Student blogs

I’m alive! (Much thought the last few weeks have attempted to see otherwise…)

I haven’t been blogging because of the dreaded exam season, which lived up to all expectations. 10/10, Imperial. As such, I thought I’d give a nod to the less sexy side of your uni time: revision!

A Day in the Life: Revision

9am: You wake up, roll over once, contemplate the snooze button, realise you have too much to do today to waste even ten more minutes, waste half an hour snoozing anyway, consider your revision plans for the day, consider your life, consider a humanities degree or emigration to Barbados, and finally get up.

Read I’m back! in full

10.  Water Filter

    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.

Read Top Ten Luxury Items at Uni in full

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!

Read Oxbridge vs Imperial…take two! in full

Well, bloggies, here we went again. I’ve been a horrible blogger and quite neglected to share the sordid details of my March so far… let’s fix that. And if you’re in the (un?)enviable position of having to choose a uni, and Imperial is one of them, and for some strange, unusual reason you’re not already convinced Imperial is the best place on the planet, then you can read about my last week and see if it’s your thing.

[Author’s note: This was hell week. This was the lowest point. Work out the wazoo, serious lack of free afternoons, and mind-twisting lectures…usually uni is way better.

Read Anatomy of the Student Week in full

Last Monday found people raining from the Imperial sky instead of the usual drizzle. While initially alarmed (droughts are a serious issue), we settled down on Queen’s lawn for what my friend Lucy termed “the best day of Uni yet!” Although she did get to jump face-first off a giant crane, so I think she had a bit of a head start. Badum-pshh.

So, why was it raining men (and ladies)? RAG week! RAG is Imperial’s star charity society, and RAG week is their star week. It’s apparently as large a part of uni culture as ‘Greek life’ is in the United States, but also probably infinitely better because it’s British, raises money for charity, and actually condones kidnapping.

Read RAG Week in full

Heyas!

Sorry I’ve gone so long without writing–I’d descended feetfirst into the rollercoaster of emotions that constitutes exams season. Just kidding, your emotions don’t really rocket around during exam week. You won’t have emotions. Everything you hold dear will melt, slosh around, and consolidate into a little ball of stress ricocheting around your head. Embrace this–this is good! Stress has been empirically proven to be more dense than airy emotional baggage. It’ll leave space in your head for an extra biochemical pathway. Take your pick: lipid beta oxidation? Reductive biosynthesis? Amino acid catabolism?

Just kidding, you have to know it all anyway.

Read I Promise I’m Still Alive! in full

Life has reached a sort of crazy equilibrium in the last week as I’ve started to truly grasp how much my course expects me to know for my exams (and I thought the twenty amino acids would be a lot…) and at the same time had some of the better nights out (and in) I can claim at Imperial. Unfortunately (and very aptly), in the beautiful world of bioenergetics, equilibrium means death. And so we beat on, biochemists against the biochemistry, borne back ceaselessly down the marking scale.

There was a surreal moment this week when we were told a practical we’d done ages ago (I hadn’t remembered doing it and certainly didn’t want it back) had been ‘marked and returned to our pigeonholes’.

Read Update in full

I’m nearing the end of my first ever uni vacation and I thought I’d share a few thoughts. Clearly you prospective applicants are basing your applications on the quality of the uni vacations.

For one thing, they’re ridiculously long and there’s a lot less build-up. I remember “the week before Christmas break” being a massive thing every year in secondary and elementary school–you’d start counting down the month before and fiiiiinally you’d get your break. The whole school cheers as the last bell rings, etc.

And for what? You get a miserable little week off, maybe two if you’re in a fancy, padded private school or indeed anywhere in civilised Europe, but then you’re back on the treadmill.

Read Uni Vacations in full

My mates and I put together this list of extra tips for Fresher’s week and also just in general:

MAKING FRIENDS: UNI EDITION

1. Don’t sit in your room, come to the kitchen.

2. If you have free time after moving in, go and bang on doors and introduce yourself.

3. Bring snacks. People love food. I fail to see how being remembered as “brownie girl” or “chips guy” could in any way ever be a bad thing. This is more of a life tip.

4. Be prepared to spend money on alcohol unless you don’t drink. Free drinks are rare, but spending a bit on drinks will help your social life in mysterious ways.  

Read Social Life Part III: Appendices in full

I think it’s fair to say you need a few of the following to make friends: physical proximity, like-minded people, shared interests, and a healthy dose of don’t-be-awkward.

Luckily, life at Imperial provides you with all of the above except, crucially, the don’t-be-awkward bit.

1. Physical proximity: you [should] live in halls with hundreds of
2. like-minded people: like I wrote before, basically anyone on campus
3. shares interests:  join societies, clubs, sports, talk to people you live with about anime, gaming, random other things, etc.

What I mean by don’t be awkward is just to avoid reaction to the awkwardness of having to make friends.

Read Social Life part II: Friends!!! in full