We all have unreasonable expectations about how much we will be able to revise during the day. We wake up with a “LET’S DO THIS” attitude that seems to dwindle before you have even made it down for breakfast.
A few years ago my dad gave me some ‘advice’ before exam revision began.
“There are 24 hours in a day. Take away 8 hours for sleep that leaves you with 16 hours. Minus time for eating your 3 meals and you are down to 14 hours. Maybe minus an hour for general faffing around and toilet breaks and you are left with a solid 13 hours to revise.”
I had nothing to respond to this and I am sure one day I may be able to fulfil this 13 hour day I dream of being able to conquer.
However, this really isn’t what happens. When I have managed to wake up after several attempts to kill my alarm clock I will go for a shower and have some breakfast. By now I am tired again and believe it is time for a break of either a bit of TV or a browse of what is occurring on facebook that day. It may then be time for the designated 11 o’clock Tea break if I am in the luxury of my mums company. Of course, that is the perfect opportunity to see what the Loose Women are chatting about that day…
“Oooh look at the time, it is time for lunch”. By the time you know it is 2’oclock and you are crying at the final scene in Made in Chelsea. How can you work after watching that?!? You go back to your room to start work properly. After locating the perfect Spotify playlist for your “mood”, you are working hard and intently. Lecture done, time for a break. You make your way downstairs and LOOK WHATS ON TV. Nothing. You flick through the channels trying to find something but nothing is on. It is probably a sign that you should go back up to work. You go and do another lecture…but then you start to feel peckish. Time for your 5’oclock snack…but look it is almost dinner you may as well stay and relax until you have eaten a good meal- then you will feel ready to work.
You eat, feel lethargic and go for your after dinner nap. Waking up at 8 o’clock you decide you have worked hard for the day and just read through some stuff…maybe. If there is a channel 4 documentary about obese people on then no work will be done for the rest of the evening though.
As you can tell, revision at home wasn’t going great. I was getting distractions from every angle…even if it was the pigeon nest that has come into existence just outside my window. So in an attempt to “SMASH MCD REVISION” I packed my bags early and made my way out of the slums of North London into University.
It has been a struggle to keep going these past few weeks but we are ALMOST THERE. The late nights here in the library will be a thing of the past when all of these exams will be over. Sigh.
Happy Easter everyone! I have just got back from skiing last week with my family in France which was brilliant fun 🙂 🙂 It is almost the end of the skiing season now, but we were high up in a resort called Val Thorens, which is full of ugly buildings but great skiing! We had beautiful sunshine on every day except for the last, plenty of snow and I managed to keep the small French ski-school child sat next to me successfully on the chair-lift . It also has the highest zip wire in the world which was frustratingly closed every time I tried to jump on.
It was a refreshing break from everything, though I did (somehow) manage to do a bit of revision too, and so Atomic Physics exam look out- I am now coming for you!
This holidays I have also been indulging my Kurt Vonnegut obsession—today I finished his novel Bluebeard, which I have wanted to read for ages and ages and did not disappoint. If anyone hasn’t read Kurt Vonnegut then you really really really should consider it—I started with Breakfast of Champions and have been absolutely hooked ever since, to the extent that after finishing this blog I am pre-ordering a new book of his collected drawings and deciding how to spend some of my Science Challenge prize money on a print of his. Exciting times!
Anyway, I am now off to master Statistical Physics and order much Kurt Vonnegut :P. Enjoy the rest of the break everyone and if you are worried about exams try to distract yourself by remembering that a new potentially habitable planet has been discovered, (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6181/277) which is cool and also somewhere to relocate to if everything doesn’t go to plan.
🙂
Skiiiiiiing!The tiniest plane I have ever seen…Mountains! And beautiful weather!
I must confess that before I cam to London I scoffed at people who bought water filters or, even worse, litres and litres and litres of bottled water. These were usually the people who complain about ‘water hardness’ and wax lyrical about ‘mineral-filtered groundwater’– the proselytising vegans of the aqueous world. Imagine my surprise when limescale turned out to actually be a thing, when the sinks cheerfully spat out bitter mineral-tasting water, and when I found myself ordering a filter from Amazon, much to the envy of my floormates. Plus, there’s something unbearably posh about pouring water from a carafe at dinner.
*internal screaming* Everything you own and keep in the kitchen will start to look like this.
So worth it.
9. Blender
This one I saw coming; at home, I used our trusty old blender almost every day. Milkshakes replaced meals. I didn’t expect there to be a blender in Halls, and of course there wasn’t (there’s nothing unless you bring it yourself!) The loss hit me hard and I spent months craving the perfect shakes of my past–until I finally snapped and ordered my blender. Peace and harmony have been restored to the universe. Amazon to the win again!
8. Food Shopping
Remember when you’d go to the supermarket with your parents and you could put anything you wanted in the cart? And then eat it later? Rinse, repeat? Well, unless you landed a massive budget (congratulations, and this blog accepts tips!) you’ll have to be a great deal more judicious and survivalist in the shops if you want to last. Häagen-Dazs is no longer viable at almost £6 a tub–your inevitable uni heartbroken binges will have to make do without. Try celery. Those nice, juicy, medium-rare steaks dripping with peppercorn sauce? Chicken. Cake? Reserved for birthdays. Rosemary-infused sun-baked focaccia? Warburton’s white bread. I’m convinced it’s a conspiracy to get you to go home as soon as the cravings get too bad.
But sometimes we make a special effort 🙂
7. Taxis
When my dad visited a few months and we, in running late for dinner, hailed a black cab, I realised I hadn’t been in a car for months. It’s a wholly different perspective of London. Taxis are scary, scary things for budget-bound uni students–the motor revs and and your bank account drains dry. I’ve been in four taxis since getting to uni: the traditional drunk Freshers’ Week 2am ride home (pro tip: you’ll never see the people you shared the cab with then again, let alone pay them back), one shameful five-minute lift back from the local Sainsbury’s (to be fair, we were all exhausted), that trip with my dad, and one the next night home from the Spring Ball (the bus took seven minutes too long to arrive). £££££££. Seriously, take the tube. Or walk. 3am hikes across large swathes of London proper are the ideal way of seeing the city. Plus you might almost get jumped within shouting distance of the Queen–that was fun.
£££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££Emma modelling the most tasteful clothing we’ve found in London so far…
6. Clothes Shopping
Another thing you must start rationing is your clothes shopping. I’m not a huge shopper myself, but some of my friends have found themselves hopelessly crippled by the harsh London clothing prices.Forget all the brands you’ve grown up with–the only affordable shop on Oxford Street (don’t even bother with Regent St) is Primark a.k.a heaven on earth. If you can deal with the rude employees (to be fair, they’re probably earning about four pence a decade) you can get anything your heart desires at a fraction of the reasonable price: clothes, home goods, onesies for every occasion…just beware Primark Withdrawal on the way home. Don’t enter any other shops until about four hours have passed and your definition of ‘reasonable price’ has recalibrated back up to the (regrettably) ‘reasonable’ London standard.
5. Travel
I hope you’ll really enjoy London, because travelling outside it from uni is both pointless and crazy expensive. Save it for holidays or for going home! As I live in America, travel home sets me (or rather my parents <3) back many hundreds of pounds each trip. It’s definitely been a factor in my decision to stay at Imperial this Easter break (3/10, do not recommend). Flying to Europe is just feasible, at around £100 a trip if you’re clever about the bookings, and trains like Eurostar are about the same. If you’ve a place to go in the UK, that’s anywhere from about £20 to £60, very roughly. So it’s more feasible to go home–as most of my friends have done now–if you live here. Spending holidays in Halls is basically just for the overseas students. At the same time, though you won’t be travelling often, going to uni in London is one of the best choices if you do like travel; the continent and more broadly the Northwestern world is at your fingertips, and your uni time will find you jetting (or taking crappy overnight buses, sob) to wherever you want. I have friends travelling to New York City, Florida, Dublin, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Vienna, and the far East this break alone!
And then sometimes you end up in Amsterdam for a week with your HallmatesPlus then you can have cocktails and feel proper posh, for once…thanks dad!
4. Restaurants
–Especially nice ones! Again, as with everything on this list, this depends on your budget, but for most us it’s safe to say we probably won’t be eating at too many nice restaurants. Sure, the occasional dinner out with mates (my next-year-housemates and I have a rather neglected tradition of eating out together on Sundays), especially for birthdays or for club/society dinners, will happen… but mostly just prepare leave the nice dining for family visits. It makes them so much more magical anyway 😉
p.s. Good sushi especially won’t be a thing any more. Unless your parents are so inclined, just prepare to say goodbye to it!
We can’t even afford moustache trims…
3. Haircuts
They used to be a fact of life, like the changing of the seasons, but now if you want your hurr did you’ll have to take care of it yourself–and your London options, of course, aren’t the cheapest, with some of the posher salons in South Kensington stretching up into a hundred quid for a simple cut. You have a ton of options, though! I recently took advantage of Headmasters’ walk-in cut and style for 20 quid and would highly recommend it… classy salon, cheap cut, and ultraconvenient. Otherwise, you could get a friend to cut your hair (some people are crazy like that) or you could cut it yourself (0/10, DO NOT RECOMMEND). You could also take advantage of your student status, either by obtaining a student discount, which most salons will offer in some form, or by heading to a training salon, where you can get your hair cut for free if you’re willing to put up with long and tortuous cuts by trainees.
Hall Christmas Dinner at Supperclub… usually over 100 quid for entrance, we got in for 20!
2. Event Tickets and Nights Out
Nights out, or entertainment in general, are of course not cheap in London. Tickets (usually bought online ahead of time, convenient for you if not for your wallet) for club nights, for example, can run up to 20 quid at London’s poshest clubs, yet still accessible, nightclubs. (e.g. Boujis, barely ten minutes’ walk from the college)! Ladies will often enjoy free entrance, on the other hand. For the cheaper (but no less bangin’) clubs, tickets might cost up to about six pounds, tops. Heaven, one of London’s biggest gay clubs, is almost always free if you know how to get in. Union events are a little easier on the wallet; they won’t cost you more than a few quid for the normal term nights at Beit HQ, and the bigger balls are quite generously subsidised as well. Lastly, your Hall might throw cheap events as well (more during Freshers’ week and then tapering off slowly).
This jagerbomb cost my friend ten quid.
1. Booze
Of course, like the events above, this list wouldn’t be complete without a mention of alcohol–yeah, you “don’t need alcohol to have fun at uni”, but it’s such a big part of uni culture here that it would be horrifyingly inaccurate to leave it off the list. All those club nights only start with you buying a ticket… to buy drinks in the club, even after fighting through some truly gargantuan queues, you’ll still often be faced with “London prices”, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. This is anywhere from 7 quid for a double (I’ve seen 10+ quid at the posher places!) Or imagine you’ve not got tickets for the night, but you’ll just be partying it up in your halls with your friends. If you want to avoid drinking turpentine-like Glens Vodka from Essentials, which is nevertheless quite drinkable with adequate preparations, you’ll need to dish out more money at a supermarket or liquor store. Classy bastard. Of course, you don’t need alcohol to survive, and yet it fuels some of the greatest nights uni can offer… so that’s why it’s rounding out this list as the ultimate luxury uni item.
I have sought advice over the past few weeks from various “elders” of the medical school with the mission of finding the best advice possible to do well in first year medical exams. I have compiled the advice together and hopefully you will be helped as much as I was. Note: Most of this advice is generally unhelpful.
“Fear not young freshers, it only gets worse. Brave through exams and be prepared for worse in years to come”
“Don’t work, freshers!!! You can’t fail first year…well…okay you can. Maybe do some work…okay work hard.”
“I had 3 breakdowns over Easter of first year. I cried to my parents and was convinced that I didn’t deserve to do medicine. I passed…I try not to cry now during Easter. But trust, all us boys do cry sometimes.”
“FIRST YEAR EXAMS? OMG I DID NO REVISION FOR THEM!!”
“Why are you stressing, Mala? Don’t worry, I saw May/June exams as a trial run for the August ones [Resits]. Those are the ones you need to do well in”
“….how do you do well? You don’t. You pass with passion.”
“I got one or two percent above a pass in everything…and had a wicked easter. Enjoy life.”
“MCD is broken up into 8 sections: Easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, easy, METABOLISM, easy. You know what to revise.”
“Aim low. Take the pressure off yourself because stressing yourself out it the fastest route to failing.”
“Revise with your friends. You will remember more when you discuss what you have learnt. Just don’t be one of those people that tell the year group how clever they are on the facebook group, it’s so annoying.”
“NOTEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK”
“Be sober in the exam, it helps you to focus”
“HA! I bet you wished you went to muslim medic tutorials now…”
“If in doubt, the answer will probably be something to do with diabetes, infection or cancer.”
“Take regular breaks during revision. I took a week off after every couple of days of revising.”
“Do MCD now, focus hard on it. Then after MCD Exam start to read over LSS and LCRS properly. Then start over on MCD again. Repeat cycle until you pass.”
I just can’t stay away. I received a really good comment on an old post recently which I wanted to give a decent, long answer to publicly as I think it asks some great questions which will be relevant to many people thinking about choosing their firm and insurance universities very soon! The comment was thus:
Hi, I’ve got an offer to come to Imperial this year to study Biology, I’ve already got my grades because I took a gap year, but I am torn between choosing York and Imperial primarily because York has been ranked higher for student satisfaction and I’m worried going to Imperial I may slightly miss out on the ‘student experience’ living in London. I just wanted to know how you’re enjoying the course there and how good the support from tutors is and everything? I’d be really grateful if you got back to me. Cheers!
I’m going to answer this in three chunks. Numero uno…
The ‘Student Experience’
Imperial is a very academically rigourous university and your exams in first year do count so studying has to be a major priority whilst you are a first year. You’ll find that most people at Imperial study very hard and have lots of lab reports and problem sheets and projects to be getting on with (not trying to put you off, it’s just the truth and it sets you up well for good academic habits later on). As such, from my experience anyway, there isn’t so much of a big party/drinking culture at Imperial as there is at a lot of other universities. For me personally, this isn’t a problem as I don’t drink and I’m not interested in clubbing. I have a lot of friends who enjoy this aspect of university life and if you want to go out and experience London night life, you will find others who want to do that too. There’s also the legendary sports night at the Union on a Wednesday which many of my friends go to every week and love. Imperial, like most other places, has tons of societies, clubs and teams which also form an important part of your student life, and the Union and your departmental society organises loads of events like balls and club nights throughout the year. I feel that I have an excellent ‘student experience’ at Imperial, made up of my societies and hobbies, Union events, hall events and hanging out with friends. If the partying aspect if what you mean by student experience, it does exist at Imperial but be aware that not everybody will be interested in it and it’s not as pronounced as some other universities.
Biology Course Itself
The great thing about undergraduate biology at Imperial is that you take courses in all the core aspects of biology in your first year so you get a decent grounding in all areas before you specialise. Obviously there are certain areas I enjoy more than others but despite how much I hated studying, say, the life cycles of various fungi, it’s actually been really useful to start seeing links between different areas of the course. There are some truly excellent lecturers and I’ve found that most of them are very approachable and are always happy to answer questions by email, or if there’s something more serious going on, to have a one to one meeting. We’re also grounded in basic lab skills very early on which is very useful. Most of the lecturers are doing, or have done, amazing research themselves which means we’re being taught by people who are literally on the cutting edge of their field.
Tutor Support
This is a tricky one as I want to be honest without coming across to harshly! There are two types of tutorial in biology, academic tutorials which focus on a problem sheet relating to your lectures that week, and personal tutorials which are usually one to one and are there to talk about your progress, exam results and any problems you have. The academic tutorials are great as you get to look at different topics in detail, in a small group which allows you to have your questions answered personally and in depth rather than having to go through email. Sometimes you’re set an essay after the tutorial and you can contact the academic tutors via email whilst writing the essay to receive guidance and ask questions. Conclusion: I think our academic tutorial system is pretty great. That said, I think the personal tutorial system leaves something to be desired. I don’t think we meet often enough with our personal tutors and I’ve found it hard sometimes to know what to do in situations where I need help on a more pastoral level. I think this is something which could do with an overhaul in the biology department. There is also a senior tutor assigned to the biologists who you can go to if you need support from someone a bit higher up and I’ve found my senior tutor to be absolutely excellent in this capacity. I had a rather unpleasant experience with an acdemic tutor who was quite insensitive to a health problem and when I asked the biology undergraduate office for help with this, my senior tutor immediately set up a meeting with me to discuss it and find a solution. Conclusion: There are lots of very good points about tutor support in the department but there are bad points which I don’t want to lie about.
Phew that was long. I hope this helps the original commenter and anyone else with similar questions. Drop more comments if you have more questions, and have a lovely and blessed Easter!
I am PLODDING through revision. I looked over a lecture today on obesity and it discussed obesity in twins…
It got me thinking about an investigation NASA has planned to do with twins in space which you may/may not know about. NASA will embark on a year- long mission in March 2015 when they send Scott Kelly to the International Space Station and his twin brother Mark will remain on Earth. As a medic (who is currently revising genetics…) I find this really interesting as they are going to be studying the effect of different environments on two people with the same genes for a whole year.
The project has 10 different investigations for this study of the effect of microgravity on the human body. The psychological and physiological tests will be conducted on both of the twins before, during and after the mission. The 10 investigations are from 10 institutions from 7 states and include research like:
-Looking at the effect of a flu vaccination and how space (radiation, weightlessness etc…) will affect the immune system.
-Differential effects on telomeres and telomerase in twin astronauts associated with spaceflight.
-Comprehensive whole genome analysis of differential epigenetic effects of space travel on monozygotic twins.
We always have those “nature vs nurture” debates and this programme will be so interesting to show a glimpse into this question a bit more through molecular, physiological, microbiological and behavioral studies.
I was privileged enough to have met one of the twins when I went to NASA a few years back, and so I am really looking forward to seeing what the results show from this in years to come. Whilst I revise MCD I can only dream that I could one day be involved in projects like this. Until then, I will continue to “stick to” my revision timetable. News articles like this though are making revising a lot more interesting and a lot more current and real.
Adios amigos, hope you are having a nice Easter and are enjoying the “space” away from Uni.
Mala Mawkin
#letmegotomarsplease
P.S. You can catch me in the imperial prospectus 2015! What am I like…
I am now one week into my Easter Holidays, and deep into revising quantum mechanics. Those of you who are hoping to study Physics at university are probably a bit confused by my constant moaning about it. Quantum, after all is a strange and enticing subject, the topic of many interesting popular science books and promises to provide deep insights into the counterintuitive and fundamental nature of everything. 😮 I can empathise. I too was super excited to learn about quantum, but it turned out not to be really what I was expecting, especially last year when learning all the names and equations without really getting into it left me completely baffled. This year, since re-reading the notes and problem sheets, it is actually an interesting subject—still very confusing!—but still nowhere near the stand-out favourite I thought it would be.
This has made me realise quite how much my opinions about Physics have changed since coming to university (not all of them in a negative way!) so I thought I would share with you how some of the courses I have taken have been different to what I expected. So, I present to you my rough guide to the first two years of Physics at Imperial:
Quantum
Let’s get Quantum out of the way for starters. The postulates are vague and ridiculous. Postulate three is basically ‘this is what position and momentum look like in Quantum. Other operators are similar lol’. It’s not exactly relativity’s snappy ‘the speed of light is constant in all inertial reference frames.’ And don’t even get me started on if you want to try and combine two operators—I spend half an hour learning the finer points of what commutators are only to find that they aren’t Hermitian and so you have to combine them with imaginary numbers and anti-commutators and even then you don’t know which of the infinite possibilities is the real one until you try out an experiment! Turns out the uncertainty principle isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either—of course you can’t simultaneously measure position and momentum to an arbitrary precision when they don’t share eigenstates, I mean Jeez. (The second year course is actually brilliantly taught—the lecturer was great and his notes are literally the dream of notes, but still boooo quantum.)
Electromagnetism
Onto something less negative: Maxwell’s equations are all they are hyped up to be! I found Electromagnetism completely bemusing in the first year, but now we know enough about vector calculus to actually know what is going on, I love this course. Provided you can remember Maxwell’s equations you can derive every result from there (though admittedly that would take you a while if you did it every time) and satisfyingly, I think they are as elegant and neat as everyone has always promised.
Vector Calculus
Vectors are a lot more fun than you would think! This could be down to the awesome lecturer we had last year for vector calculus which I think this was actually my favourite course of last year. That was a complete surprise, considering it was a maths course and had quite a few long (and I mean whole lecture long) proofs which I usually tend to find a bit dull. Anyway, it turns out I really like visualising scalar and vector fields and integrating in weird shapes over them. I can live with that.
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is fascinating! It seems ridiculous that working at a time when atoms were not even commonly accepted as existing that people were able to derive this hugely mathematically accurate theory that describes pretty much everything. As well as making me periodically excited and then frustrated about the second law of thermodynamics, this course has re-evaluated how I see the whole of Physics. Prior to it I was a hard-core reductionist who thought that the only hope of truly understanding a system was to work from the very very base up. A combination of how simple and effective thermodynamics is and the mess that is quantum has shaken-up this view pretty drastically
Sun, Stars and Planets
I have now considered a very unsatisfactory model of the Sun’s interior in more depth than I could ever conceivably have wanted to. However, the second half of this course was spent blissfully thinking about exoplanet detection and the possibility of contacting alien life and having a chat with them, though frustratingly the problems are still things like ‘show that this is indeed the eccentricity of the ellipse’ and not ‘what would you say if you were an ambassador representing the Earth on first contact’.
Vibrations & Waves
Top tip for first year Physicists: vibrations and waves may seem really confusing and like it is just learning a lot of trial solutions for equations that you haven’t really heard of, but oh my do they come up again and again! It turns out that everything is a plane wave. I really struggled with this course last year and I read through the notes so many times I can still remember which page has which derivation on. I’m not sure this is actually a tip, as I am not convinced that this course can quite be made sense of the first time around, but it does turn out to be important!
There are a lot of other courses too, but they have mostly been as I expected! In another two years my opinions will probably have completely changed again. It will be interesting to look back and see…
I’m sure you’ve all heard about it by now, but gravitational waves are literally just that—waves in space-time which require huge precision to be found as they are teeny tiny. The remains of them may have been observed in the cosmic microwave background, which is the earliest light that exists in the universe, coming from just after the big bang. These signals can tell us about what happened at that time, and are thought to prove that inflation (a period of super-fast expansion that some theorists made up to explain why everything was so uniform) did happen, and could also potentially provide evidence that we are living in a multiverse. The links above go into much better (and more accurate) detail, but I will definitely be following this story as the results are analysed and other team’s results presented. But well done to all those physicists who have spent their time working at the south pole where the telescope (BICEP2) was based!
At Imperial, almost everyone you meet has tangled with Oxbridge at some point. The students are Oxbridge rejects, the faculty is largely composed of Oxbridge old boys/girls, and the hall subwardens are imported directly with their shiny Oxbridge diplomas clenched in clever hands for some good old Imperial postgraduate work.
Oxbridge is the elephant in the Imperial room. Almost to a one, we were crushed by our rejections, and some of us felt we were “settling” for Imperial. So when I claim now that, were I to again have the choice before me, I would choose Imperial over Cambridge, it might sound slightly insincere and revisionist to the discerning ear–but I promise I’m telling the truth! Here’s why:
1) The reputation: Okay, so Oxbridge are collectively known as the best uni’s in the world, and to be frank, that speaks for itself. I’m not going to say that Imperial is better than either one, though others have made the case (boopboopOxford). What I can say, however, is that Imperial is basically as good, that the extra microdetails and minutiae will make next to no difference to your educational experience. Rankings matter far less than you might think–and I realize this might be “easy” for me to say, comfortably typing this on my Shiny Imperial Blog, on Superfast Imperial Internet, in my Luxurious Hall in the heart of the Regal Imperial Campus, but if you’re reading this with an offer from Imperial, rest assured you’ll come to understand my point wherever you end up. In the end, uni is about you, not the faculty; your intelligence is the limiting reactant, not the infinite resources you’ll receive here (or anywhere else world-class).
2) The location: Okay, so rankings don’t matter. Location matters a bloody hell of a lot more, though neither Oxbridge nor Imperial are anywhere near comparable. It’s more about how YOU feel in regard to either one. Oxbridge are both in small cities, Cambridge slightly more so than Oxford, while London is in one of the biggest metropoli in the Western World. I’d like to say world, but it’s only 29th by population. The fact remains, however, that London is one of the most exciting possible places to go to Uni. From Imperial, you’re on the doorstep of almost everything of import in the world. The city is loud, vibrant, massive, and teeming with people, sights, and experiences. The Imperial social calendar is the London social calendar; again, only your stamina is the limiting reactant. Oxbridge, on the other hand, are small cities with even smaller, ancient centres. Beautiful, beautiful places, steeped in hundreds of years of history and pedagogical tradition, in their own way every bit as exciting as the high streets of London. You will live, for at least a couple of years, in an absolutely beautiful and ancient fortress, growing ever closer with your fellow geniuses and college-mates. Which will you choose? Think wisely. I was blinded and lured in by Cambridge’s rating, which as I mentioned is a massively superficial approach; I can now see I’m much happier here in London than I could probably ever have been at Cambridge. South Kensington, the most expensive postcode in England, is nothing to sneeze at, and the nightlife here, which, may I remind you, is still half your degree time-wise, is absolutely brilliant. I think Cambridge has one dingy club. Do we have secluded private gardens with wandering punters straight from a Romantic’s painting? Nah. Your move, offer-holder. Close proximity to Buckingham Palace, Harrods, Hyde Park, London’s three biggest museums, dozens of embassies, and Essentials? Imperial. Cobbles? Cambridge.
3) Let’s be honest, Saturdays off are really nice. Natural Scientist at Cambridge? Your alarm is set six days a week. Anything-ist at Imperial? Your weekend starts at 6 on Friday. Boom.
There’s a ton more to be said, but I think you get the idea. Make sure you visit, if you’re torn, and consider the long-term implications of your course. And remember, you can probably make the most of wherever you end up going, and, even better, there’s no wrong decision possible!
I’ve actually been a bit scared to do this blog post because I have so much to talk about and it has scared me thinking about writing it. It was like a terrifying to do list that had slowly started to build up:
– Having 2 Exams…completing around 40% of my year!
– Being stressed about how the exams went…
– Being elected as one of two ICSM (Imperial College School of Medicine) Union- Social Secretary’s
– Watching the amazing UH Win! (Yay Sherry and Super)
– Varsity Win (You go, Netball!)
– My new found addiction to Salsa Music
– Being given an iPad by the MedSchool (best few days EVER)
– Easter Revision
But I have decided that I will not base this blog on any of the above. Instead I will be discussing something that is close to my Imperial heart…SOLE.
For those of you that don’t know, SOLE is a way of getting the students to give feedback on their teaching at Imperial. I have, unforgivably, been ignoring emails to go and do SOLE Surveys all term…until today.
I had finished 2 lectures of Genetics and was pumped to give feedback on one of the lectures I had just read through. I wasn’t very happy with a lot about the presentation- mostly I was unhappy with the chosen font. So, I logged into my SOLE.
HOWEVER. I was greeted by this:
No “genetics” to be seen. I had missed my slot apparently to give some feedback. Oh well…I was still pumped to give some feedback of some sort now, even if it was just about SOLE itself (never really liked baby blue as a colour).
Instructions read, I began.
…Literally couldn’t remember a thing about the course. This wasn’t great because I was just starting to revise Thorax. So I sat staring at this screen for a good minute or so. It was intense. I really tried to remember what on earth happened…where the lectures good? Did I receive helpful feedback on my work? Was there even any work I had to submit on this module?
I got out my course guide to look at the “structure”. Looked pretty structured to me…had titles and stuff!?!
Okay, onto next screen…
I tried as hard as I could to picture the teacher in my mind. SOLE was stressing me out. “The teacher generated interest and enthusiasm”…to me I could only imagine giving “Strongly Agree” to this if a lecturer threw chocolate into the theatre and swung into the hall dressed as a monkey. Otherwise, there wasn’t enough interest and enthusiasm…surely?
I managed to recall a few of the lectures after prowling through my course guide and Panopto. I put my inputs in and moved on.
I thought I would try some practical feedback before I logged off…
(Loading took a while, so I put on some Salsa music to pass the time)
I inputted my answer for the…only question.
Felt a feeling of accomplishment.
I think it is really important for student feedback, and I think SOLE is a great way of doing this. I just wish I did it sooner after lectures/ SOLE had more questions specific to the actual lecture/practical at hand to give me a specific memory jog on what was good or bad. All I know is that next term I will be doing these surveys religiously so I don’t miss the chance to give feedback: was actually pretty fun and I really see the value of feedback now I am revising the content of the lectures!
Good luck with revision this Easter everyone, and remember to stay true to your SOLE.
(Maybe I just wrote this blog post to include that pun).
Ok I didn’t actually party that hard buuuuut TERM IS OVER! I’m making use of this time before an incredibly busy 4 weeks of holiday where I won’t be able to blog much, if at all, to spam all of you with the thrilling details of my life. So what happened this week.
On Monday I handed in my final essay of the term which was on the origin of HIV/AIDS in humans. It was actually very interesting to write but maaan was I glad to submit that. I had to read a lot of papers to understand this particular topic and I still find reading journals quite difficult! I’m trying to be more disciplined about my approach to using scientific literature though (i.e. actually read the paper instead of just the abstract). A couple of my friends were singing in the Gospel Showcase on Monday night so I went along. It was fab, the music was amazing and it just looked like so much fun that I’m quite tempted to join… Watch this space 😉
On Tuesday I had my final French lesson of the year. I don’t know if I’ve talked much about French on this blog so far but I take two French classes on top of my degree, one which everyone doing a French and science course takes which is about French society, culture and general issues affecting France and one specifically for year in Europe students which focusses more on scientific vocabulary in order to prepare us for university over there. I won’t lie, I’ve found it really hard to stay on top of all my French work this term and I’m looking forward to having a break after Easter but on the whole it’s been really worthwhile!
On Wednesday I had a handover meal with the outgoing Christian Union committee which was lovely but also a little scary as it means the new committee (of which I am the secretary) are now completely in charge of sorting everything out. I don’t think I quite appreciated just how much behind the scenes work goes on but suffice to say I have a lot of work to do over Easter!
On Thursday I had my final French exam of the year! I don’t think it went as well as the one I did last week but I’m just happy to get it over with. (Side note in case anyone in languages administration reads this – why would you schedule a two hour exam over lunch??) I also gave a presentation on the sei whale which was a little stressful but also kinda fun. Everyone in my tutor group was presenting on different endangered animals from the IUCN Red List – an inventory on the conservation status of loads of different animal and plant species- and it was really interesting. On Thursday night, we had our first CU meeting under the organisation of the new committee which went really well, and then the whole CU went out for dinner together at Wagamama. After dinner a few of us went on to the Union where the fabulous IC Big Band were playing a gig in Metric (Metric is kind of a tiny nightclub-type space). IT WAS SO FUN. I would definitely reccommend going to one of their concerts. We danced so hard, my feet were aching and my ears were ringing by the time I got home!
Friday saw the last day of lectures and then meeting up with a couple of people for coffee, doing some CU admin and having a film night with one of my bestest buds.
Today I had lunch with a friend before she went home for the holiday and then spent a lovely afternoon by myself in Battersea Park. Battersea Park is one of my all time favourite places in London; it’s big enough that you can spend a good couple of hours wondering around but not so big (like Hyde Park) that you can’t easily find your way out. It’s also right next to the river so you can strollalong the Thames if you so desire. There a lot of joggers that run by the river, I’m thinking I need to try this out. I usually hate running but I think I could get back into it if I get to run alongside the river with beautiful Battersea Park on my other side!
Riverside stroll in the sunshine
Hasn’t been the most rad end of term but it’s been pretty great. Looking forward to going away for a bit in the Easter break (Spain here I coooome!) but not so much to the revision that it also looming over me.
Hope you all have blessed Easters and I’ll see you in four weeks xxx
