First year through my eyes
As the end of the year has arrived, it is time to reflect on everything that has happened over the past nine months.
I have moved abroad, started a degree, started relationships with people from all different backgrounds, I’ve experienced the exciting and sometimes lonely London.
I’ve spent more hours in the library this year alone than during all of my high school years combined. I’ve created a structure, been taught how flow behaves around aerofoils or how combustion allows us to move forward.
I’ve learnt how to overcome drag, both theoretically and figuratively.
I have grown, a scary amount.
University has presented itself as a marathon, a resistance race to be run one step at a time. The first year of aeronautical engineering at Imperial has been the greatest challenge of my life.
It has been a constant academic demand. A non-stop perseverance on digesting knowledge and interiorising it. But now, looking at it in perspective, it is very much rewarding. I will be recognised as one-quarter of an engineer! Not only that, I actually feel like I am so!
As a good friend of mine once told me, engineering provides you with the ability to solve problems, regardless of the topic they belong to, and she is very much right!
University has also been the sugar-coated presentation of what life truly is. In one hand, it shows you that loneliness can be your companion when it is you against the world. On the other hand, you are taught that in order to succeed, one’s effort is needed but also the help of others.
Dear first year, thank you for being one of the best and worst years of my life.
Dear readers, thank you for joining me on this journey.
What others have seen
As this is my last blog post, I wanted to include not only my experience of first year but also how the people around me saw me live it. That is why I asked three people to tell me how this first experience at university changed me.
“Leaving high school and starting a university career it’s is a great step in life. And if you add the fact of living on your own, in a foreign country, in a high-level college, and a high-level career as aeronautics, it becomes then a great challenge that Claudia has faced, showing determination and responsibility. She has grown, in many aspects. I’m proud to say how she’s standing in her own feet in a so short time, and how she’s managing the anxiety of hard studies and exams, taking so many important decisions. A great step in her life!”
– José Luis, dad
“Having known Claudia since we were 8 and being a part of her life for so many years now, I have seen her change, mature and develop, turning into the incredible person she is today. I truly believe that being at Imperial, in a city like London, has made her much stronger, she has become her own person, with her strengths and weaknesses, but she has learnt how to deal with every problem that has crossed her path, she knows what she wants now and despite the tough times, she has found the courage to not give up and continue fighting, never letting anyone’s opinion change her beliefs and goals.“
– Laura, friend
“Claudia is a new person since she left her hometown to go to Imperial College. Yet, she is the same girl. Although she has always been very self-aware and conscious about her limits, her first year at Imperial has shown her the nature of elite and elitist education and the academic market’s obsession with beyond-possible success and super-natural performance. She has learnt how to survive the perils of her world.”
– Ignacio, partner
