So, I know I’ve had a slightly quiet start on the blogging front to the summer holiday – its because I’ve been so busy.

First I joined in with cycling from Rye to Brighton (some of my friends made it all the way from London, I just joined in for a few days at the end). Still have tanlines on my wrists from cycling gloves though…

Then off to visit family for a few days and get washing done at home, before off to the Scilly Isles with my boyfriend! First time we’ve been on holiday together  or that I’ve been on holiday for quite a while due to family circumstances at home, so it was really nice. Plus after spending 5 days together we still hadn’t killed eachother, which was good. Then had an awful drive home, going from traffic jam to traffic jam. Not so bad for me actually, because I’m not on the insurance for my boyfriend’s car so I was just snoozing most of the way.

Since that I’ve been getting catchup work done for the big fieldtrip I missed so I’m not totally behind and clueless for next year. And once that’s out of the way, time to start revising for my exam. Technically its a retake but seeing as I never sat it first time round I have a lot of revising to do!

But at least I won’t be stuck at home revising, I’m off to spend August in Cape Town and Mauritius! Should be really good, we’re visiting family in South Africa and then thought we might go and spend a week at the beach on the way home. So until then, no more blogging from me. And finally, good luck to everyone wanting to come here in October, especially if its for earth science!

Recently, I noticed a new little tab on the sidebar of the admin side of these blogs called Site Stats (actually, it could well have been there for a while – but I’m not always the most observant person! ). Clicking on it, I found all sort of statistics about my blog – number of page views a day, trends over time, which links on the page people clicked on etc etc. It’s quite interesting actually, I can see how many visits this blog gets, normally in the region of several hundred a week. I had no idea it would get looked at that much when I first signed up to write it…

so thankyou to everyone who is reading it!

( Hi Chloe and Auntie Helen!)

This graph shows all the visits I’ve had since the start of June – impressive!

As promised … a useful post for prospective students. I know I’m a little late for the main open day last week, but there’s still further open days to come, plus most of this is relevant for other uni open days too.

I guess its kind of up to you how many open days you go to, depending on cost, location, how much time off school you can get and the effort involved with each. Plus its worth remembering that if somewhere interviews you, you generally get shown round then. It is also generally possible to get your own little guided tour of somewhere if you never made it to an open day but later want to.

In the end I went to 3 or 4 open days – which was quite useful as I actually decided against applying to what I thought would be my 3rd choice university. Plus I didn’t really intend to apply to Imperial, but my Mum said I might as well go and see…it ended up becoming my first choice!

So, useful tips

• -Do ask questions about something if you aren’t sure
• -But at the same time, most information will be on department websites etc, so don’t ask the obvious
• -Don’t worry about coming alone, plenty of people will ( I certainly did to all of mine)
• -Remember not to base all your opinions on the student showing you around…
• -Gut instinct IS important
• -Taking notes is good, but remember that the vast majority of what is said will already be on the website
• -Try not to judge the campus on the weather that day!
• -If you have the time, its often useful to wander round the area and see what kind of place it is as well – Hyde park or the museums are just across the road from Imperial

The last thing we often get asked when showing people around is whether we can show them student’s bedrooms. The Imperial policy on this isn’t to, because there are just too many people coming round and also its a bit of a security risk letting large groups of people into halls. However what I can recommend is the student accommodation section of the website – which has 360 views of the rooms. They are quite accurate representatives ( they haven’t just picked the massive ones to show or anything! )

Hope some of that is useful! Any other questions – just ask

Urgh…packing. Its my last night in halls now, I’ve spent it jiggling stuff around between bags, working out the best way to get everything home. Dad came up last weekend to take the bulk of my stuff home, but due to a series of unfortunate coincidences/mistakes, I now have to take home on the tube/train tomorrow

• large handbag
• laptop bag
• holdall
• 35 litre backpack

…which could be fun!

Such a hectic start to my holiday coming up, I can’t believe how busy I’ve been since coming back to uni at the end of May. Exams, house hunting, packing up at the end of term, family wedding etc etc

Had such a good time though, I’m really going to miss living in halls. Although we have got a house lined up for next year with 5 other girls I live with at the moment, its never going to be quite the same as living on the same road as most of my friends!

The only advice I have for students next year, is be sensible about what you need! I wouldn’t say I have loads of stuff here…but its definitely been a challenge to get it all home!