Welcome to London and Imperial College!

My name is Markéta and I’m writing to you on behalf of Imperial College ERASMUS Club. We hope to make sure that your time in London is filled with new and exciting experiences and that you build up new friendships along the way.

The purpose of this letter is to give you an insight into the opportunities that ERASMUS Club can offer you at Imperial. There are a few things I’d like to let you know about including how the club is related to the college, what we do, our events and how to get in touch with us.

1) ERASMUS Club and Imperial College Union.

There are over 15,000 students at Imperial who, as well as studying, enjoy a dynamic social life which often revolves around the Student Union. Imperial College Union (ICU) is the student body and aims to cater for the non-academic side of life at university including all clubs and societies.

The ERASMUS Club was set up 16 years ago specifically for exchange and other visiting students coming to Imperial from abroad – students like you! Erasmus, for those of you from beyond Europe, is the EU Commission’s student exchange programme. We are also a member of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), a network of ERASMUS students spanning over 490 universities in 37 countries.

You can become a member of any of the 300 clubs and societies at Imperial – find out more here. As there are so many clubs to choose from, the union holds an event called “Freshers’ Fair” at the start of every year (we call new students ‘freshers’). This is when all of the clubs and societies promote themselves to attract new members. This year, it’s being held on Tuesday 6th October.

2) What the Erasmus club does throughout the year.

The main aim of ERASMUS Club is to welcome you to Imperial College and to London. We’re not an academic club, we simply want to provide you with the opportunity to meet new people, get to know each other and have fun! We’ll host numerous events and trips throughout the year that will help you make the most of your time here in the UK. Our committee has 5 members who have taken part in a student exchange and so we understand what it is like for you to be living abroad.

We have already planned some events for the first term, many of which will take part in the first few weeks. More details about these are coming in section 4 of this letter. We also welcome any suggestions that you may have; we are, after all, here to make your time here as good as it can possibly be! Please don’t be shy, feel free to tell us what you would like us to organise.

We are also offering a buddy programme, in which each exchange student can be paired up with a local student, who will help introduce you to the college, the city and to integrate into the local culture and lifestyle. If you want to take part in this, please register on this website.

This year we are also planning to introduce language programmes, through which you will be able to start learning a new language from local or exchange students and also teach them about your own culture and language. Keep an eye out for this; more information will come soon via our mailing list and social media!

3) How to join us and keep in touch

Make sure that you stay in contact and keep up to date with all the things we have planned...

  • BECOME A MEMBER of our club! You can do this on our page at the Imperial College Union website, which you can access through this link. You will need to log in using your Imperial username/password. Membership costs just £5 and, by becoming a member, you will benefit from discounted entrance prices to many of our events throughout the year, free entry to our Mingle on the Roof, the possibility to attend ESN trips to Edinburgh and Amsterdam, discounts from our partners (as well as local partners in London) and many other perks.
     
  • If you have any questions about life at Imperial, London or anything else, feel free to e-mail us at erasmus@imperial.ac.uk. We can help with loads of questions or direct you to the people who can give you the answers that you’re looking for.
     
  • Join our e-mail news list; you can do that by entering your email address in this form, or by e-mailing us at erasmus@imperial.ac.uk (please write “mailing list request” in the subject), or by signing up by hand at one of our freshers’ events.
     
  • If you’re on Facebook, make sure that you join our official Facebook group to be the first to hear about our events and meet other Imperial exchange students! You can also “like” the Imperial College Erasmus Club page
     
  • If Twitter is more your thing, you can find us at @ESNImperial
     

We hope that you enjoy your time at Imperial and in London; take care moving in! In the meantime, if you have any questions about anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask one of the committee at erasmus@imperial.ac.uk