Talk:Imperial College London

'prestigious'

Who's the jealous person who keeps removing 'prestigious' from the opening sentence? I'm only going to keep adding it in!

It's not me, but the word doesn't belong in the encyclopedia. Try this: go to Harvard, Princeton and Yale's pages. Probably the closest you get to any of them claiming to be prestigious in the first paragraph is Princeton claiming to be a "top institution for undergraduate education," which is true. By contrast I've never before heard of Imperial College. Adding the word is like a guy with a small penis compensating by talking about how big he is. Pathetic. OPen2737 19:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

felix

I've heard that felix has more frequent releases than other student union papers in the uk and has a more professional touch. I'm not sure if it's true but if it is surely it warrants a mention! Anyone have supporting or counter claims? Rm uk 17:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

bars

something about the bars on campus (apparently ICU does something other than fund clubs and societies), including the late southside bar perhaps?

removing a statement

This focus on technical and scientific subjects allows Imperial to compete with other, larger institutions such as Manchester, Sheffield and Bristol, all of which have to offer courses across the spectrum of academia thus diluting their overall impact on league tables.

I removed this text because I thought it was a bit unclear.... departments are ranked (a ranking upto 5*), not whole institutions... so does this make sense? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:23, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think this original statement is a bit of a misnoma as Imperial College is infact a large institution regarding undergraduate/postgraduate student numbers, and it is often incorrectly presumed to be a small specialist institution like the LSE. Also no institution is compelled to offer any courses they do not deem suitible, hence the comment of "have to offer" is incorrect. The main advantage is as a comparable sized institution with a lower number of key departments and subjects a greater emphasis can be placed on each, as typified by the seperate departments of Mechanical/Aeronautical/Electrical/Civil engineering that are often combined in other universities.

Intro

"as its name suggests" -> "as its previous name suggests" ?

Go for it. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 22:29, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Male:Female Ratio

The Imperial College Factsheet gives the ratio as 63.2:36.8. Would a better approximation be 6½:3½, or 13:7? This is also the value the Daily Mail uses in its table, 64:36. M Blissett 12:45, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

When quoting ratios it is always done with integers, so 13:7 (which is *way* better than the 13:1 of my day) --Vamp:Willow 14:31, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

League Tables

"Imperial is consistently ranked in the top four in the country for academic prowess by newspaper league tables, often above Oxford University."

There are many edit changes being made to this line of text (usually from anonymous IP addresses). Is there something we can come up with that will make most people happy? I would suggest "sometimes above", but maybe we should remove the reference to Oxford completely?--Alexd 22:44, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

'frequently above'/'occasionally above' maybe? --Vamp:Willow

I say we remove the reference to Oxford altogether. It is not the role of Wikipedia to compare UK institutions of Higher Education. Especially as we(Imperial) are clearly so much better...

"Imperial's reputation for unchallenged research excellence in the life and physical sciences is second to none and is frequently ahead of Oxford and Cambridge Universities in this arena." This is hardly objective. It seems to me that the page is mostly being edited by Imperial students past or present, and that we seem to be in danger of disappearing up our collective arse. I almost suspect Sir Richard to have had a hand in this page.

ICSM - Imperial College School of Medicine

I didn't realise Imperial's medical school had such an outstanding international reputation as suggested by the article. I'd say of the London University medical schools Guy's, King's and St. Thomas' (King's College) or St. Barts and the Royal London (Queen Mary and Westfield College) would be held in equally high regard to either Imperial's or UCL's medical schools. Perhaps even higher amongst those in the medical sphere. In any case, Imperial College didn't have a medical school prior to 1998, but acquired it through the merger of two existing and separate University of London medical schools: St. Mary's Hospital Medical School and the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School. These were in themselves prestigious schools of medicine, but seem to have lost their identities in the merger unlike the other London medical schools, which retained their distinct identities in their newly merged institutions after the mass amalgamation of the London Medical Schools with the multifaculty colleges of the University of London took place in 1998.

Imperial, with no existing medical school, merged with the St. Mary's Hospital Medical School and the Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School

QMW, like Imperial had no existing medical school, acquired The Royal London Medical College and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School

King’s College, which already had a medical school (King’s College Hospital Medical School), merged with the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospitals.

UCL, which already had a medical school (University College Hospital Medical School), merged with the Royal Free Hospital Medical School and the Middlesex Medical School.

The only original London University Medical School which remains unattached to a multifaculty College or University is the St. George’s Hospital School of Medicine.

Fleming

Someone keeps removing references to Alexander Fleming. Fleming studied at St Mary's Medical School, which was not part of Imperial at the time that he studied but has since been merged with it. Thus he is an alumnus of Imperial. The medical building is named after him, for goodness sake!

On the contrary, if that is his only link with Imperial, then he is not an alumnus of Imperial. The fact that the SAF building is named after him is irrelevant.. Stalin wasn't born in Stalingrad. If you wanted to say "He is an alumnus of St Mary's which merged with Imperial in ..." that would be fair enough. Zargulon 10:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, what do you have against the sentence The college's official title is Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, which it used in public relations up to 2002.? Zargulon 10:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Can we please sort this out here before you go on to edit the list of alumni page.. Zargulon 10:14, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course it makes him an alumnus of Imperial. He went to St Mary's, St Mary's is part of Imperial. Where is the argument here? As for the statement about the full name, it is pointless and if it should be in the article for some minor interest then it certainly doesn't belong in the opening paragraph. I mean, who cares what the full name is? The opening paragraph should simply give an overview of the essential information.

I moved the statement about the name out of the introduction as per your request. I still disagree over the definition of an alumnus - I think it has to refer to the institution in its state when they attended it, regardless of what happened afterwards. For instance, if somone went to Hogwarts college, and afterwards Hogwarts college became defunct and completely ceased to exist, would that make them not an alumnus of anywhere? It is also certainly true that if you asked Fleming during his lifetime if he was an alumnus of Imperial (before the merger) he would have denied it, and said he was an alumnus of St Mary's.. surely the way that he defined himself should take precedence, rather than something that happened 33 years after he died. Zargulon 12:21, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

By your logic, neither HG Wells nor TH Huxley would have been alumni, as they both studied at the Royal College of Science. In fact, I think HG Wells went when it was still called The Normal School of Science. So, you've left us with... Brian May. You also forget that St Mary's no longer exists as an entity, it is simply one campus of the Imperial College School of Medicine.

I didn't know about Wells and Huxley.. I confirm that, knowing this, I wouldn't describe them as alumni of Imperial College. I am implementing a solution, tell me if it's agreeable. St Mary's certainly still exists as an entity, but, I agree, not as an independent academic institution, I'm not sure where I suggested it did. Zargulon 12:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

This is silly. These absorbed institutions are Imperial. The situation is rather unusual, but certainly not unprecedented. Manchester University, for example, was only created in 2004 on the merger of the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST. Their page rightly lists all former alumni of these two institutions as alumni of the newly created Manchester Uni. This is as it should be. They studied at what is now called Manchester, what does it matter what it was called when they went? The same applies here. These former institutions still exist as Imperial. Essentially, it amounts to a name change. My point about St Mary's is that it is Imperial.

I take your point. So is the current status of the pages acceptable, as a compromise? Zargulon 13:11, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

No.

You guys really need to get IDs and sign your edits. Zargulon 21:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Secession from the University of London

It was announced on October 5th, 2006, that the University of London had accepted Imperial's request to secede from the University and become a fully independent institution, see http://www.london.ac.uk/495.html, effective from July 2007, the College's centenary.

Surely this deserves a better mention in the article.

clubs and societies

There were way too many of these on the main page, so many have been deleted. A large list on the ICU wikipedia page would be more appropriate.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.156.220.38 (talk • contribs) 15:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

University ratings

(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities#University ratings. Timrollpickering 00:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)