<p>Judging “undergraduate experience” by “lack of campus” is rather extreme, don’t you think ?</p>
<p>Of course, different people look for different kinds of “experience”, but I think some undergrads might disagree with the statement that living in a quad-like campus in a college town, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, is a better (or more exciting) experience than living in London, which is presumably one of the top 5 international cities. In fact, many UK students actually choose to go to Imperial or LSE precisely because of their location and not despite it, or despite an alleged “lack of campus” (not entirely true either BTW).</p>
<p>Well not addressed to me, but I do kind of agree with Alexandre. The lack of a cohesive campus kind of makes the American college experience very different from that in “city” universities. There are quite a lot of city universities in the US too but the top ones tend to be campus based- i.e like boarding schools no doubt but still more fun and camaraderie. </p>
<p>Of course as you point out it depends on the taste of the student and his/her preferences- some would prefer the opportunity to explore a city than be locked in a bubble, while others might prefer a more cohesive campus lifestyle. </p>
<p>London universities do not have the campus spirit that is common in campus based universities in the US or even the UK (like even say Warwick).</p>
<p>Seems we are diverging:</p>
<p>@ OP,
My honest opinon, I think the closest school to Imperial would be Carnegie Mellon. Both are very very similar. Imperial is a bit more prestigious in the UK though. Carnegie is a small fish in a Big pond (loads of top schools in the NE, that CMU tends to get ignored)</p>
<p>bruno, after visiting UCL and LSE and comparing them objectively to the US universities I had visited, I could not justify attending them. A school does not have to be in the middle of nowhere to have a strong sense of campus life. There are literally dozens of excellent universities in or next to large cities. Schools like Boston College, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Rice, the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania to name a few. My issue is with universities that do not have a sense of community. </p>
<p>Regardless, the lack of resources at British universities is unsettling. Imperial has over 13,000 students and a medical school and has an endowment of just $100 million. That’s a mere $7,000/student. </p>
<p>I do not mean to say that Imperial is not good. It is obviously excellent. But I prefer universities that have more resources and a more cohesive campus community.</p>
<p>choosing any top50 US school over Imperial - yes that is extreme</p>
<p>getting a job in the UK… yeah, i only have 5 months after grad to secure a job before they kick me out</p>
<p>I’m aware that Imperial’s resources and facilities are good - they have everything from biological rooftop study labs to wind tunnels where F1 cars are tested out for aerodynamics. The sports facilities are amazing and we are equipped with cutting edge stuff. Now the university endowment is considerably low compared to US schools mainly because its tied to the government. (there are no private unis in the UK, all are public)</p>
<p>Campus? yes it is a bunch of blocks in the city but the way i view it, its in the heart of London – i will be surrounded by a multicultural and vibrant, dynamic society.</p>
<p>me looking at finance and consulting? – depends on my interests. If I don’t get a job, I can always go back to Asia and secure a good job in Singapore/Hong Kong … or any other decent city.</p>
<p>general public opinion - yeah, i probably shouldn’t have asked that… its kind of obvious that many people wouldn’t know about Imperial</p>
<p>for that MBA - yes, i will need a First Class Honours and be at the top of my class which will be difficult because I will be put up in a class full of brilliant students. Until now, I’ve enjoyed being a big fish in a small pond. Unlike the US, the UK focuses more on grades than other factors and there wont be people there on football scholarships. Instead, people whoa are very very good at their physics, maths etc.</p>
<p>Time is young for me as of now. I still have a lot to do and a lot to decide. I thank you all for your input :)</p>
<p>LOL, people on football scholarships who are gunning for the NFL tend not to major in math or physics. Most study sociology or psychology and have special classes that allow them focus on training. People who end up studying math and physics are in the 1500+ SAT range at high caliber private and state universities and most have taken even college classes. Just one of the misinformation I said international students have about athletic and legacy admissions.</p>
<p>Alexandre, a lot of students at Imperial aren’t happy, so I cannot say it offers a better undergrad experience than the top 50 schools in the US. Also, there is no way Imperial is superior to UMich for engineering. I seriously doubt that.</p>
Strongly seconded. I am a usually a college town kind of person and am a fan of the well-rounded “college experience” that Alexandre is referring to, but I absolutely loved both UCL and London. I think for the right kind of person, it’s a really great fit. Most students and schools abroad don’t have the same sort of idea about the college experience that we do, anyway.</p>
<p>waitatshu, I know what i’m talking about. A lot of students are turning down Imperial for places like Durham, Warwick or Bristol because they’ve heard Imperial has a terrible teaching standard. It maybe is a research powerhouse but many undergrad at Imperial aren’t happy the way they’re being treated and handled. In fact, Imperial slipped in the UK ranking league tables due largely to their poor student assessments.</p>
<p>@RML … seriously? Durham, Warwick and Bristol? Where did you get that information? The worst I have heard about Imperial is its workload and the way they “work you to the bone” as a senior I spoke to said. But I knew that came with the package when I confirmed Imperial. And all the seniors I’ve communicated with do seem pretty happy besides that and say I will be in for the best four years of my life.</p>
<p>Imperial doesn’t have its own football fields and all but we do use facilities available to us in London. The cricket club trains at the Lord’s stadium which is where the current India-England test series is being played.</p>
<p>I am in no way affiliated with Imperial and have no reason to defend it, but, on the issue of “campus life”, here is a sample of what the Independent’s Complete University Guide says:</p>
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<p>On the issue of “teaching standards”, I would take any survey of students as used by some newspaper league tables with a grain of salt.
In official “teaching assessment exercises” conducted by the UK government, Imperial’s departments actually consistently fare pretty well.</p>
<p>Imperial undergraduates are actually on average pretty good (the school usually ranks 3rd in entry standards in the UK, below only Cambridge and Oxford). Imperial courses however are very demanding, even for bright students, which translates in grade deflation compared to peer institutions in the UK and, in turn, may introduce some bias in “student satisfaction” indices/indexes.</p>
<p>^ Perhaps, due to their strong research programs. But I don’t think it’s any better than schools like Brown or Dartmouth or Rice or Northwestern or Michigan for undergrad teaching.</p>
<p>Well just that some my friends when I was in college were on football scholarships. All of them had higher SAT scores than what you are sporting on your previous posts. One was even a Physics major and a pretty good one come to think of it and worked in an I-bank before heading of to med school. Not all athletes are meat heads. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I have given you an honest and probably informed/unbiased evaluation. Imperial is roughly on the small level in terms of quality with CMU or Michigan in the US. As a result of it being arguably the best science/engineering school (debatable considering Cambridge and ETH Zurich) and number 3 in the UK though, it has more considerable a bit more prestige than say CMU to some lay people. Engineering Employers would place them roughly on the same level. While not being a big fan of large state schools, it would be dishonest for me not to point out that Michigan though might offer better job opportunities on a relative domestic basis. </p>
<p>If Singapore and Hong Kong are your targets then its prestige would be more representative of how it is viewed in the UK as opposed to the US. This is not too surprising- these are former British colonies with a huge british expat community and british-educated class. Which brings us to the main question of why you are interested in how it is viewed in the US.</p>
<p>My hypothesis is that you probably want to get some ego massage and hear its equivalent to MIT or Caltech as a sort of reassurance. Well . . . you could be in luck, you are going to find some people who will argue vehemently that this is the case and that to state otherwise is ignorant. </p>
<p>So I would summarize thus my opinon: Imperial is an excellent science/engineering school. Its no MIT/Stanford/Caltech/Berkeley world rankings aside e.t.c. But is generally seen as a step or two down which is nothing to sneer at.</p>
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<p>I agree to this to some level. In my “short” experience student satisfaction tend to be an uneven mixture of two things: how susceptible a class is to grade inflation, and how well the material is conveyed. I would focus on the universities in the UK since this discussion is about Imperial. Its largely a science/engineering school. Communicating dificult science concepts to students is quite a challenging task with success largely dependent on the quality of students receiving the tuition but also to some degree on the skill of the instructor in breaking down the concepts to the student. </p>
<p>The large majority of UK universities tend to employ what I term the TYS philosophy (teach yourself principle) conveniently termed independent learning but really a guise for “bad teaching.” IMO, such an approach while having significant merits in the longrun tend to be ineffective to the large majority of students who depend on the effectiveness of the teacher. The large majority of students need to be taught correctly as opposed to be given the text/lecture notes for a class while the professor engages in a monologue in an overcorwded lecture hall. Students tend to be unhappy with such teaching standards and such dissatisfaction is more common in science/engineering where there is just a higher concentration of bad teachers.</p>
<p>But then thats my pedagogical stance, which might of course be short sighted. However, I strongly believe that Instructors should not be allowed to “teach badly” in the name of trying to stimulate independent learning and avoid “spoon feeding” their students. </p>
<p>Why am I bringing this up? Just that in general student satisfaction does reflect some information as regards to the quality of education the instructors are providing. While students have no basis for making a comparsion, for a customer cannot be truly satisfied if they have not had the opportunity to sample other products, university students will to some degree be aware when they understand the key points of a module to a satisfactory degree. Educators tend to dismiss the concerns of such students as unfounded instead on self-reflecting on the fact that maybe there is actually something wrong with them. Now this is not to say schools with poor student satisfaction are bad, I bet the kids at Imperial are pretty smart, and the majority can learn a lot by themselves, just that efficiency will likely be improved if students are given more contact hours and are properly guided by a willing instructor.</p>
<p>“My hypothesis is that you probably want to get some ego massage and hear its equivalent to MIT or Caltech”</p>
<p>I was pretty much aware that it doesn’t compete against MIT/Caltech/Stanford/Berkeley as I applied to the US myself and I have been hearing these names since I was 5… Its just that a some people told me that Imperial is a lot worse than many top US universities. Since I will be attending Imperial this Fall, I wanted to know whether that notion was true by gaining opinions about it by people who are well informed about such matters. As I had decided to spend the next four years of my life at Imperial, you can see that my curiosity was obvious given the situation. </p>
<p>Thanks for your feedback. It has helped clear a lot of doubts :)</p>
<p>@Sefago: Imperial and LSE students are smart, otherwise they wouldn’t have got(ten) into those schools, which are very selective. Nevertheless, it is also true that many Imperial and LSE students are indeed Oxbridge rejects and wouldn’t be attending the London universities if they had been accepted at Oxford or Cambridge.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, both Imperial and LSE have grade deflation and low scores in student satisfaction surveys. Oxford and Cambridge, where the overwhelming majority of students graduate with a first or upper second, normally score high on the same measure. </p>
<p>Oxbridge students in particular are normally seen as being “spoon-fed” compared to students in other UK universities because of the much higher degree of individual attention they get in tutorials/supervisions. That difference apart though, even at Oxford/Cambridge and more so elsewhere, there is really a TYS mentality permeating not only the British, but indeed most of the European university education system (I suppose it’s even “worse” in Germany than in England). I wouldn’t call it “bad teaching” though, but rather a philosophical difference about what a university education should be. </p>
<p>What I mean is that, in the US, particularly in the LAC system, college is seen almost as an extension of High School . College professors are accordingly expected to behave like High School teachers and treat their students like High School “pupils” (compulsory attendance, graded homework, continuous performance assessment, etc.). In the German model and, to a lesser extent in England, a university professor is expected to fill the role of a mentor to a young scholar more so than a teacher to a student. It is a type of relationship that is much closer then to what in the US is seen only at the graduate level.</p>
<p>The fact that a smaller proportion of students from LSE or Imperial graduate with a first or upper second does not in effect mean there is “grade deflation” neither is it a refection os standards. I typically observe such leaps of logic on CC itself when people are arguing that the Ivies are inflated relative to state schools.</p>
<p>Even further, the fact that a siginifcantly lower number of people get firsts or upper seconds might have nothing with “grade delation” but may be due to other reasons. Hypothetically may be they poorly taught the material for one. So when tested, using the exact same exams as oxbridge students, they could score lower. Voila, point at the stats then claim grade deflation. Anyways, the general consensus amongst most people I know who have studied at LSE is that the teaching is horrible. Of course these are anecdotes and are not backed by facts. Nevertheless raises the point that there could be a link between poor teaching itself and the term “grade deflation.” </p>
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<p>I know its worse in germany and france because I have discussed with some ERASMUS students who think that UK students have too much supervision and attention relative to what they experience in their own countries. </p>
<p>Well yes possibly a philosophical difference per se, which I personally see as way to frame “bad teaching” but there has to be a point when a university stops holding to traditions or outdated philosophies and I think make an attempt to start modernizing their system. I also think it has to do with too little resources and professors being encouraged to focus more on research. Regardless of the exact reasons, I can make a safe bet that smaller classrooms, and better teaching could also possibly lead to “grade inflation”- more students pass because they understand the material and would do well regardless of teh difficulty of the exam. </p>
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<p>Well thats one perspective. To counter this, I would begin with this adage “practise makes perfect” since it forms the core of my argument.</p>
<p>I was actually talking to a lecturer who is American (Well not everyone is a professor in the UK apparently lol) who had taught in roughly 3-4 UK Universities ranging from top of the pile to mid-tier schools. His view, based from his experiences, and I agree with him because I have observed similarly, is that such a model tends to make it difficult to test the most complex material possible because the average student is just not capable of reapplying what they learned. If a lecturer attempts to bring any type of complex question that needs a reapplication of self-studied theory, the students will fail woeful.</p>
<p>This is one of the reasons, he pointed out to me, why a lot of science/engineering exams in UK universities are significantly based on previous past-question papers that follow a similar structure allow students to regurgitate memorized material (within the short reading week that make students break from their daily nights out to the pub lol. I kid :)). All major Uk universities have a portal where the student can access past questions. And there of course only a number of limited ways in which an instructor can ask a particular question. Most students are aware of this and instead of tend to be overreliant on past exam questions.</p>
<p>Since the students do not take consistent homework that keeps them abreast of the material, they are not really able to truly learn the material and apply it to new questions. Homeworks are replaced by tutorials which in principle are supposed to be done independently by the students, but which in practise are usually done by the students two weeks before the exam. Which incidentally leads back to what I said at first, practise makes perfect in science and engineering. A truly good mathematician learns from trial and error not from cramming just a few weeks before exam. The grade deflation that most argue then is not from a true difficulty or rigour in the material but is infact a result of poor understanding of the material that is being tested due a lack of consistent attempts to gain familiarity.</p>
<p>I agree with his perspective for several reasons. Its just not logically possible for most people to learn the breadth and depth of material required for most fields. Neither is it required except in the long run you want to go into academia where a more indepth knowledge of the field might be required. Most Chemical/Mechanical engineers will never use some of the theoretical stuff required in hard core thermodynamics or transport phenomena classes in industry. </p>
<p>Its probably bad teaching because thats what students I have talked to have referred it as. Case in point, I know of a few American Professors who teach in European universities and pretty “reputable” ones as such. Interestingly, the large majority were considered the best professors in terms of teaching in their departments. This could possibly be because US PhDs are required to TA before they get their degrees which is largely absent in the UK. Nevertheless these professors differed from their other colleagues because they cared about the student. A friend of mine who attended a premier Irish university was telling me how the university was now made it a compulsory requirement for their lecturers to take compulsory teaching classes because of the student complaints on poor teaching. Another interesting trend, i have observed amongst engineering students in some universities is that they use youtube videos made by American professors to understand the concepts that were so badly explained by their disinterested lecturers.</p>
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<p>Begs the question of why dont they just make such university online degree from home where you come to university and sit exams while the professors can fully face their research in an attempt to make their universities “world class” and “reputable” and “top 25 world universities”. They might as well as well save kids the hassle and the current £9000 tuition fees+£?accomodation fees. If your “mentor” just prescribes a long list of textbooks for you, writes some equations straight from the textbook and does not bother to engage the class, “chews gum” while lecturing and lazily points to those equations (yeah I have seen this before), you might as well get all these at a subsidised cost from a webcam while sitting at home simultaneously watching a good episode of family guy. </p>
<p>Also what about international students paying close to £20,000 a year on tuition fees for top UK universities, are they just paying for a certificate/opportunity to use the university resources or are they actually paying for an education? </p>
<p>I gotta lol at the analogy between a lecturer-undergraduate student relationship and a supervisor-graduate student relationship. I fail to see the similarities. The only similarities is that in both the lecturer is totally disinterested in the work of the student. </p>
<p>Haha kidding. As far as I am aware of, most supervisors always keeps tabs on the work of their grad students. A grad student who is not publishing or doing any work but procrastinating is only found in fictional works such as PhDComics. My issue with the aforementioned system is that the progress of the student is not really the concern of the instructor teaching a class.</p>
<p>My bad, I apologize then. I was just confused why you were really interested in public opinions especially since you had no intention of trying to get a job straight in the US from a UK university. Also with respect to grad school, I reiterate you would be fine, even with average grades you can probably get a Harvard MBA- most US admission officers think quite highly of British Universities actually. </p>
<p>Congratulations though, make sure you enjoy university and london and do not waste time on online forums they tend to eat up your social time.</p>
<p>Disclaimer: Most of my criticisms (and the long thesis I wrote above) are based on a strong dislike for major research instituitions which tend to focus exclusively on research and downplay teaching. Its a personal opinion and I would say I am quite in the minority- the large majority of people hold the opposite view that a universities research should define their reputation. And this is infact the case, that the large majority of universities draw their reputation from their research programs while placing a trade-off on teaching standards. Some do a good job of merging both.</p>
<p>Student happiness also depends on ones preferences; for me, urban settling (without a central campus) is far from appealing, others love it. Nevertheless it is most obviously true that Imperial can’t offer a “classic” college experience, but more resembles to NYU as you have one of the biggest cities in the world as your playground.
From the University of London branch, according to my experiences, LSE is quite well known in US academic circles and, to a lesser degree, the same goes to UCL. Imperial is somewhat lesser known, and whereas you can find many people in the states (well, surely not Joe from rural Idaho, LOL) who heard about the former two, the same not goes to Imperial. For me: Top 20 US public universities > Imperial.</p>
<p>Be as it may, I agree with stefago; with an Imperial degree in hand, you can apply to top US grad schools without any problems.</p>
well, you know better :P</p>