Blog posts

Are Grades The Only Thing That Matters?

Yee Tong Siow

MEng Mechanical Engineering

It is widely known across the world that Asians tend to put a lot of emphasis on their children’s grades, as if the straight As on the report card act as tickets to a good future. After all, we are called ‘A’-sians and not ‘B’-sians. Being brought up in an Asian culture, I was constantly sent for plenty of extra classes out of school. These classes range from academic tuition classes to extracurricular classes such as piano lessons, art classes, etc. Looking back now, I find it quite crazy that a child like me was trained to learn every hour of the day, and trained to think that the grades on my report card are the only things that I can be proud of.

I Got My Conditional Offer to Imperial. What Now?!

Yee Tong Siow

MEng Mechanical Engineering

Before I jump right in, I will start by explaining about why I decided to write this blog post. As Imperial has begun sending their conditional offers to students from all around the world, students have been overly excited on planning their next phases in life. Being a student ambassador from Imperial, I have begun receiving loads of messages from students telling me about their plans, asking about accommodations and life in London in general. On the other hand, there are also students who are anxious about moving into a new city and making new friends. Therefore, I have decided the write this blog post hoping that this can help ease your transition to your new phase in life!

The last year on campus

Lucie Studena

PhD Bioengineering

A bit over a year ago, our campus has completely shut down. It’s been quite a stressful situation with lots of changes and uncertainty. Lots of countries around the world have started their lockdowns much earlier while we have kept coming to work for considerable time longer. I was working on a few ambitious experiments and finally started gathering some results for my PhD. And then, almost out of the blue, the university shut down within just a few days.

The university actually shut down slightly earlier than the national lockdown came. I received a special permission from the head of the department to finish my running experiments.

What it’s like to move to London from the North

Anya Nanchahal

Medicine

I’ve been studying in London for some time now, but if you were to ask me where I’m from I’d tell you ‘the North’ in a heartbeat. Despite having visited London numerous times before joining Imperial, I hadn’t appreciated how different living here would be. Culture shock would be too superfluous a term, however, there certainly are subtle differences between life in the good old North-West and the capital. In case there are any curious Northerners out there thinking of making the move, I thought I’d pen out a few of the contrasts here.

1. Diversity It would be unfair to group the whole of the North into one bubble when discussing diversity, so here I’m referring to my home in Cheshire.

More Tools, Resources and Tangible Tips for Studying

Medicine

Exam season is upon us! Don’t fear, I am here with more tips and tricks to get you through the next few weeks. Most of these will be tailored to medicine, but some are applicable to GCSE, A-Level or anything you are studying. I wrote a previous blog post with a lot more tips that are all applicable to any type of studying so go there for even more advice.

As usual, everything will be linked in 🙂

Acland’s Anatomy is an amazing resource to watch videos with actual specimens which I find can be more useful than textbooks with coloured diagrams as it is more realistic, and they also have exams to test your knowledge.

Back On The Wards

Medicine

I have just completed my second hospital placement on a respiratory ward at Northwick Park Hospital. This placement felt night and day from my first placement I did in December in the hepatology department at St. Mary’s Hospital. In December, I felt very awkward and always in the staff’s way and I felt nervous to ask questions. I always felt I was not bringing everything I needed or maybe I was not dressed right. Now, it felt a little more familiar and comfortable. I felt more confident asking for help and answering questions. It also didn’t hurt that I luckily had a very short commute, this time it was only 15 minutes, but it took me over an hour to get to St.

Reflections on Remote Exams

Anya Nanchahal

Medicine

With exam season creeping around the corner once again, I was reminded of the situation we were in this time last year. When the national lockdown was implemented in March, I had to pack my bags and return home abruptly a week before the Easter break was due to start. Rather naively, at that point in time I expected the situation to blow over soon enough and that we’d be back at the end of April to sit our exams. Obviously, I was horrifically wrong but thankfully the college had better foresight. Within a week or so we were emailed to say that all of our exams would be conducted remotely, on an online platform, and were to be open book.

A Quick Tip on How You Could Deal with Bad Grades

Bianca Khor

MSc Management

Yea, it hurts

I’m fairly confident that we’ve all been there at some point during our lives.

You check your exam grades on Blackboard (the virtual learning environment that Imperial uses) or finally got your graded coursework back from your lecturer, and it’s right there – a grade that is way below your standard of excellence.

You reflect on the time you’ve spent working or preparing for this. It was clear – you’ve poured in your heart and soul. An immediate sadness follows suit, and your mind gets clouded with a similar train of thoughts – wait, how? How did all of this go so wrong?

Language Learning and Identity

Medicine

I mentioned in a previous blog post that I am currently studying French which I am doing through the Horizons program. It is going well, I think, my grades from my coursework are good and I’m starting to revise for the end of year exam. Speaking in front of other people in French still makes me nervous. It has been years since I’ve studied French at GCSE and having language classes every week had me thinking a lot about identity.

In my spare time, I also have been gradually learning sign language which is a bit harder in terms of finding resources and revising when you cannot really write any of it down to refer to, it is all in my head.

Subtle Asian Traits

Yee Tong Siow

MEng Mechanical Engineering

If you search up ‘Subtle Asian Traits’ on Facebook, the top result you will find is a group with over 1.8 million members inside. Culture and identity is a key definition of a person’s character and that what makes travelling so special. Some people seek the adventure of immersing into a different culture and lifestyle to be able to see the world in a different perspective. As I have grown up in Malaysia and primarily only interacted with Malaysians for the past 19 years of my life, settling into a new country was fascinating as I learned to adapt to this new culture.

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