Blog posts

Our first exam period

MEng Aeronautical Engineering

We have all experienced the pressure of sitting an exam but, oh dear, school has nothing to do with university. There are three main characteristics that differ school exams/A-levels to uni examinations: complexity, time consumption and uncertainty of performance.

First of all, the contents of the module to be examined are usually a whole new bunch of stuff you have never seen before. You only need to check out the names of the subjects: structural analysis, aerodynamics… where are my known physics, chemistry or biology?

Forget about being in a class where you revise previous years’ content, as this is very unlikely to happen in a lecture theatre at 9 am.

My Imperial Application

MEng Civil Engineering

Like a lot of imperial applicants, I applied around October, with a cheesy personal statement. Yes, cheesy, I still look back at it now and couldn’t resist a giggle here and there. But hey, it got me here. I remembered, when I was writing it I thought, how would anyone expect a 16 y.o. to know what they want to do for the rest of their life. In that moment, I stopped and wrote not what I thought would get me in, but I wrote what makes me who I am today.

After I applied, to the 5 university choices, I waited.

Netball does Charity Week

Mathematics and Statistics

Cancer Awareness in Young People Week (CAYP)

This coming week, Imperial College Netball Club (ICUNC) is set to bring you a charity week, hoping to increase cancer awareness in young people and also raise money for charity. Fil, our 1st team captain, has written an incredible article about our vision for the week in Felix.

The charities we are supporting include:

During the week we will be working with a number of other societies to host a variety of events that you can get involved in, from talks to netball, ACC and more.

A Day in the life of a SciComm student

MSc Science Communication

Applications for 2019 entry to the Science Communication Unit are open and will remain so until the 26th of February. For those interested in the courses on offer at the unit, here is an insight into a day of an MSc Science Communication student.

Tuesday 15th January

08:30 The alarm goes off and the day begins. Whilst having my breakfast I browse through The Conversation’s latest articles, an independent news publication which I recently discovered. It sources articles from the academic and research community and is written to engage the public. You are encouraged to keep up-to-date with science (and general) news whilst in the Science Communication Unit at Imperial and I find reading earlier in the day works for me.

Coming back home for the first time

MEng Aeronautical Engineering

5 things I was not expecting

Moving away from home is an experience which is talked about quite often, about its excitement or its sadness. On the other hand, no one really shares their feelings about coming back home.

On the last 14thof December, I flew back to Spain, where a few things surprised me.

  1. Where is my room?

You open the door to your old house and you feel a bit out of place. You go to your room, but it seems odd, should I call this my room anymore? Or is it just a temporary place before I go back to my reality.

3 Things that compliments my life at Imperial

MEng Civil Engineering

Located in South Kensington, Imperial is so close to all the best things in life. I wouldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. Here is the three things that kept me going even when uni life is hard. 

  1. Core Collective

Can I just emphasise that Imperial is not easy (Nobel prize winners aren’t build by living an easy life). For me, working out is a temporary escape from my study. Since Core Collective is 20 minutes away from uni, it has got to be one of my favourite way to sweat (hot trainers also helps *facepalm emoji*).

  1. Shopping Spree at Knightsbridge 

Can I just say that whoever says Oxford Street is the best shopping street in London is seriously disturbed.

Statistical resolutions

Mathematics of Planet Earth

Can you believe the time for New Year’s resolutions has come again? Maybe this year you can add to the traditional “I’ll eat healthily”, “I’ll stop smoking” and “I’ll hit the gym regularly” a new one: “I’ll look at statistics carefully”. You can start with these five simple tips. 

  • Reported averages might be meaningless 

An arithmetic mean (sum of all values divided by the number of values), often reported as the average, in fact doesn’t say much about the average value.  

Imagine you’re describing humans to extraterrestrial visitors. How many legs does an average person have? Slightly less than two.

Notes From Home

MSci Physics

Time is a funny thing. As physics students, we learn that our most basic assumption of time is, in fact, true: its silent immutability, that cold, heartless pace of the clock, is a lie. Of course, time doesn’t actually run slower in a queue, when one minute feels like five, or run faster in an exam, when the last five minutes feel like one; spacetime is warped by inertia, not boredom. But even if this agreement between perception and reality is coincidental, the subject makes for some thinking.

I’m writing this from home, 14 days and 500 miles away from Imperial, and though there is much to celebrate about being back – not having to cook every meal, or being around people who actually know how to iron, or simply just being able to get up at noon without feeling guilty – there is equally a curious feeling of trying to peddle back lost time.

New Year… New Me?

Mathematics and Statistics

Looking back and Looking forward

So Long 2018

As 2018 draws to a close I have been reminiscing about some of the amazing opportunities I have been given this year, as well as some incredible projects I’ve been a part of and of course all the fun with my friends in between! Coming into this calendar year I would never have imagined that I’d currently be as involved

with life at Imperial as I have been. I’ve been fortunate enough to feature as part of the Her Imperial Campaign, go on holiday with my best friends that I met living at Beit Hall last year, moved into my first flat and got to take over the Imperial College Instagram account more times than I can count!

So many books, so little time

MSc Science Communication

Studying for a masters degree in science communication is a very different experience to studying for my undergraduate degree in maths and physics. Perhaps the greatest difference is in the amount of reading I now do. In addition to the weekly readings set for each module, which are mainly academic articles, you are strongly encouraged to immerse yourself in literature of every kind. This can range from popular science books to biographies, journal articles to science journalism, books about feminism to books about philosophy. Lots of books you’ll need for the course are available in the campus libraries and most journal articles can be readily accessed online through the library search.

Learn more about life at Imperial

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