Blog posts

How Remote Working Changed my University Experience

Anya Nanchahal

Medicine

Since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, forcing the country to a standstill, remote working has become a feature of my degree to varying extents. My third term of first year was purely online (including what should have been my first hospital placement) which I undertook from my family home. Since the start of second year, the college has adopted a ‘multi-mode’ learning strategy encompassing elements of remote and face to face learning. Needless to say, it looks likely that remote learning will be here to stay for the foreseeable future so I thought I’d share a few of my reflections in this blog post.

Time to Get Creative With Work Experience

Medicine

I have gotten a lot of questions from friends and younger students at my sixth form about work experience for applying to medicine. I found it very difficult getting work experience when applying and a lot of the time I was just too awkward or nervous to take opportunities to learn. My advice is just taking initiative and reach out to people. Obviously, due to COVID-19, chances of getting work experience in clinical settings like GPs and hospitals or even care homes is slim to none. This is your opportunity to get creative.

Do you know a neighbour that needs help collecting prescription medicine?

A Small Fish in a Big Pond

Anya Nanchahal

Medicine

Moving to university can be overwhelming. Usually, by the time you’ve reached year 13, your position in the fabric of the school is quite well established. You probably have a reputation, a core group of friends and you may even have started being on first name terms with some of your teachers. Then, all of a sudden, you get parachuted out of that familiar environment into Imperial- one of the best universities in the world, in a city like London, with thousands of new faces. Nobody knows who you are. It’s a clean slate. For some of you this may feel liberating, but for others it can be disorientating.

Back to the Grind

Bianca Khor

MSc Management

New term. New subjects. New game. New… me?

Not going to lie, the whole idea of going back to (virtual) university after spending a couple of weeks doing close to absolutely nothing gives me a fair bit of anxiety.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’ll need to return to an intense work routine with looming deadlines almost every week. Or it could be because we’ll be assigned to a completely new team for our group projects, so we don’t exactly have a comfort zone to fall back onto (shout out to my previous team if you happen to be reading this!

Imperial Horizons – A Side Quest Walkthrough for You

Bianca Khor

MSc Management

For prospective undergraduates, you might have come across an opportunity for you to get a taste of non-science-related topics such as humanities, social sciences, or languages. In essence, this programme is called Imperial Horizons, and I would like to dedicate this article to talking about one of the Horizons courses that I’ve taken and the unexpected enjoyment that I had from it.

A crash course on psychology

To begin with, I had to take a Horizons course back when I was in my second year of university as it just so happened to be counted towards my degree credits (they are usually taken for extra credits).

Asymptomatic COVID-19 testing at Imperial

Laura Amarin

Medicine

During this pandemic, we’ve very explicitly seen the impact of COVID-19 on our entire population – whether that’s through contracting the virus itself to having our freedom of movement and choice restricted by things involving lockdown and border control. I write this to say that through the past year, we’ve all been affected. In line with this logic, our actions also affect one another, to a great extent. There’s not been more of a plain example in my mind whereby we can help human kind through our own actions. Basic respect of social distancing, masks on and adhering to social gathering restrictions will create massive impact in collective efforts.

Finding The Perfect Accommodation

Yee Tong Siow

MEng Mechanical Engineering

One of the most common concerns first year University students have is about finding an accommodation for subsequent years. In Imperial, most halls are reserved for first year students, to ease their transition into University life. I was fortunate to be staying in student dorms located 5 minutes away from my department during my first year, but I knew that I would eventually have to get out of my comfort zone to find a new flat before the end of the year too. In this blog, I will be summarizing my experiences searching for a new accommodation in London and some tips to get your ideal flat!

Malaysian Society: A Home Away From Home

Yee Tong Siow

MEng Mechanical Engineering

The biggest concern I had before coming to London was that I would not fit in. The drastic cultural differences between London and South-East Asia can be noticed easily from the food we eat, the way we speak and sometimes even the way we dress. People in London are phenomenal and I always find myself being able to dive into deep conversations about various topics. The experiences and ideologies that we grew up with are so different that it amazes me every time and allows me to constantly learn new materials from every conversation. However, there comes a point in every international student’s time abroad that we will miss home more than usual.

Exploring a New Chapter

Medicine

I joined book society during freshers week of my first year and I love it. A book is selected for that month by voting from a group of five and we can discuss it at the meeting a few weeks later. I love to read so this is the first society that jumped out at me. Growing up, my Dad took me and my siblings to the library on the weekends and I would bring an empty bag for the books I would borrow. I still remember back when heelys were a thing I would skate around the long corridors to find books I had not read yet.

2020 and Mental Health

Qinyi Wang

MEng Biomedical Engineering

The transition from 2020 to 2021 has been a quiet one. Although I did spend it with my flatmates, there were sadly no fireworks by the Thames, no countdown at Trafalgar square, no free bus/tube rides at 2 AM, no meeting up with friends who live far away… It almost doesn’t feel real that a whole year has passed since the pandemic began.

And what a year it has been. The sudden social-distancing rules, the ever-changing lockdown tiers, the closing of national and international borders, the fear of viral infection and the overload on NHS services have all taken a toll on everyone.

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