Letters to Felix
Dear Felix,
Last Friday I received a reconstituted wood-pulp information carrier through my in-door external communications interface, bringing to my attention the fact that my examinations have been ‘relocated to a rigid-structured temporary marquee on Prince’s Gardens’. By the way, we’re doing our exams in a tent this year.
This is all part of the forthcoming Exam Fest ‘97, an open-air event which combines demanding exam papers vital to one’s future success with the chance to see some of the best live bands in Britain. As well as great music there will be a motorcycle rally and free helicopter rides over the Prince’s Gardens area. The exam tent will be pitched midway between the beer tent and the public latrine, thus providing participants with all the facilities they are likely to need between events. Sales of illicit drugs will not be a problem, as there will be a substantial police presence on site, who will also be on hand to arrest anyone suspected of attempting to score 40% or more on a paper.
If all goes well, this will be the public relations coup of the decade for IC plc., who will then be able to put into action the next exciting phase of their master plan to create a streamlined and cost-effective organisation ready to proceed into the next millennium. Draft proposals include the renting of ‘semi-permanent weatherproof teaching blocks in green-belt locations’ (a couple of old mobile classrooms on some playing fields near Slough) for lectures, and the provision of ‘portable canvas-based accommodation units’ for students.
Meanwhile the substantial savings generated by no longer having to use valuable college space on unprofitably educating students will be reinvested in the refurbishment of the new South Kensington Conference Centre. This will also allow the college to hire a professional Euphemisms Officer to aid communication with students.
By the way, good luck with your exams everybody!
James Clarke (Physics II)
Other suggestions for (better) uses for the tent include Scout camps, complete with camp-fires and Kum Ba Ya, a touring production of the Nicaraguan State Circus, nightly productions of Barry Manilow’s latest musical, Referendum Party rallies . . . . . . .
Dear all..
I read with satisfaction the article in Felix this morning (and was pleased to see my letter printed at the back). Although in fairness to the college, the marquee is very impressive and must have been very expensive to hire (although obviously cheaper than stopping building work for a few weeks). The walls seem solid and they don’t blow in with the wind, but the roof is still made from some sort of material, so I hope it isn’t raining on the day of my exams or the noise will be very offputting.
But I would like to make it clear that I have not changed my tune. I am still annoyed at the handling of this. And I would like to thank the registry for the notification I received this morning (dated 22 April) of the change of examination venue for Monday. By voicing my displeasure, I do not aim to incite bad feeling between the student body and the college - I strongly believe that such feelings are counterproductive for both parties. I just see no other way to make the college see that its students are unhappy with the lack of importance assigned to them.
However, I am aware that Imperial College is primarily a research institution, in receipt of an extremely large proportion of the Higher Education Funding Council’s research budget. So maybe in the future there will be a move to convert to a postgrad-only institution.
But at the moment, undergraduate students do exist at IC and it would be very nice if we could feel that we were an important part of the college, although with the general lack of evidence of this it is far to easy to become cynical.
While I am in the mood to continue in this somewhat political tone, I shall now outline my own considered opinion on how changes should be made I believe that what the academics here really want to do is to get on with their research. And so they should. After all, research is extremely important. But to inconvenience them, there’s a load of students who turn up from various places around the world demanding knowledge. But (for undergraduates, certainly) they want the academics to explain stuff which is fairly "old hat" to them. It’s boring - the academics don’t want to be wasting their time explaining in simple terms the principles and ideas which they learnt years ago. So what’s the solution? Well, my idea would be to employ another level of staff - a layer of trained educators. People whose sole purpose within the college would be to educate the incoming students.
These people would have to be professionally trained as teachers, so a certain level of teaching ability and effective presentational techniques would be more commonplace and the owners of the brilliant academic minds of Imperial College (and everywhere else) would be able to devote themselves to the pursuit of further knowledge.
Anyway, if you’ve read this far, thanks a lot. I must now leave and further my knowledge of Chemistry for my exams.
Regards,
Jon Walmsley (Chem II)
Dear Felix,
I have just left my first exam, which was in the tent in Princes Gardens and I would have to say that it is the noisiest place I have ever had to sit an exam, it is even noisier than the hall in which I had to sit A level mocks where an extension was being built just the other side of a wooden partition! I would appreciate you passing on my comments to whoever it may concern in Sherfield.
P.A. Hickman (Chem II)
Dear Alex,
I found out about the marquee the same way most people did, on Friday morning. I would like to add some thoughts to Jon Walmsleys excellent letter in the last edition of ‘Felix’. I only scanned the letter as I was busy phoning registry to ask the Assistant Registrar (Exams) if this was a bizarre practical joke. I did not at first read the section where college says that they will be sending copies to peoples home addresses.
My parents were, to say the least, less than impressed. My dad is an academic and I imagine many other students have parents in the ‘trade’ so to speak. If my dad’s reaction is anything to judge by, Imperial College are about to become the laughing stock of the higher education sector. This is not something any member of college should take pleasure in, internal disputes notwithstanding.
Other Universities apparently consider exam periods when planning building work and arrange years in advance to avoid these kind of problems. I do not believe that the estates department did not realise exams would be taking place during the library work. The only conclusion I can draw is that a decision was taken somewhere in Sherfield, without consultation (surprise, surprise), that the building work is more important than the welfare of students. If this is the Imperial College position, fair enough, but I feel that this should be made clear, perhaps in the prospectus....
Finally I am led to believe that one can appeal against ones exam results through the University of London and that ‘maladministration’ is acceptable grounds...
John Durrell (Physics IV)
The problem with the whole situation is that we all know that College didn’t choose the tent as the best solution to the problem, rather this was simply their only way out of a horrendously embarrassing and expensive mistake. To protect their reputations and a huge amount of College money, they chose to pass the problem on to us, the students. Now that the tent is in position, all that we can do is to ensure that College invigillators record all problems (excessive noise, allergies, adverse weather conditions.....) as they arise, and are forced to take them into account - otherwise they will lay themselves open to the charge of "Maladministration", as Mr Durrell suggests.
Dear Felix,
The response of your two main columnists to my letter at the end of last term, regarding Felix’s political bias, speaks volumes as to the size of their respective egos. Hamish Common took the honourable approach, by exhorting students to vote, no matter whom they favoured. While spending considerable amounts of his column talking about himself, he at least accepted the idea that neutrality was a virtuous concept for the only universal student newspaper of Imperial College.
Mr Simon Baker however is another matter, unilaterally deciding to abandon the long held reputation of Felix as the unbiased voice of IC students. His assertion that the political leanings of the student newspaper is set by its editorial is naive and deliberately ignorant.
Even when editorials are a regular part of a publication, its columns always make a significant contribution to the tone of the newspaper - and attempting to suggest otherwise is avoidance of reality. With the relative dearth of editorials in this year’s Felix, columns contribute even more to the journal’s perceived prejudices.
It was with great sadness that I read the self confessed Conservative’s rantings as to the merits of the Tory Party and his ideas as to the relative short comings of the Labour Party. While it would be generous to suggest that his outpourings have had any effect on the result of the General Election, the abandonment of almost fifty years of Felix neutrality is regrettable.
Maybe next time Mr Baker opens his mouth he will have more consideration for the historical impartiality of his student newspaper and of the ability of IC students to make up their own opinions.
Yours disappointedly,
Hopefully page twenty’s column, written by a leading member of the Labour Club in response to Mr Baker will redress the balance.
Dear Felix,
I was intrigued to note that Ian Taylor, Minister for Science, repeated a line I have taken issue with before, that the ‘three main disciplines of science, engineering and technology are alive and well". This implies that there are those three well recognised and distinct fields of equal standing. I am an engineer, and find that people define engineering in a number of ways but with a large measure of agreement. Similarly, I have studied some science and worked with scientists on a number of projects, so could define the field reasonably well. However, the implication that technology is an equivalent and distinct field, I find difficult to comprehend. I have not found any uniform definition of the word; there are no degrees, research councils, and few job titles, which will claim the field as their own.
There seems to be no way to clearly distinguish the word technology from either, or both, science and engineering, since it often used interchangeably with them. My jaundiced view is that people tend to use it in recent years when they arn’t really sure what professional engineering is, so choose ‘technology’ as a neutral, non-offensive word. This simply reveals a lack of understanding of the true nature of engineering and a need, as if we didn’t already know, to educate the public and the politicians as to its importance. I say all this in full awareness of the word in the name of this college. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
Colin Ledsome
Too much of a good thing
Dear Felix,
If I get one more of my friends telling me I go to ‘The PG Tips’ college, I’ll just cry.
Who’s idea was it to have our name all over the tube, associated with this new gimmicky whatsit? I’m never going to live it down.
Yours sincerely,
