefully) be attending interviews. Time really does fly by (I hate it when people remark on the passage of time like it’s surprising but I guess it’s just part and parcel of getting older!) so if there are freshers reading this, let me just tell you: it will go so much faster than you think it will. Enjoy every worry-free moment and don’t stress about everything so much. You’ll look back on the squid dissection lab report with longing for a simpler time when you’re up to your ears in bioinformatics (congrats to the second years on your recent hand in – people usually do much better in bioinformatics than expected!).
I’m also enjoying time in London, hanging out with friends, getting out of South Kensington as much as possible and doing fun things. I managed to go and see two shows in the theatre just before term started which were both amazing! My flatmate and I went to queue for £5 student tickets for Matilda one morning which is SO worth doing if you ever get the chance. We queued for about 25 minutes before the box office opened and managed to get one of sixteen much coveted £5 student tickets for the show that evening. The seats were slightly restricted view (the very front of the stage was cut off) but you barely notice and you get a good appreciation of how cool the set is from so high up. The musical numbers are fantastic and I would highly recommend it! I also got tickets to see In the Heights at Kings Cross Theatre on its first night of previews which was very very cool. It’s a really exciting show with stunning choreography and I’d also definitely recommend it. I took my brother for his 18th birthday and if he liked it, then I think anyone will.
I’m busy as ever with coursework and society stuff but hopefully I will keep up with blogging a bit better than I have over the last couple of months. Until next time!
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
