My Paragon Nightmare

I was fully prepared for the difficulty of the first year. I was prepared for the step up in terms of work and difficulty of the course. I was prepared for the task of finding new friends all over again. I was even prepared to live alone and take care of myself. I was not however, prepared to find myself alienated from a lot of other ‘freshers’ by being shoved into Paragon. All the other difficulties of a first year are just common ground; everyone is in the same boat. For the students at Paragon, being there meant being in a completely different boat altogether.

The location is the obvious main problem with the halls. Every morning, I wake up two hours before my first lecture, just to have enough time to get ready and take the 40 or so minute journey into South Kensington.

While no changes arenecessary, it is far from a comfortable journey. Being the ‘Heathrow’ tube, it is often filled with tourists with infinite amounts of luggage, and coming from the periphary of London, it is the prime tube for many commuters. If you throw in the fact that we have to make the journey during rush hour, it all adds up to a cramped and uncomfortable journey, with a seat being nothing less than a miracle. In all honesty, after a term of these terrible mornings, I’ve sadly grown used to them. Near the beginning of the year the journey always felt like it was over an hour, excruciatingly long. Now , however, I don’t notice the 40 minute journey, all I notice is the difficulty of getting out of bed so early, especially knowing that several of my classmates in ‘regular’ halls get up 15 minutes before a lecture and casually stroll in. The only thing worse than the travel in the morning, is the travel back in the evening. If I finish at 5 or 6, I get caught in the rush hour, and as a result end up holding my breath for the next 40 minutes so I’m not crushed by the surrounding commuters, or their luggage. Whereas some students go back to their room between lectures or for lunch, we cannot even consider something like this. If you include the walking either side, there and back takes up two hours of your day. It’s a highly alienating feeling, knowing that very few of your classmates have the same problems you do. Besides the vast inconvenience of the journey, the price of travel is extortionate. Our student loans obviously do not take this into account, so while I was prepared to live on a student budget, I was not prepared to also throw in £117 per month for Zone 1-4 travel (some people pay £90 for zone 1-3, or less for zone 1-2, although this is far more inconvenient). Budgeting becomes a whole new beast as you can’t let yourself go skint and live on cheap noodles, you have to have enough to travel to your lectures. It stretches even further for nights out, surely the most exciting prospect of being a student. Should we want to go out, we either have to go out in the surrounding area (Brentford and Ealing) which, at best, seem sad and nothing like the London most of us dreamed about living in, or we make the tube journey (at least 40 minutes, more for central London and other popular places), which usually makes ‘predrinks’ redundant. Throughout the entire night I find myself looking at my watch and thinking “should probably go home soon.” This is simply because the only way to get home after the tube stops running is a night bus, which is at least an hour and a half, and requires pre-planning, due to the fact that it only runs from certain stops (once you’ve had a drink or two, Googling the way becomes far harder). This challenge has crushed my desire to go out and party: it’s just too much hassle every time. Surely no other fresher faces this problem. The surrounding area of Paragon (Brentford) is very dreary and depressing. The only upside is how close the corner shop is, at it is pretty much outside the Paragon gate. Looking at the area, it feels nothing like London and not somewhere one wants to live. It houses a small industrial park and a small and depressing high street.

I was fully prepared for the difficulty of the first year ... I ws not however, prepared to find myself alienated ... by being shoved into Paragon

The long journey begins to seem all the more pointless when on some days you only have 1 or 2 lectures (worse still when you have a large gap between them). Finding the motivation to go in in these situations becomes harder and harder the longer into the term you are, as a result work suffers, probably the worst side effect of imperialchoice of Paragon. This is also a problem on regular days, as after a long day of lectures and travel, you usually have no energy for revision or problem sheets, let alone coursework.

The halls themselves are quite modern, more so than many halls at other London universities and other halls at Imperial (forgetting Eastside and Southside). Every flat has a large communal kitchen (shared by 8) and each room has its own en-suite. While an en-suite is a great luxury, it’s diminished by the fact that we have the worst showers possible. They spray in a wide arc that goes around you, forcing you to either dance around to get hit by water or use some DIY skills and attach half a bottle to the shower head. The rooms themselves are equipped with everything you could need, but also come with a bed which is both shorter and narrower than a standard single bed. Some of the taller students have mentioned that at night, they have to sleep curled up almost into a ball. We have a decently sized laundry room, but not large enough considering the sheer number of students from the other universities at the hall (UWL mainly). The common room is a separate building shared by all of the different blocks of Paragon, and is very poorly equipped. There are two pool tables, which more often than not have the balls stolen, a broken television and more light and open space than anyone can find a use for. The few attempts that have been made to utilize this space for parties have been nothing short of depressing.

The flat structure has its own problem. Every flat has a door which can only be unlocked by an occupant of that flat. Whereas in another hall you could wander up a floor to see your friends there, we must first bang on the flat door hoping and praying our friends will hear us. This structure serves to just further the feeling of isolation: not only are we isolated from the rest of imperial, we’re isolated from each other as well.

One thing I must commend though, is the effort by our wardening team (perhaps not our Head Warden), who have done what little they can to make thisplace more comfortable for us, and more social. Their ongoing efforts are, and always will be appreciated.