In Imperial, everyday we come across new things. Otherwise we wouldn’t need to go to college, would we?
In March, we started our brand new subject, Surveying. We learnt how to use theodolite to measure the angles and distances between different given points. It would help us prepare for the Field Trip in Silwood Park near the Heathrow Terminal 5. This includes setting up a tripod, leveling and centering it. Then we place the theodolite onto the tripod and adjust the whole apparatus again. It could be fun, but indeed it was pretty annoying though as you need to repeat the same procedure from time to time to mark down data and check errors.
When dealing with piles of figures, it’s really easy to make mistakes. Once we erroneously take down the readings, there was a risk of the need to go back to square one. Besides that, the fluid mechanics experiment was done in the basement laboratory. Due to the inaccurate measurement, we got a great deal of weird numbers. But lucky enough we had more than one set of data. So we chose those that made sense for further discussion. Working in a lab was under a limited time, so cooperation and teamwork really mattered. Before conducting the experiment, we needed to have a rough plan and different people were going to take different measurements about different data. For instance, the depth of water, the width of container and the distance from the sluice gate all need to be measured, but by different people to make sure we could finish the everything in time. However, in A Level, we seldom had this kind of practical.
Since this month, coursework started flooding in our life. We got almost 10 coursework to finish in half a month. Unlike LSE where students bring their sleeping bags to college library, in our college, people don’t need to bring anything along besides books or notes.
It is just the end of the spring term, there are no exams going on, but here is one of the typical scenes inside the library:
2 o’clock in the morning, a couple of first year civil engineers are still wandering around inside the library. The second year students shouted at us, “You guys are crazily hard working! It’s just your first year.” They didn’t seem to understand that wasn’t what we intended to do, but it was because we had to do that. Last year, students doing civil engineering only needed to do 6 subjects while this year, after the syllabus was changed, we were required to study 11+ subjects. The humanity courses were gone as there was no spare time left for us to study that, only those who would like to study 1 year abroad could take the humanity course.
In the end of term Matlab test (a programming test), many of us screwed it up. And in the end, we couldn’t help using the codes we learnt to write a script to demonstrate the frustration on this:
% This is an m-file powered by Dr. Mad Lad
% from the Civil Engineering Department.
% In this section, you will learn how to write your own diary in Matlab
% By the end of the section, you should be able to use 'if' comfortably
% First of all LAUNCH the BRAINWASH process
clear all ; clc;
% Now prompt the user to input the DAY NUMBER
disp( 'To start with, please input the Day Number to obtain your corresponding time table for your civil day' )
a=input( '>>>The Day No. should be 1-7 indicating Monday to Sunday, then Press ENTER: ' );
% If statement
if a>=1 && a<=7
if a==1;
disp( '>>>Oops! It is a busy day, would you like to wash your head or have a shower?' )
disp( 'since you cannnot afford the time to have both, but just either of them' )
a1=input( 'Input 0 if you wanna wash your head only, otherwise input 1: ' );
if a1==0
disp( '>>>Damn! You are so filthy, no gals will like you!' )
else a1=1;
disp( '>>>Look at your messy hair, it sucks!' )
end
elseif a==2 || a==4
disp( '>>>I am sorry, but you are having loads of work today' )
disp( 'Would you like to sleep in the library or in your own bedroom?' )
disp( 'as you will be staying in the library until midnight' )
a2=input( 'Input 0 if you plan to sleep in lib, otherwise input 1: ' );
if a2==0
disp( '>>>Poor you! But for Civil Engineers, Library is no different from your room' )
else a2=1;
disp( '>>>The gate facing Queens Gate will be locked, you gotta go around the campus' )
disp( 'to get out, but is it safe to walk alone on the street at midnight?' )
end
elseif a==3
disp( '>>>You seem to have a bit free time today, would you like to relax' )
disp( 'or do you want to finish the piles of work left from yesterday?' )
a3=input( '0 to relax and 1 to continue working: ' );
if a3==1;
disp( '>>>Good boy! Working is what the life is especially for engineers!' )
disp( 'Do your work NOW!' )
while a3==0
a3=input( 'What? How dare you are! Say again!: ' );
end
disp( '>>>Good boy! Working is what the life is especially for engineers!' )
end
else disp( '>>>Hooray, it is Friday & weekend again! Wanna have fun with your girlfriend tonight?' )
disp( '>>>Oh come on! What else can you do at such a lovely night?' )
disp( 'Oh year, just realise you do not have a girlfriend although you are almost 50!' )
end
end
else
disp( '>>>Idiot! There are only 7 days per week!' )
end
This clearly shows a typical day for us civil engineers.
It is said that, without collaboration and teamwork, it is not likely that engineering students can finish their work on time. Honestly speaking, in Imperial, we had tasted the busiest life in our life.
On the last day of the spring term, it was the deadline for 3 pieces of coursework. The first one is a 5,000 word essay, the geotechnics coursework and the surveying coursework (the deadline for the last coursework was a bit flexible). I had been spending a few weeks on that essay, and the week before I sat in front of a computer in the library from 2pm to 2am to amend it. But as I am a perfectionist, I always want to make things look better if there is no such a thing called “the best”.
In the beginning, I wrote down 7,000 words for the essay which means I had to cut it by 2,000 words. I want to bung in as much information as I can into the essay so that I can explain or clarify things better. After getting used to blogging, it is sometimes hard to say a simple key point with only one sentence, but with loads of paragraphs I suppose. However, I managed to shorten it and I made it. Then I found a few interesting points in another book, so I started to add more into the essay, which ended up with 6,000 words again. I sighed and struggled to delete piles of words.
Not until the next morning did we sleep. The sun rose and it was 6 o’clock, the group of civil engineers in the library almost finished half of their work. We threw ourselves onto the desk and took a nap before we continued to finish the second coursework. Unfortunately, the safety guard woke us up when he went on a patrol at about 7 a.m. I became extremely furious as we had been working overnight and he woke us up when we just fell asleep.
We did sleep in the library for a few days. We were thinking about moving into library as there are a few shower rooms in our department. In that case, we could live in the library and went to the department for a shower. Thus we could save ourselves from renting a house next year.
Basically this was how we survived the spring term and how we spent the days in March. The holiday was meant to begin on 27th, but we still had the last coursework to hand in. It seems that most of the students who stayed in the library after that day were from our department. Our “holiday” then started in April. It is called the “Revision Festival”
Of course, there was also something funny going on. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I was partially “Singlified”, and the most impressive musical I have ever watched so far was the Sing Soc Production “Ah, Yum!” The story was mainly about a family which was famous for making Hainan Chicken Rice. It includes the conflicts between siblings and how people who were slaves of money.
The dances and music were all original and with the support of the great light effect in the great hall, there is no doubt that the musical is a great triumph. Some souvenirs were also placed on each seat representing the Singaporean society in Imperial College. The fees received from selling the tickets will go to charities. And after the performance, every audience could get a box of Chicken rice in the main dining hall with a free bottle of Tiger Bear from Singapore.
In my opinion, this event was well organized which maximized the use of wisdom of Singaporean elites to give a fabulous output. Compared with this, the CSSA which didn’t organise any beneficial or spiritual activities still has a long way to go to catch up since people have been complaining about this all the time. It shouldn’t be only about speed dating although the students go around the whole London to all universities to “hunt for” a partner!
