Alex's blog

Being in my first year, I’ve been living in Wilson House over the past year. It’s been a great experience, and I’ll be sad to move out in a few weeks.

One of the things I was most apprehensive about before moving-in day was where I would be living within Wilson House. Rumour had it that Wilson had a basement floor, and I didn’t want to be living down there – with no natural light or windows I was sure I’d quickly degrade into a Vitamin-D-deficient hermit.

A few weeks before term began, I received an invoice from the Imperial Accommodation office for my room at Wilson for the term. It included the cryptic message ‘Accommodation fees for WH7001′ as part of the invoice description. After a bit of searching around on Facebook and finding some responses from previous Wilson residents, I came to find an explanation that the 7001 was a room number, split into two halves: the ’70′ was the house number (Wilson House is a converted terrace) and ’01′ was the room number within each ‘house’, where ’01′ to ’03′ were on the basement, ’04′ to ’06′ were on the ground floor, and so on up to the second floor.

I imagine I must have paled slightly at this revelation, and tried to put it out of my mind, not willing to accept it. I didn’t want to live in subterranea! I wanted a second floor room with a nice view over London, or a ground floor room that I could get to easily without having to use stairs.

It came to moving-in day, and a third year senior led me to my room. It was, as I feared, located in the basement. At first I was disappointed, having to live on a dim, artificially-lit corridor. My room did at least have a window facing out into a small courtyard, so I did get natural light into my room, but I still felt like I was missing out on a view over London.

It turns out that the basement is probably the best place to be located. In that moving-in week in October, it was stiflingly hot, and people were frantically plugging in fans and attempting to force windows open beyond their restrictors in order to stay cool. Not in the basement, though. Being below street level, and also inward-facing (as opposed to looking out onto the street side) my room was nice and cool.

With the recent spate of hot weather again (it’s still 20°C right now at gone 11pm, for instance) I have once again been reminded how nice it is to live in a basement room. I didn’t even know how hot it was until I had to go somewhere mid-afternoon and discovered it to be 24°C.

Of course the other great advantage of living in a basement room is that the basement is not a main thoroughfare for people, so you don’t get too many rowdy groups crashing past your room in the early hours of the morning.

Amenities are also easily accessible. I have a bathroom right next to my room, and my kitchen is a short walk down the corridor. Because of the slightly arcane design of Wilson House, people on the first and second floor can’t walk between houses, and have to go down to the ground floor then back up again to do so. In the basement, you can walk along the full half of the building which your room is in (although to cross halves, you have to go up to the ground floor, then back down again).

Also in terms of walking, being in the basement is ideal. You have to walk up a single flight of steps in the morning to leave, but at the evening you can simply descend leisurely after a long day. Contrast this with living on the first or second floor – you walk downstairs in the morning but have to walk back upstairs in the evening.

In summary, it really is nice to live on a basement floor. I wouldn’t change it if I had to do it again, and if you have the choice I’d seriously consider it.

Yesterday, the revamped Exhibition Road was officially opened by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

The event began with a parade up the iconic street, followed by the Mayor cutting a ribbon to officially mark the opening, and a drinks reception in the Main Entrance of Imperial. A full account can be read on Reporter, on the Imperial website.

Here are a few photos I took of the opening ceremony:

Standard events at a Mac/iOS developer conference

It was almost a year ago now that I was sitting in a bar in the early hours of the morning at an expensive Golf Course in Reading, discussing impending university options with a no-nonsense, straight talking acquaintance of mine.

It was one of the last nights at NSConference, the fantastic industry conference for software developers building apps for the Mac, iPhone and iPad, which I’ve attended for the past couple of years. The discussion about university was with a fellow freelance software developer I’d met at the conference, and we were talking over my options for the following (now this current academic) year.

I’ve been messing around with computers since I was quite young, and am a largely self-taught programmer (though introduced and helped along by my dad), and as such have mostly treated it recreationally. I’ve done some freelance work for a couple of companies already, and the friend of mine was suggesting that maybe university would be the wrong option for me, given my previous experience.

Despite my interest in studying a Computer Science degree, his argument made some sense and a fair counterargument against a £40-50k debt and the next three to four years of my life. He hadn’t studied a Computer Science degree himself, and argued that in his career in software development had only been rejected as such a small handful of times. He was suggesting that my time might be better spent continuing what I was doing, working freelance or building my own apps.

After a little debate for awhile, I left the conference thinking that although I had quite a bit of experience with software engineering, I was still interested in studying a Computer Science degree because there were still lots of things I didn’t know, and for what I did know, it would probably fill in some of the gaps.

Starting at Imperial

I’ll admit that when I first started at Imperial a little over 3 months ago I was a little skeptical of the first year. I’m a pretty competent programmer and I follow and take part myself in the industry, following current events and reading technical blogs and articles, and have written some of my own. However, some subject areas covered in a Computer Science degree are not my strongest point. Although I wasn’t pig-headed enough to think that I’d know absolutely everything from the variety of subjects we were being taught, I thought I’d probably know a good chunk of it.

It turns out I was wrong. After only my first term, I’ve realised how completely wrong I was. And I’m glad I was wrong. Almost everything I’ve been taught has been something new, and although my existing experience and knowledge has helped, I’ve learnt so much. I knew that I would learn a lot and benefit from my weaker subjects – maths and hardware – or those I hadn’t come across before (logic) but even subjects I had more experience with, such as programming, have inspired me and taught me new things and been really interesting.

What’s more is that reading a Computer Science degree has – and I know it will continue to do so – broadened my horizons and introduced me to so many new things that I otherwise wouldn’t have pursued in my own time, and has opened my mind to other ways of working and thinking.

My take – as I hope most other students’ is – on studying a degree is doing so because it interests you, not just because it will be a stepping stone (either career-wise and/or financially) for a better job. What I’ve enjoyed the most so far is spending the 50 or so potential working hours per week on something which I enjoy, and that’s the reason it’s been a great choice for me.

For those who are in a similar situation, I’d strongly advise considering a Computer Science degree at university (especially at an excellent department such as Imperial’s), even if you have previous experience in programming or writing software in your spare time (regardless of how in-depth it might be). Even after only a term the course has broadened me and extended my experience beyond what I thought it would, and I know it will have a big impact on my own work from now and in the future.

…easily moulded by corporate hands. So companies like to think, and they’re all doing it.

Even before term began, banks have been trying to snatch our custom by offering us huge overdrafts (hey, large unpaid debts have never caused any problems, right?) and alluring gifts, vouchers and other tidbits aimed to sweeten the deal of becoming their customer.

It’s a well-observed fact that the skeleton key to a student’s heart is, of course, free food. This is so true to the extent that it’s often more hassle to claim free food at a lunchtime event at College than it’s worth (though the food that’s there is really nice), requiring a battle through a scrum of other bodies to claim the prize of a few morsels (now leftover scraps) from a now-empty platter.

A clear example of where this is taken advantage of: I’ve been present for at least 2 or possibly 3 visits from Kellogg’s in the JCR at College, advertising some of their products, including cereal Krave. On one occasion they staged a Krave hoopla. This involved throwing three rings at a few stacks of mini Krave boxes. Successfully landing two or more rings over the stacks of boxes would win you a Kellogg’s cereal bowl, and all other attempts would leave you with a couple of mini Krave boxes of cereal, and some other Kellogg’s goods. Other such events take place in the JCR on a regular basis. It says it all, really.

Of course, I’m not complaining at the offer of free food — in fact, I partook in a couple of the Kellogg’s events myself. However it is amazing to observe the entirely blatant view of companies and marketeers as to how impressionable students are, and they clearly want to tie us into their brand whilst we’re young, and have many years left to buy their products.

Despite my acceptance of any consumable produce offered (it would of course be impolite not to), I shan’t be affected by these wooly advertising events. I didn’t take any of the large overdraft offers from banks (instead sticking with ones which offered me good customer service), and the advertising machine is a juggernaut that will not win me over.

But on that majestically moral note, you’ll have to excuse me — I’m off to finish my bowl of Krave.

Photo taken by Sophie Riches

Hello, I’m Alex, and I’m a first-year Computing undergraduate.

I’m an Apple user and Mac/iPhone app developer, and have worked freelance on a couple of Mac applications. I might also be working on my own iPhone app in my spare time.

I’ve been described as “a man of expensive taste” after ordering a £10 Jack Daniel’s w/ Coke on someone else’s bar tab (I swear I didn’t know), whilst my often cynical view leaves my glass half-empty.

In my spare time I enjoy heavy metal/hardcore music, and am an avid photographer.