Your hall is your home for the first year and your flat mates shall be your family.
Every year, Linstead does a hall trip. This year we went to Budapest for a weekend.
Here’s to the memories that we will remember
Here’s to the people we won’t forget
Category: Halls
Living in Halls
I present to you- Woodward (WW) a.k.a #DiamondofImperial a.k.a Alaska (because it’s low-key a trek from campus).
In case you aren’t sure how it works, all first year undergrad students are guaranteed a place for accommodation as long as they accept Imperial as their firm. I received an invitation to apply for accommodation in July- you get to choose 5 preferences but these are all ranked equally.
My halls consist of three blocks: B, C, and D (I’m not quite sure what happened to A). Block D is arguably the place to be- where the kitchens have panoramic views. *Insert heart eye emojis* At WW, all the rooms are ensuite and we’ve also got an on-site two storey gym, music rehearsal rooms, study spaces, a common room complete with pool and foosball tables, etc.
The guide to a perfect student Christmas dinner
So for the perfect Christmas dinner in halls, you ideally need: a good number of hungry students, at least two types of meat, a vat of gravy and a mountain of pigs-in-blankets. To be that little bit extra, like us (and the royal family), you could also add a lobster centre piece! Between 6 kitchens and 8 people cooking, we were able to feed 12 people, for only £8 each!!
Rather surprisingly, the dish that was eaten up first was the Brussel sprouts, traditionally a vegetable that gets slightly neglected! However, here are my top tips to preparing and cooking these surprisingly edible greens, in a recipe otherwise known as “sprouts drowning in bacon”.
Landing on the Queen’s land with no set date to stop complying to Her Majesty’s orders was as terrifying as it was challenging. Although I am not a very nervous person, I was specially content, literally in love with the unknown, or perhaps, with the image I had created of it.
Moving was fun. “Hello! My name is Constança” was said so many times that night that for a split second I thought my biggest achievement at Uni would be knowing everyone’s name. Due to living in halls, you meet a bunch of people on the exact same position as you, at least to some extent.
As a prospective student, I once wanted to know what a typical day for an EIE student was so here is my version!
Living in Wilson House as a hall senior I wake up at 8:00am to get to a 9:00 am lecture.
Wilson House is conveniently ~25mins from the SK campus and the walk is visually captivating since you walk through Hyde Park! For those from countries which are really full of nature like me, you probably won’t get what the big deal is to have a walk though a park.
But a park like Hyde Park in a city like London is not easy to come by, so living in a hall that allows you to enjoy this walk everyday is amazing (except during the winters 😀 )
8:00 – Grudging roll out of bed – too early for Electronic labs or Computer Labs
8:30 – Walk to uni
9:00 to 12:00 – This is usually some sort of labs in 2nd year (in first year you enjoy the great life and have labs in the afternoons!
I can’t cook to save my life. That was the greatest certainty I had, while stumbling confusedly from the stage in life called ‘moving out’. I’d never really needed to cook for myself (except on duke of ed over a dodgy portable oil stove) and whenever I tried, it either took FOREVER, or my mum would casually take over half way in an attempt to save the disaster. I mean I knew the general concept, its not rocket science, more chemistry 😛 … But, the fact remains that when I first arrived in halls I was completely clueless about food. What to buy from the supermarket?
Sometimes the excitement of a new environment, new people and generally a new life can be overpowering. Its easy to be carried away in the wave of new experiences, so when an inevitable crash comes its completely unexpected and hits you much harder than normal. Speaking to my hall mates, I think the most problem we’ve all been facing is loneliness. Its not as though we aren’t surrounded by friendly people, but when compared to the tight-knit friendships we all have back home or back in high school, the transcient nature of friendships at university is a whole new dynamic takes time to get used to.
When people started coming back after the Christmas break there was an inevitable rush of social behaviour as everyone caught up with each others holiday exploits and just like the first day of school after the holidays, everyone’s just happy to see their friends. A group of us decided to go take advantage of the 2 for £10 deal at Gourmet Burger Kitchen and after hanging out in an almost empty hall with the same 3 people for 3 weeks, it was the best night out I’d had in a while. Not to mention, the food was very satisfying after months of own pathetic cooking and ‘healthy eating’.
In the age of social media, being connected is incredibly easy. Not only that, for our generation, its as instinctual as breathing. Conversations between people blend seamlessly from online chat to real life, you can check if your friends are “attending” an event you’re considering, and keep up with their day to day activities by scrolling your newsfeed. In a way, this makes us ‘better’ friends than ever because we’re so in touch with each others lives.
But this intimacy reaches a whole new level, when you realise the person you’re messaging lives two doors down, you saw them just twenty minutes ago and you don’t need Facebook to know they had a 3 hour lecture this morning, ate pasta for lunch and are currently struggling with their maths coursework.
