Blog posts

Awards Time

Mathematics and Statistics

Maths Wins big at Union Awards

Sitting in the study room one Wednesday evening, typing away at my Python code, I was delighted to receive an email saying I was shortlisted for two union awards, the first being the Maths Wellbeing Team shortlisted for Wellbeing Team of the year, and getting shortlisted for Union Colours. Union Colours are awards are given to about 30 students a year who have made large contributions to the union through service to the community. This could be in a society, as a departmental representative or through a project.

The Maths Wellbeing Team

Over the year the Maths Wellbeing Team has done some big things to try and foster a better sense of community within the department whilst representing students’ issues and making sure the department makes constant efforts to improve.

Having a Ball

MSc Science Communication

This Saturday the South Kensington campus was host to the Imperial Summer Ball. An annual celebration to help students unwind after a long year, there was plenty to keep everyone entertained all night long. Here is a snapshot of my evening with course-mates at the ball… 

Student Performances

In the SCR lots of acts from hip-hop dancers to a capella singers took to the stage in front of a crowd of onlookers. As ever, Dance Company was part of the action and I performed with them in a Disney Medley!

Funfair

One of the main attractions of the evening were the fairground rides.

Year one, checked!

MEng Aeronautical Engineering

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.

Leave Me Alone | The Exam Life #3

MEng Civil Engineering

3 exams down, 6 to go.

You know how they said studying with a friend makes you less stress, yeah well, at this point its not anymore. I mean he made me laugh, he stalked someone (on my behalf-ish), he made fun of the way I’m typing up this very blog, he warned me when there was a secret sales, went to get coffee with me, He made me have fewer mental breakdowns. But being seriously tense and unease, having five mini mental breakdowns a day, all I want is to be left alone.

27 May 2019

You know what I did on Bank Holiday.

10 Cups of Coffee A Day | The Exam Life #2

MEng Civil Engineering

22 May 2019 Constantly in denial that I was sleep deprived, sleeping an average of 3 hours a day and surviving on ten cups of coffee a day. The perfectionism, the need for constantly being right and accurate at the same time, led me to this day. The lack of sleep simply put me somewhere between constantly making small mistakes that frustrates me and the paranoia that the one thing that I didn’t perfectly understood was the one thing that would fail me.

Structural Mechanics, a subject that in my opinion requires focus on details, something I admitted lack in this circumstances.

36 Hours at Imperial College | The Exam Life #1

MEng Civil Engineering

The first day I came to Imperial as a student I vividly remember being told not to spend 24 hours in the library, and yet I spent 36 hours in the library.

20 May 2019 Seconds after finishing my maths exam, I rushed myself to the third floor computer room in Skempton. After feeling like I just failed Maths, I can only fail one other subject, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t Computational Methods (the exam I had 2 days after Maths).

Somewhere between overdosing on caffeine and bankrupting over deliveroos, I was at the computer, frustrated and enraged that the codes didn’t made sense to me.

Part-time work

MSc Science Communication

Studying in one of the most expensive cities in the world is one factor that affects people’s decision to study at Imperial College. Rest assured it can be done, but particularly for students like myself who are undertaking a one year master’s course, the different funding options means that money can sometimes get tight. An upside of the course though, is its flexibility in allowing its students to have part-time jobs. Indeed, most students from the Science Communication Unit have part-time jobs, myself included.

I have previously mentioned my job as an Observatory Explainer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, but have not delved into many details.

Internship Applications: My Story

Mathematics and Statistics

Did I manage to get an Internship?

Here’s a timeline of how I finally secured my Second Year Summer Internship at one of my favourite companies.

August – It’s all about the CV

A year in advance I found myself sitting in the waiting area of an empty careers service getting my CV checked. I would throughly recommend using the service over summer before they become extremely busy in October again. The careers service was able to not only identify key experiences I should include in my CV but also suggested some structural ideas. Whilst I know loads of people who LaTeX their CVs (overkill IMO) I think that you can make a perfectly good CV on Word.

Internship Applications: Top Tips

Mathematics and Statistics

How to successfully navigate applications

One of the hardest parts of being a penultimate year student is juggling applications for internships alongside academic studies. Having just been through this process, I wanted to share my journey and also some top tips on how to survive this time-consuming task successfully! In this first post I will talk about the general process and my top tips!

The general steps in the application process
  1. Online Application – This usually involves providing your personal details, answering some questions about your motivations for this career, listing your previous work experiences. Sometimes you will be asked to provide a CV and cover letter
  2. Online Assessments – Either with your application or sometimes if you make it through the first round, you will be asked to complete some online assessments.

On the other side

Mathematics of Planet Earth

I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I participated in the Three Minute Thesis competition. According to tradition, the winner judges the contestants in the following year, so on Wednesday I had the honour to sit next to prominent science communicators and watch excellent young scientists explaining their research in… three minutes. 

This year the Graduate School replaced the Three Minute Thesis competition by the 4Cs Science Communication Competition. Although the idea is similar, there are some differences: 

  • Not only PhD, but also MRes students could participate. 
  • While Three Minute Thesis contestants could use only one static slides, this year almost everything was allowed: Power Point presentations, props and whatever else they were able to carry on stage. 

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