Imperial Computing

From the fun and informative freshers fair to a hectic second term with all sorts of hackathon’s and events which ended abruptly after London went into lockdown, to eventually a fully remote summer term. Throughout this, the department has been listening to students to provide a better experience.

As a first-year student, I was new to computing but DoCSoc organised a Sponsors’ Fair and many other events which introduced students to industrial sponsors. This brought more insight to of academic life and the industry which I’m stepping into whilst also hosting a lot of social events which kickstarted my university life. The department’s courses have been interesting and have kept us working hard in regards to workload. The selection of courses don’t feel too overburdening and are also filled with content that I have found intriguing.

We got more settled down, courses started to get harder and more in-depth, and we strove to maintain a good social life and work balance. A couple of good highlights from the term was our annual IC Hack, Health Hack and also the social events organised by DoCSoc such as Revel and the many bar nights. Leadership election season was also a big thing in the middle of the term with people trying their best to campaign for votes. It was delightful seeing posters with faces of people from around the university! Following the results party for the election began the London lockdown and people started to return home, it felt weird as if the year was ending at that point.

Following a month of isolation during the Easter break, we were all trying to stay sane whilst revising for our exams which were scheduled to take place at the start of term. The department did a great job accomodating remote exams and aided those that had special circumstances. DoCSoc managed to do two movie nights virtually and more events have been planned for the summer.

First-year and second-year students are now doing group projects remotely, a new challenge especially when you consider that people are less motivated due to the prolonged isolating effects of the lockdown. However all-round support has been given by both the department and the student support teams. It has been a hectic couple of weeks whilst we’ve been studying remotely but it’s going smoother than I expected as the department had little time to implement the new remote measures.

First-year has been fun and now I’m even more excited when I look forward to the years to come despite the mixed-mode method that the university is implementing for the upcoming Autumn term as virtual learning has been very successful so far this term. The end of an academic year means more people graduating but also more people joining our DoC family in the upcoming academic year but until then, please stay safe and I hope to see everyone next year!