Blog posts

Why I wanted to study Medicine

MBBS Medicine

I really was not one of those people that “wanted to study medicine since I was 2 years old and had a toy doctors set from my parents”. In fact, I wanted to be a librarian/café owner/ hotel owner for the early years. As I grew older (not taller), I managed to build up a giant selection of teddies. These were soon to become my unexpected patients. My teddies and dolls went though the most horrific traumas and it was my absolute joy to care for them. Granted, the traumas were normally part of some sort of crazy game me and my siblings would play: for example one time there was a “fire” in the bedroom and we had to “evacuate” all the teddies.

Science!

MSCi Physics

I’ve been taking part in a Bloomberg journalism class over the past couple of weekends, and this week the homework was to write a blog about our real passion: what we would still spend our time doing if we had all the money we wanted. As you might have suspected, mine is science, so this seemed like an ideal blog for me to post here as well…

Super-energetic super-massive black holes spinning billions of light years apart, from across opposite ends of the universe, seem to have somehow aligned themselves. Time freezes as your spaceship approaches such a black hole.

A quasar!

Me, Myself and I…not really

Daniel profile

Medicine

Starting this blog, I wasn’t sure how to begin. Do I write an entry about myself? About who I am, what I do? Or do I write about something that’s just happened? Consequently undecided, I put off my first post for a while. However on Friday an event presented itself that I just had to vent about and let out my frustration. Trains suck.

This weekend was my Dad’s birthday, so I was travelling back to my home, Newcastle, for a meal out that night with family. Simple. However, a series of mishappenings resulted in two of the worst hours of my life.

The Introduction

Nebz

MSc Preventive Cardiology

Hello to anyone who’s reading this post!

I’d just like to introduce myself – my name’s Nebz and I’m a postgrad student here at Imperial College doing a master’s degree in Preventive Cardiology.

I love blogging, but I’m afraid to say I’m a bit of a mixed bag, and over this academic year I’m sure I’ll be putting up a random spread of posts on different  topics. So while a lot of my posts will be about graduate life at Imperial college and my adventures around London, if you’re also interested in reading about:

  • faith
  • music
  • fashion
  • dance
  • drawing
  • creative writing
  • Japanese culture
  • Skateboarding
  • science (in particular cardiology *cheesy grin*)

Then please drop by every now and then because I may talk about these things!

Living in London

Isobel profile

BSc Biology with a year in Europe

Now that I am 19 years old, a second year and living in a flat that I rent myself, I feel like I should have my life slightly more together. I had grand plans for this year. I would decorate my new room with fairy lights and candles, prepare delicious homecooked meals every week in my new kitchen, study every night at my brand new Ikea desk and keep a spotless home. Domestic goddess meets super intelligent lady biologist if you will. I would have my cake and eat it too once I’d moved into my new flat with my housemates.

The Dreaded Comprehensives

MSCi Physics

So, the other day I had my first comprehensive tutorial. I’ve mentioned them before—they are the two three hour papers on the last three years of Physics that strike fear into everyone’s hearts. Since the start of term I’d heard people discussing their revision plans for them, which is always a terrifying conversation to overhear, especially when you haven’t even looked at a paper!

Comprehensives are actually supposed to be a selling point of an Imperial Physics degree I think, because they are all about whether you actually can do Physics not just remember stuff for a one-off exam. Of course, that’s what makes them scary—I think to some extent everyone thinks that their good exam results are a very improbable fluke—or maybe that’s just me… 😛

Anyway, the paper we looked at in my first tutorial was actually much less scary then I expected.

Third Year Physics Overview

MSCi Physics

This week’s blog is actually about Imperial third year…I’ve been writing so much about other stuff this term that anyone reading this thinking of applying to here is probably under the impression that we don’t do any work at all!

Third year Physics consists of three core courses: ‘Light and Matter’, ‘Physics of the Universe’ and ‘Fluid Dynamics’. I am doing LM this term—so far it is a continuation of Atomic Physics from last year—an in-depth look at what goes on inside real atoms and how they interact with light. It has two more parts about light and magnetic fields interacting with solids, which look like a continuation of Solid State.

Go-karts & the science of attraction <3

MSCi Physics

This is a quick catch-up blog about a couple of weekends ago, which was another busy one!

On the Friday night I helped out with Science London for the first time at the RI lates evening—I helped run a speed-dating event with a scientific twist! It was a pretty fun event to help out on, though leaving the email about it open on my boyfriend’s computer did lead to some confusion 😛

 Anyway, there is a theory that we are more attracted to people that look similar to us, so we matched people up based on facial matching software as well as their preferences during the regular speed-dating.

My (Somewhat) Triumphant Return to Imperial

Isobel profile

BSc Biology with a year in Europe

It’s official, I have now been back in London for a month. I am no longer a fresher – it usually takes me a moment or two to remember this when someone asks me what year I’m in – and I do grown up things now that I live in a flat and not halls, like pay rent, set up direct debits and clean the kitchen. Wow.

After a great (but long) summer, it’s been a little bit difficult to settle back in to Imperial life but I’m enjoying my courses so far and also the change to my timetable! Morning labs can be hard to motivate yourself before but on a non-lab day I now get a lie in rather than the continuous 9am starts that I had last year so I’m not complaining too much!

Filming filming filming…

MSCi Physics

So, the weekend before last I attended the Battle of Ideas at the Barbican as film crew no less! Having being pumped full of camera knowledge for the last two weeks the culmination of all my training was pretty stressful, especially as I had to get up at six both days…

The WORLDwrites crew was split up into four rooms to film the debates, though there were loads more going on all the time. The Barbican is vast– it’s like its own little city with streets of flats and two tower block included (it is my new ambition to live there) with open spaces, restaurants, multiple cinemas, fountains and millions of conference rooms and theatres.

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