Feature

Imperial College at a glance

Ashiqur Rahman Sami

IN my quick and short tour of London, I had a chance to look around the Imperial College, London. One of the most expensive, Imperial is ranked 3rd in Europe and 5th university in the world. It was established in 1907 will 13,019 full-time students from 158 countries in 238 different courses.

Imperial's main campus is in South Kensington, one of the nicest places in Central London. When we got out from the Natural History Museum, we were looking for a restaurant to have lunch and London was really hot with a temperature of about 23-24C.My dad saw a signboard of the college through Queens gate on the right of the museum entrance and proposed to have lunch in the college cafeteria. Frankly speaking, I never wished to study there spending 20000£s a year! So, it was good to have a free traverse around the campus. It's a few yards walk till the Falmouth gate, which is the only gate for pedestrians to access the campus.

The road is called Imperial College Road. It was huge and I began to see groups of students gossiping here and there. From the beginning till the end, it seemed to me that the college had more Chinese or Japanese students and mostly from outside Europe. However, it's quiet impossible to distinguish between the Europeans unless you speak to them. I attempted and could differentiate between Italian, Russians and Polish people by their languages . Anyway, we were so hungry that, we started looking for the cafeteria again.

As we passed the library and reached the Queen's Lawn, a neither big nor small field, we saw students sitting on the patch of green grasses. For a second, I pictured the map of the college inside my mind with only the surroundings of Queen's lawn that takes in only the library, the Sherfield and the Skempton Building. The entire area is about 100 acres the entire extent of which is since it was the property of the college. Unfortunately I've missed all the other buildings, which you can see on the original map.

A Japanese student finally showed us the cafeteria. Actually there is more than one but we got to the ground floor cafeteria was closest from the lawn. It's spacious and the walls around were of transparent glasses. But I was astonished to find the other facilities that was being provided. The café practices total self-service. We ordered chilly chicken, rice and coke. Because it was the only halal menu availavle. The cost per people was 5-6 £s. I thought the price would be cheap because it is for students. However, as we were not students we paid the full price and didn't get the other facilities. When we got to the sitting place, we found out that it was well equipped with Desktop computers with hi-speed Internet. I was so excited to use them because I didn't get any chance to browse Internet throughout my London trip.

It was time to go out. Our Next stop was Trafalgar Square and we had to take the underground rail from South Kensington Station to Charring Cross station in Westminster. Imperial College, London is not just a college. Lots of Imperial graduates have already proved what an Imperial degree means to the world and its way towards betterment.

( A student of Business Administration Discipline, Khulna University)