Christmas holiday is coming up after two weeks! I’m feeling a bit excited 😛 I’m going to stay in London over the break and spend a week to travel to the North 😀 (And of course for boxing day shopping!) This week was all about plants. We had several lectures about plants like plants under stress, plants under attack, life as a tree and so on! It’s really amazing to see how plants have adapted/evolved to defend itself, feed itself, and so on! And it’s really awesome to have some lectures given by my personal tutor (though I’m still waiting for him to reply to my email) This school week was finished with a practical which is essentially to find 8 different characteristics (such as the number of stamen, the number of anther, ovary position…)in at least 8 different plants (such as fressia). I’m going to celebrate my birthday this weekend by making dumplings together with some high school friends at Imperial! It should be fun:D
Leave your questions in the comments and I’ll answer them in the next post.
“Hello, my name’s Lorna and I’m a final year medical student” I confidently announced to my husband Sam whilst checking for the hundredth time I had my stethoscope packed, searching for Sam’s smart work shoes and grabbing as many biros as I could before leaving. “Final year- I must remember that”. Off I went, striding hastily (yes, I was running later than expected) to catch the bus to my first day of my senior medical placement.
I imagine many of you may have had a slightly quieter, more relaxed start to term- perhaps more lie-ins, some sightseeing, making new friends, and all probably with less bodily fluids involved. However I wouldn’t swap mine any day! Term started in July (after a sunny 2 week break!), with helpful clinically orientated lectures and admin sessions- a great opportunity to catch up with old friends, receive a couple of free lunches (this is a big deal at medical school- we barely ever get free lunches!) and take part in the final year photo in front of Queen’s Tower. However, that was very quickly over, and the early mornings and dressing smart soon began.
In final year we rotate around a number of different placements- medicine, surgery, neurology, GP, A&E to name a few. The aim is to help you prepare to be a junior doctor; doing jobs such as writing in patient notes, updating ward lists, bloods, ordering tests, writing drug charts, writing discharge letters and clerking patients.
So off I went with my placement partner, armed with my stethoscope, notebook, ipad and mountain of black biros (these are very hard to keep hold of!) to the ward to ‘meet the team’. This sounds like an easy task, but if many years at medical school has taught me anything, it is that finding your team or medical notes on the wards is anything but simple most of the time.
On our ward there were 2 different medical teams- fortunately the first one we spied from a distance and approached was ours. Unfortunately we approached the male consultant and asked if he was ‘Dr …’ who is actually a female consultant. Then came the dreaded question… “What year are you in?”. “F… ff…final year” my placement partner quietly mumbled. “Great”, our consultant announced, “you should know lots then!” Note to self: remember to read around the subject before starting a placement on it!
Fortunately as the week went on, we slowly grew in confidence, discovered our team were very friendly, met lots of patients and dusted off our clinical medicine knowledge. Although unfortunately we still hadn’t grasped the hospital layout, so were continually asked by porters and patients if we were lost and needed help- a little embarrassing with your stethoscope on… especially when you later have to take blood from the patient who gave you directions!
The highlight, and scariest part of the week was being on call with the new team on ‘Black Wednesday’. This is the first Wednesday in August when the new junior doctors manage the patients alone for the first time. The team were magnificent and did a great job; staying calm and keeping patient’s safe.
However I spent the whole day thinking “This time next year it will be me…”, “What would I do with a patient like that?”, “What am I doing- next year this will be me…”.
Thankfully a chat with some of the new doctors reassured me that I would be fine and that final year would continue to prepare me… watch this space.
Number of pens lost: 3, Number of lives saved: 2 (okay… so not by myself!) Number of free lunches: 1
Welcome to my blog! Are you interested in Imperial? Or ChemEng? Or Woodward Hall? You are at the best place… I want to tell you everything from the moment of getting my @ic.ac.uk email address through the weekly Foundry Nights to my amazing Fluid Mechanics lectures. I hope you will enjoy it!
You might wonder what the categories mean at the side…
C12 – That’s where I live, the amazing Woodward Hall C block 12th floor! This category will include the ups and downs of living away from home and the joy when they introduce a new type of microwave food in tesco…
ChemEng – It is my course, MEng ChemEng 🙂 This will be all about the working bit of university life (who would have thought that going to Imperial actually involves studying?)
Last week it was exactly 100 years since Einstein officially presented his theory of general relativity. I’m studying course on it at the moment, and was so excited to go along to Imperial’s celebration of the event which Stephen Hawking was meant to be speaking at. Unfortunately he had to cancel at the last minute due to an illness, but there were other great speakers, including my lecturer Prof. Dowker who I’ve raved about before!
Here is the link to the recording of the event if you would like to watch it.
You’ll probably have seen articles about General Relativity everywhere last week, but this is one of my favourites by the author of the geeky web-comic xkcd. He uses the ten thousand most commonly spoken words to explain the theory and its history—here is the link to the article in the New Yorker.ty
I completely want to join in and write a bit about GR as well, but unfortunately I’m still halfway through the course and am still a few Christoffel symbols away from having a clue what’s going on! I’ll have to save that blog for when I’ve revised the course.
In other news the science budget wasn’t as completely demolished in the spending review as it could have been, which is better news than a lot of people were expecting. If you want to read more about that, here is a link to the Science Is Vital update page, a group that had been campaigning to stop the cuts to science funding.
Last week I was also part of a panel in a ‘town hall’ style meeting at Imperial with various members of staff and the other year reps to answer people’s questions. About 20 people came from years 3&4, who the meeting was for.
It was actually a pretty useful and interesting meeting. Some of the student’s questions were antagonistic (in some cases rightly so) and the staff reacted really calmly and well in response. I think it’s easy to feel like no one cares about your concerns at Imperial—we are such a big department for a start, however despite the many layers of bureaucracy and the difficulty in making changes, most of the staff do actually try to do what is best for the students and listen to them. Coming along to something like this, where anyone is invited to ask questions is a great chance to get to know who you can go to get your academic problems and injustices sorted out, even if you just sit at the back and feel reassured that some people in the department are trying to improve things.
On a completely different note, last night I went to a drinks reception in the houses of parliament as part of Scientists for Labour, which is a society associated with Labour who I have done a bit of blogging for in the past.
We got to have a bit of a snoop round the houses of parliament and see a House of Commons debate. We also confidently tried to make our way back to the entrance without our escort and got very very lost, ending up in a sort of boiler turret, passing by some really cool rooms, but which was a bit unnerving considering there were so many armed police about!
The reception was for all the Socialist Societies, which are societies affiliated with Labour. There were drinks and canapes Tom Watson as well as some Labour people from the House of Lords and it was fun.
I’m pretty new to it all, and certainly didn’t know as much about Scientists for Labour as my friend who I had gone with, so to start with I felt pretty nervous when people introduced themselves and started asking questions about the details of the society! However, the people were all really nice, coming from many interesting backgrounds, and I ended up having a good time them about their own societies and work. It turned out to be accidentally a pretty good ‘networking’ event for me in the end, just because I had a chance to show my genuine interest, and I’ve even got some offers of work experience from people, as well as the details of some new societies to get involved with.
In Year 3 you spend 3 x 10 week attachments at hospitals. I was at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital the last 10 weeks and I had such a fantastic time. I learnt a lot but also overcame a lot of anxiety!
Starting clinical placements was really tricky for me. I thought as a talkative happy person I would really enjoy being on the wards for the first proper time as a medical student. However, my first day was a disaster. I had my stethoscope round my neck and my medical student badge on, and I walked confidently up to my ward. It was ward round in the morning, the room was really warm. Really warm. A mixture of nerves, excitement and seeing a lot of blood made me get really faint. Yeah…10 minutes into my first day in the hospital and I was already on the floor. My consultant assured me that it happens to everyone…does it?!?!?!?! I didn’t see anyone else on the floor!!!!
Anyway, things picked up and I really enjoyed talking to patients…but then we had to examine them. Oh my gosh, it is so much harder than I imagined to feel comfortable to examine patients. I have been taught my whole life not to touch boys- at all. And then suddenly you are dumped into a situation when it’s absolutely fine to touch everyone, in fact people expect you to!!! Such a weird experience!!! Hospitals must be the only place in the world (apart from spas!) that this is normal.
Anyway, I got over this pretty quickly and started fully examining patients. By week 3 I was strutting around the wards loving life. But then, the consultants wanted to know what I had seen on examination. ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?! I had absolutely no clue. I just knew I was putting a stethoscope on a chest but I couldn’t really hear much it was all a muffle really. Oooh the learning curve was steep.
Anyway, I learnt. I started picking up a lot about what the diseases were, the treatments, the drugs and of course learning how to remember a patient’s name and not forget it a minute after asking.
I spent my last 2 days on Intensive Care Unit. It was intense. Just when I thought I was really confident after my first 10 weeks I came into a shocker of a situation when I had to deal with the really emotional side of working in healthcare. Patients were reaching their end of life and I was just a student. I couldn’t help anyone, in fact I am pretty sure I was just being a nuisance being there. But, I learnt a lot. The team work that went into the treatment in the Intensive Care Unit was immense to watch. In a fast paced environment the patient flow was fast too- patients were coming in and out of intensive care but I was just standing there on the side trying not to get in anyones way. Being a medical student has its fun perks, but also has its moments that you remember forever, and the first conversation about “turning off the machine” is one that I will never forget.
I am really looking forward to my next 10 week attachment and glad that we have a bit of a break in between to reflect and relax. I hope that the next 10 weeks are interesting, but not too interesting that I faint again with all that excitement.
It’s 9:56 am on Saturday and I just got up after some amazing-10-hour sleep 😀
Since this is my first post, I felt like some introduction should be in place. So HEY lads and girls/boys and lassies 😀 My name is Henry and I’m a first year Biologist at Imperial College. After spending nearly my entire life in this lovely city of Qingdao on China’s eastern coastline, I’ve started a new journey here in London. The little red dot below is Qingdao. (ever heard of Tsingtao Beer? Yep! That’s from Qingdao!) Seafood and German wursts are something you don’t want to miss out in Qingdao. And I have to say that it is really close to Seoul and Tokyo, about 1 hr and 1.5 hr flights respectively.
And here’s something else about me: I don’t eat dogs and cats. I love travelling and swimming.
(Courtesy of Panda Guides: http://www.pandaguides.com/features/qingdao_my_first_love.html)
Since English is not my native language, please don’t hesitate to point out any grammar mistake I made. (and no judgments! 😛 😛 :P) Chinese (Mandarin) is my first language and I’m still struggling to learn something new everyday from Chinese (Cantonese) which has been proved to be difficult! Also I’m learning German, provided by Horizons courses at Imperial. (Yes, I like languages :D)
Basically what I’m going to blog here is what I felt/saw/experienced/heard/tasted/smelled and … at Imperial. What you will see here is purely useful and unbiased information, that’s written by a man who’s truly new to this country and ready to adventure. Hopefully my blogs would bring something fresh to your minds and add some spicy stuff to your sad life xD. And more importantly to those who plan to study in London with particular attention on International students, I want to share my first-hand experience with you about what study feels like at Imperial and what life feels like in London.
Leave your questions in the comment box and I’ll try to answer them all in the next blog!
That’s pretty much it. Stay tuned for more blogs. and see y’alllll soooooon! 😀
After two poster presentations last week, this week’s #throwbackthursday is a timely look back at the first event I presented at, back in November 2013.
I started species identification of earthworms after attending a course in 2013 which proved very useful when I went on to sample earthworms and other soil animals during my MSc project. (more…)
Before coming to London, I lived in St. Maarten, a tiny island in the Caribbean, where the beaches are crystal clear and the airport runway is next to the beach. No kidding.
Did you know: London is 607 square-miles. That’s 16.4 times the size of St. Maarten!
Moving to an enormous city like London to study at such a prestigious university like Imperial College is a big step for me and my family. I’m so psyched to be here and I’m having a great time so far.
But anyway, how did my great time at Imperial start?
My arrival here and the coming weeks were very eventful. I signed up to attend the 3-day International Student Orientation Programme, during which I kind-of learned my way around campus and others things like how health insurance in the UK works, and what the British say, eat and do.
Tens of the 300 students attending the International Student Orientation Programme.
It was during this time that I began to meet heaps of people with 3 questions:
-“What’s your name?”
-“What course are you doing?”
-“Where are you from?”
For me, these were conversation starters, unlike the British who usually start a conversation by commenting on the weather.
Every time I met someone from my course, I would feel joyful because this person and I will be classmates for the next 3 to 4 years.
The best experience I had during the programme was going up the Queen’s Tower and being able to see the rest of the campus and the city from high up.
Royal Albert Hall, as seen from the top of the Queen’s Tower.
Did you know: The Queen’s Tower formed part of the Imperial Institute Building, which stood from 1893 to 1966, and has been retained by the current Imperial College.
Those 3 days went by pretty fast, and on the 2nd of October, the rest of the new students (more than 2000 in total) began to move into their respective halls. I got the awesome opportunity to live in Woodward Hall, also known as the Diamond of Imperial.
And then came the most eventful week in my life: Welcome Week.
My timetable ranged from registering with the Bioengineering Dept., meeting other Bioengineering undergrads through the Mums and Dads programme, being introduced to the library, and last but not least (best for last, actually), Freshers’ Fair.
Students at different stalls by the Queen’s Lawn.
All 350+ clubs and societies at Imperial College set up stalls around campus, meeting new students and explaining them what they are about. The students walked from stall to stall, submitting their names, e-mails and maybe even phone numbers.
This would later develop to attendance in taster sessions during the coming weeks, developing interests and finally club memberships.
Tens of students in the Beit Quad going from stall to stall.
This event not only gave the new students an opportunity to meet other students with similar interests, but also a chance for them to continue practicing what they love to do or are good at.
As for me, I joined the Cross Country & Athletics club, because I realized that I’m good at running, but I would like to be great. Not only that, but I would really like to participate in a marathon one day and complete it.
Did you know: The Cross Country & Athletics club won Club of the year for 2014-2015!
Welcome Week finally finished with the Freshers’ Ball, where hundreds of students gathered at the Beit Quad for a night with music, drinks and socializing. This is where I got to see a live band play for the first time. (Yeah, there’s a lot of things I haven’t seen or done; I’ve never seen snow, for example.)
Oebus playing at the stage inside the Metric bar.
The craziest moment that night, for me, was when everyone had to evacuate the dance floor as the fire alarm went off. It was at that moment I got to see how dense the area was with students. See below:
High population density at the Beit Quadrangle.
Back in St. Maarten, I would normally just walk back home after a night out since everywhere was close, but now that I am in London, I had to take two buses back to Woodward.
I’m still getting used to how life is in a big city, and I look forward to the day where I can confidently get from point A to point B. I’m sure by then I will have made stronger friendships, and gained amazing experiences at Imperial. But let’s not rush to that day.
Imperial College London is an amazing place to be, and I keep meeting authentic people every day. So for now, I shall take every good opportunity as it presents itself to me.
Until next blog!
Franz A. Tapia Chaca Biomedical Engineering Year 1 undergrad.
My very tasty dinner, after having a rather unhealthy week
Hey All!
So, as we approach December, a somewhat less festive prospect lies underneath the tinsel and mince pies: End of term exams. Now, I honestly think its a good thing that we have exams, but it still feels a bit daunting. Therefore, as the title suggests, I have started revision in full force! Well, probably not full force – Let’s say a steady increase in force with respect to time. On the bright side, we just started a project in which we design and build a miniature hovercraft, which we test against everyone else’s at the end of the year. Let battle commence!
Hovercraft Building in Progress!
Also, I made the great mistake of discovering the tempting glories of the grilled cheese sandwich. After having the delicious little beauties for 3 nights straight, I decided enough is enough, and made what I consider to be, by student standards, a work of art: home made tortilla chips, salad, chips and soy steak strips. It was the best meal I have had since my Flatmates and I decided to make a roast dinner!
This week, Gaming Society had a social at Nandos. I really like Nandos, don’t get me wrong, but for a student, it is very, very, very, very costly. Then again, I think that might just be because I keep on getting a large chicken burger and 2 sides. I currently have a long game of Civilisation V running with two friends at gaming society. Sadly, I am losing catastrophically.
I haven’t had too much time to practice my Accordion. However, whenever I can, I am slowly trying to work out how to play a few decent Christmas carols, just in case the festive mood reaches an all-time high before the terms end.
Anyway, a brief summary: A lot of work, decent food, not so decent gaming, and festive cheer for one and all!
If you have any questions about me, my course, or Imperial life in general, please feel free to post a comment, and I will do my best to respond as honestly as I can in my next blog post!
