Blog posts

End of term : )

MSCi Physics

Hi 🙂

I apologise in advance for this blog being a bit scatty today as I have been really busy since the end of exams and am going out again in about an hour to Imperial’s Raising and Giving summer festival where one of my housemates is playing in a band. I have woken up to him learning songs on guitar in his room for the last three days straight, and by the sounds of it, it should be a good show! Last weekend I dived straight into after-exam-joy by making a Saturn cake (the video of which I will hopefully post when Alex and I have had time to edit it).

Finishing my Finals!

Isobel profile

BSc Biology with a year in Europe

I have finally FINALLY reached the end of the academic year here at Imperial and it feels A M A Z I N G. I sat my cell biology and genetics exam exactly one week ago today and despite it being a fair bit harder than the ecology and evolution exam we sat the Thursday before, it went very well and I’m very pleased. In comparison with my January exams (which were a complete and utter train wreck) I really could not be happier with how they have gone 🙂

There’s been a lot going on this week as I’ve finished uni and had a ridiculous amount of time on my hands!

Second year done :)

MSCi Physics

Second year done!

I finished exams today! It has been a very long two weeks… A couple of days before they started my parents came down for a stress-break lunch on the river and we went to a talk on dark matter at the Royal Institution which you may remember from another blog is my new favourite place. The speaker (http://gianfrancobertone.net/about/) was great and presented some very compelling evidence for dark matter over other theories that seek to explain the odd behaviour of stars and galaxies, as well as being endearingly honest about the uncertainties in the field and frankly how much he didn’t like the necessity of dark matter at all.

Izzie and the CFS journey

Isobel profile

BSc Biology with a year in Europe

So, some people might think it’s weird for me to post about this on a blog that anyone can read but meh, to me it’s not something I feel I need to keep a secret and it could probably be helpful for me to talk about as I’m sure there are some amongst you lucky offer holders who do or will experience similar circumstances. So this blog is about my year leading up to my CFS/ME diagnosis.

What is CFS/ME I hear you ask? CFS/ME stands for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. They are two names for the same condition and it’s up to the sufferer which one they use… I personally prefer to say that I have CFS as it’s less confusing and it makes it easier for other people to understand.

Types of revising medics…

MBBS Medicine

No more lectures! Indeed we have finished teaching for first year and I think it’s fair to say that at the end of the year most people are questioning their choice for studying medicine in the first place. Yes, it is so interesting and fun…but exams are…well…soon.

I have seen an awful number of people having breakdowns in the library, and spoken to a lot of friends who are getting so anxious they may even be heading towards having an abnormal ecg…(omg I am so funny). So, here are a few types of revising first year medics we have come across this term…

1) The ones that “don’t” revise

They don’t revise!…well…not

Video Blog : )

MSCi Physics

Hello 🙂

I have been doing nothing but revising all week for next week’s exams, so I thought I would make a video instead… of myself talking about particle physics.

It was recorded quite late at night so please forgive me saying ‘charge carriers’ instead of ‘force carriers’ one time and also if you know more about nuclear physics than me!

Thanks Alex for recording & editing it and also my nuclear & particle physics lecturer for all the cool nuclear & particle physics 🙂

A Week in the Life

Isobel profile

BSc Biology with a year in Europe

This is the weirdest time to be a student. Everyone has exams going on at different times, some people are finished already and starting projects, we’ve finished lectures but there’s still stuff going on, I don’t know quite what to do with myself! I thought I’d give you an insight to what I’m doing in a typical pre-finals week.

Monday

Study study study. Realise I have no food. Buy approximately 5 tons of vegetables to make for the fact that I haven’t done any proper cooking in God knows how long.

Tuesday

Wake up at 7.30. Snooze for 40 minutes. Roll out of bed, get ready and pack lunch because it’s FIELD TRIP DAY.

Three Minute Wonder Final : )

MSCi Physics

Hello everyone 🙂

Last night I went to the final of the ‘three minute wonder’ competition, run by the Institute of Physics. The finalists were scientists from all sorts of disciplines and each had three minutes plus one slide or a video to explain their research to a non-science audience. The timing was tight – if they were more or less than I think five seconds under or over they had a point deducted.

Awesomely it was held at the Royal Institution in the nice purple Faraday lecture theatre where the Christmas lectures are presented, and it was free too! Doors opened an hour earlier for drinks and a chance to look around the museum-y bits of the Royal Institution—sadly Will and I didn’t realise how interesting it would be, so only arrived with enough time to grab a glass of wine and notice the dastardly device that first spotted Bragg Diffraction (the bane of  many a second-year’s life.)

Izzie the Biologist, Izzie the Christian

Isobel profile

BSc Biology with a year in Europe

So I’ve mentioned my involvement with the Christian Union before in this blog and the fact I go to week long Christian conferences in my spare time and stuff like that but I’ve never blogged specifically about what being a Christian and studying biology at university means to me. I’m going to (attempt) to do that today. WOOP.

So here’s the thing which I think is pretty cool about biology. It’s actually Biblical! People in the Bible were biologists! In Genesis (which is the first book of the Bible) it talks about God bringing all the creatures He created to Adam and Adam deciding what they should be called (Genesis 2:19-20).

Why options? Why photons?

MSCi Physics

Hello 🙂 It’s been an interesting second week. My second course for this term (Nuclear and Particle Physics) has begun and feels like we have already had much much more than a week of it… It’s one of those courses that quickly sail through lots of results from equations we can’t derive or understand or do and hmm. I’m not it’s biggest fan so far (although it has been useful in telling me how much of special relativity I need to revise from last year). I think the ‘nuclear’ section might contain a bit more information that is more accessible– we shall see.

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