James Cooper

Hello everyone,

My name is James Cooper, known as Jac to many of you, and I am running for Academic Officer (Years 1, 2, GEP).

Education is the reason that we are all at medical school – we want to learn to become the best doctors. The Academic officer’s job is to interact with student and staff representatives to ensure this happens. Consequently, they need to be able to identify with three groups to balance the needs of each: students, lecturing staff and organizational staff.

As a student I can recognize these needs, and my experience teaching younger students in and out of Imperial has given me insight into teachers’ roles. My time as Boat Club’s Sponsorship Secretary and as my school’s House Captain has shown me the difficulties of management. The latter has also taught me to associate these aspects like the Student Staff Liaison Group does.

If elected, I will:
Keep our online resources up to date rigorously and chase up lecturers for slides
Strive to increase the amount of available PMSA and other assessment available (something I am already involved in)
Be available and approachable to hear your view all the time
Work along the excellent GradMed society to help deal with the specific needs of the GEP course
Publicise SOLE and try to make it more continuous than currently
Develop mentoring and tutoring schemes and tutor topics myself if nobody else can

For more information, see http://twentyplusjuan.blogspot.com/
Vote Jac and I won’t stop until it’s perfect.

Rahul Ravindran

To put it simply, I am running for Academic Officer because I am passionate about education.

I have several ideas I want to take action on:

• Many people have complained about lack of exam practice. I would organise mock exams with example questions and give feedback sessions on this so students know what to expect when it comes to exam time.

• I want to spend this summer compiling as many notes and example questions as possible. Furthermore, I will organise these into one complete set because people often get repeats that are difficult to navigate.

• By the time feedback is collected it’s always too late to make changes for that year group – I will strive to ask each year group what their views are, ahead of the next year, so hopefully it will be adjusted before they come to that year.

• I want to facilitate the work of other excellent societies, for example Surgical Society and Muslim Medics, and publicise their educational opportunities to everyone.

Over the past two years as Year Representative I have worked closely with the past two Academic Officers, Gaya and Ali, and so I have a thorough understanding of the job and will adapt quickly to the new role.

I hope those of you who know me have found me an approachable and friendly person because these are essential skills in becoming your future Academic Officer.

Steven Tran

Hey!
My name is Steve Tran and I’m running for Academic Officer for Years 1, 2 and Graduate Entry. I’ve been driven to this role by my dedication for better education and better support, which developed whilst being a Year Rep for Year 1 and 2. Having spoken to the years and graduates, there are the two areas that I want to address:

FEEDBACK
This is improving the communication between the faculty and students by:

✔ Looking into solutions to improve SOLE
✔ Setting up a regularly updated FAQ page to see what changes have occurred to YOUR course.
✔ Refining Year Reps’ Duties
✔ Holding termly open forums for students to voice their opinion

RESOURCES
As well as maintaining our high academic standards at Imperial, I want to also provide support for all to reach clinical years by:

✔ Expanding the availability of learning resources and tutorials
✔ Pushing for better and more standardized course-guides especially LSS, LCRS & PPP
✔ Looking into the issues surrounding personalized timetables; and getting lectures slides up before lectures
✔Pushing for proportionately given exam questions and result breakdown/feedback
✔ Looking into piloting a scheme to increase early clinical exposure with the help of Outpatients

My experiences in RAG (publicity officer & co-organising ValBall) and in the Summer Ball committee will be invaluable in fulfilling the principal role as a student union officer.

Be assured that my experience and dedication will empower me to advocate for you next year.

Vote Steve Tran!
www.votestevetran.com

Ken Wu

Time is everything.
Hi everyone! My name is Ken Wu and I am running for Academic Officer for Years 1,2 and GEP.

As your academic officer, I will ensure that there will be a better management of the Year 1,2 and GEP timetable, therefore freeing up valuable time for studying, for hobbies and of course for fun!

This will include:
• The creation of a Reading Week. The average ICSM Year 1 and 2 timetable has more than 100 hours of ‘free time’ (I did calculate!), which will gives more than enough time for a week of catching-up/getting ahead.
• Shorten the 2 hour lunch breaks and finish afternoon lectures earlier.
• A better ‘rotations’ scheme with more consistency amongst tutors and anatomy demonstrators.
• A properly timetabled, student-led tutorial system, avoiding any clashes and guaranteeing that students struggling with a particular topic can receive the help they need.

With extra time, anything is possible therefore I will:
• Advocate more prizes that recognise extra-curricular and academic achievement.
• Implement more exam practice, especially mock exams.
• Integrate the GEP into the ICSM community
As news editor of ‘the medicalstudent’ newspaper, I have an unique position in being able to liaise with all 5 London medical schools and can incorporate their advantages with those of ICSM to further maintain Imperial as one of the best medical schools in the world.

Of course I will always be available to hear your views and concerns.

Remember, time is everything! Vote for Ken!

Chengyuan Zhang

Hello!

I feel I’ve been a dedicated and proactive year rep. I’ve already sent over 200 emails chasing up lecturers for slides, expressed our views at student-staff meetings, arranged to meet lecturers to obtain course material and been on the phone about urgent timetabling issues. This experience and having worked alongside the current Academic Officer means I know what to expect should I get elected into this position.

We’re all sick and tired of our lecture slides not making it onto the intranet promptly. I will ensure that your year reps attempt to obtain our slides at the end of every lecture on a USB stick. This way, our slides will often go up on the same day, if not the next day. Long waits for lecture slides isn’t fair on you guys when you’re trying to stay on top of work.

I will make student-staff meetings completely transparent. I’ll make it easier for you to give course feedback. I spent a lot of time over summer writing 30 SAQs and EMQs for the mock exam Question Bank. I will include GEP in this and expand it. I will organise revision lectures and tutorials. I will make it easier for you to download past lecture slides. I will run drop-in clinics and make myself as approachable as possible. Together, we can make our course better.

Have a browse of my blog athttp://icmedic.blogspot.com/. I’ve been told it’s an interesting read and my full manifesto is also there. Check it out!