Dora Olah

Dora Olah

Course: MEng Chemical Engineering

Ohh by the way I live in London…

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

When you are a student at one of the best universities in the world (a.k.a. Imperial) you tend to study. A lot. Basically all the time. You accidentally put down Central Library as your home address and drink more coffee than water… (Seriously, my exams are sponsored by caffeine…).

And while you know all the different types of heat exchangers and the derivation of the Navier-Stokes equations, you might forget an interesting fact: that you happen to live in London. The best city in the world. The home of super-amazing-fantastic cultural experiences (theatre, cinema), culinary experiences (restaurants, pubs) and shopping experiences (Westfield, high streets).

Just an average day in Imperial…

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MEng Chemical Engineering

Last year, my average week looked something like this. This year has been *quite* different… So here is my average Spring Holiday, #revision, #messedupsleepingcycle day 🙂

04.30am Time to go to bed… 😀

01.00pm It’s always nice to wake up and realise that you’re already late for lunch, let alone for breakfast. But nevertheless, I had breakfast, a laaaarge coffee and some vitamins to boost my brain. Or for placebo-effect, who knows…

02.30pm Checking emails, writing emails, answering emails. I mean, if you work as the Comms Assistant for your Department  you sometimes get random emails like a lecturer writing “Hi Dora, could you please do a photoshoot of my research group because I heard you are good at this” which just sort of… makes your day 🙂

03.00pm

So, about second year…

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

Second year. ChemEng. Ohhhh weeeellllll.

The one thing which kind of describes how I feel right now is that I looked at the calendar and I realised it’s March. MARCH. MARCH?! I honestly don’t know what happened in the past 5 months. I was trying to think of things I did, but I just feel like I procrastinated away 5 months and now I am so behind with everything that even my to-do-list making apps want to cry… So what happened in the past 5 months?

Labs. We started and finished second year labs. This year we were only doing 1 experiment for 3 weeks.

When writing a to-do list is on your to-do list…

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

“Are you writing a blogpost?”

“Well, yes, I have nothing else to… Umm, I have loads of other things to do, but nothing which could be done at 1am on a Sunday night…”

– Actual conversation by actual people on an actual Sunday night. Actually.

So what happened since I last posted? Hmmm nothing really… Just second year started, I signed up to way too many things, my to-do list is so long that it doesn’t fit above my desk, my diet is something like McDonalds-Subway-Dominos-BurgerKing on an infinite loop, I don’t remember the last time I had 3 proper meals in a day, my sleeping cycle is starting to vaguely resemble that of a computing student, so yeah, nothing really… But let’s start from the beginning.

*Working* *Happiness*

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

So it all started with an email…

I was in the middle of exams, when I got an email back in May. The subject: “Summer communications work”. It was from the ChemEng Communications Officer… Ohh well, I thought it’s like a one-day something, some promotions, whatever. Then I read the email…

“…I am looking for someone to do some part-time work on departmental communications…”

“…The work would be quite varied, essentially assisting me and would consist of things such as writing short news stories, managing social media channels and putting together the newsletter…”

“…given your great work on the blog I thought I would approach you first…”

“…Please let me know if you’re interested…”

My first reaction was: OH MY GOD!!!

The best email of the year…

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

Hmm how to start…

So, summer is here… Yes, London, 23ºC. Thank you, global warming.

And exams are over…

No more problem sheets, no more past papers, no more revision.

No more “do you think he will put absorption columns in it?”

No more “how many past papers have you done?”

No more “aaand pencils down!”

No more “what did you get for question 4?”

No more “ohh God I deserve it I just had a thermo exam” oreo milkshakes.

But the most important thing is of course the result. Our last exam was on the 6th June, but we had to wait until the 5th July – the Board of Examiners meeting – to find out the results.

My first Imperial Open Day

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MEng Chemical Engineering

I have never been to an Imperial Open Day before. When I was applying, I lived in Hungary, so I couldn’t just turn up on a random Wednesday at London… But yesterday, I finally attended one of these, and it was a-ma-zing. So let’s start from the beginning…

I got an email a couple of weeks ago. Perks of being a student blogger: when there is a marketing work, you’re the first to be asked 🙂 So they asked me if I liked speaking in front of a lot of people, because there will be a talk on the Open Day where they need students (i.e.

Finished!!!

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MEng Chemical Engineering

I finished my exams. YAAAYYYY 😀

The last two was kind of ok, Thermo was a bit confusing sometimes and I couldn’t solve some bits in Process (that hydrogen recycle made me crazy…). But I survived, I am alive, and it’s done now!

The Process Analysis exam ended at 12:00 on Monday, and at 19:00 I was already at the airport heading back to Hungary to visit my old high school. (Kind of obsessed, I know…) But I can’t stay long, as I will start working next Thursday (more info later… 😀 ).

But for now, I am enjoying the holiday, complaining about the Hungarian weather and eating loads of ice-cream.

Less than one week left…

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

That’s doable, right?

Let’s see a quick update on exams:

1. Mastery. They said they will email us if we failed by the end of today. And they will not email us if we passed. It’s currently 19:03 and I haven’t got any email yet. Yet. Yet. Yet.

2. Properties of Matter. I actually studied quite a lot for this one, I did all the past papers and stuff. And I always had the exact same mistake in them. And of course there was a question on this topic in the exam. And of course I keep thinking about if I wrote the correct answer or not.

About exams. Honestly.

Dora profile

MEng Chemical Engineering

Well, first of all, they’re difficult. Especially if you had no “revision strategy” at all, and you have a tendency for procrastination. Like me. They’re also difficult, because this is Imperial. And you know, it’s the best uni in the world… So let me tell you a few things about exams…

1. You can get used to sleeping on the tube. That precious 30 mins can’t be wasted, so you need to use it the best you can: put on sunglasses, sit on the end seat and relax. Don’t forget to display your ID card (or at least some Imperial badges) so people don’t think you were partying yesterday…

2.

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