![\"Kitchen](\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/files\/2014\/12\/Kitchen-Christmas-Tree-e1417911128601.jpg\")
<\/a>By Christmas, I will have finished my first term at medical school.<\/p>\n
Meaning that I only have 17 terms left, which suddenly doesn\u2019t seem very long to learn a lot of stuff.<\/p>\n
And then I get to go and be a doctor – eek :O<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve wanted to be a doctor since I was about ten. I was first influenced by my mum\u2019s addiction to Casualty and Holby City. Since then I\u2019ve had to come up with some better reasons for wanting to study medicine to put in my personal statement. All the generic (but true!) stuff such as \u2018I\u2019m really passionate about science\u2019 and \u2018I want to help people.\u2019 I feel a bit sorry for medicine admissions tutors, having to read pretty much the same thing thousands of times. Although I don\u2019t feel quite so sorry for the ones who decided not to give me an interview. But I don\u2019t care because I didn\u2019t want to go to their medical schools anyway \ud83d\ude1b\u00a0(ICSM love <3)<\/p>\n
The first time I applied to uni\u00a0I decided that there was no way I was ever going to Imperial. My mum, two aunts and two uncles all studied here; so I, of course, decided I definitely didn\u2019t want to \u2013 I wasn\u2019t even going to bother with the open day. Long story short, I applied elsewhere, received four rejections and decided to take a gap year and rethink things a bit. It was then I realised I quite liked the idea of going to study Medicine in London \u2013 this was of course because \u2018London\u2019s such a diverse city, offering medical students a far greater variety of clinical experience\u2019 \u2013 definitely nothing to do with\u00a0the music scene\u2026<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, I went along to Imperial\u2019s open day and, despite all intentions, fell in love (cheesy, but true). Over the next few months, my purpose in life was solely to get into Imperial \u2013 personal statement, BMAT, interview, etc., etc., etc.. It\u2019s been more than nine months since I got my offer, I\u2019ve been here two months and I think that maybe it might possibly just be starting to sink in that\u00a0I am studying Medicine at Imperial College London!!<\/em>\u00a0\ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been here for two months and I love it even more than I did at the open day. I\u2019ve learnt a lot (mainly outside of lectures), spent more money than I really should have, deprived myself of sleep and vitamins (until some vitamin tablets arrived in the post \u2013 thanks Mum!) and made some wonderful friends.<\/p>\n Some of the most important\/useful\/random\u00a0things I have learnt so far:<\/p>\n – Eight hours sleep a night is really not necessary. Five hours at night and then three the next day during lectures works equally well.<\/p>\n –\u00a0Even if you have had eight hours of sleep the night before, there are some lectures that are impossible to stay awake in *cough*Epidemiology*cough*<\/p>\n – Freshers\u2019 Flu is real (see coughing above.)\u00a0I\u2019ve been ill since week 2. During the first few weeks, every lecture was accompanied by a constant cacophony of coughing.<\/p>\n – The violin parts for all the songs in \u2018Singin\u2019 in the Rain\u2019 (I\u2019ll blog about this soon!)<\/p>\n – A LOT of drinking games<\/p>\n – Looking at stuff under a microscope is actually kinda cool. Or maybe I\u2019m just a nerd\u2026<\/p>\n – It is a bad idea to realise as you step outside in the morning that you\u2019ve left something that you need in your room \u2026 on the third floor\u2026 up six flights of stairs\u2026 (d\u2019oh!)<\/p>\n – When the label on an item of clothing says it shouldn\u2019t be tumble-dried, it\u2019s honestly okay to ignore it.<\/p>\n – ICSM is like one big, happy family \u2013 some of the older years told us this when we started, which at the time seemed really cheesy but actually turned out to true\u2026 ICSM love <3<\/p>\n Medical students are well known for their motto \u2018work hard, play hard\u2019 (or, at Imperial, ‘work hard, play harder’.) At the moment, the first years are neglecting the first part a bit but making up for it by focussing on the second. Far too much fun has been had to write about everything here (i.e. I\u2019m being lazy) but a\u00a0few\u00a0highlights have been:<\/p>\n – ICSM MusicSoc\u2019s Weekend Away in Bristol \u2013 48 hours during which we took the \u2018Fun Bus\u2019 to Bristol, where we spent a lot of time in various Wetherspoons across Bristol and\u00a0rehearsed a bit to justify it being a \u2018Music\u2019 weekend. The best bit was Saturday night \u2013 going for dinner and then to Thekla in our \u2018Firms\u2019 and all dressed in scrubs. Depending on year,\u00a0we were ranked from \u2018Consultants\u2019 (6th years) to \u2018Work Experience Students\u2019 (1st years e.g. me). My firm was \u2018Obs & Gynae\u2019 so our tasks for the evening involved educating people on STDs and contraception\u2026 and, randomly, building lots of pyramids (out of ice cubes, ‘wet floor’ signs, people)<\/p>\n – Opera Invasion \u2013 a group of us from Light Opera Society went round London trying to complete a list of tasks. We ended up fitting a lot of us in a telephone box and even more of us on a (stationary) Boris Bike; playing hide-and-seek in Harrods; and singing songs from musicals outside of the relevant theatres, amongst other random, crazy, fun things.<\/p>\n<\/a>
This (London-based) band had absolutely nothing* to do with me wanting to study in London.
*I may not be being entirely honest here…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>