One of the key differences at Imperial was a higher emphasis on independent learning. At MIT, though self-driven studying has been important, I was very much used to a collaborative environment and strong support network of professors, TAs, and other students. The contact time for classes at Imperial were only 1 or 2 lectures a week (at least for my year 3 and 4 classes). No recitations, no (or few classes with) scheduled lab sessions, minimally available office hours. This encourages students to do most of their learning and reinforcement of concepts on their own time, which is why the library was always packed and almost impossible to find a seat in during the day!
I did enjoy the breadth of classes offered in my departments (EEE, and by extension, CS). There weren’t hard prerequisites for the most part, since everyone takes the same classes in Year 1 and 2, so I did have the opportunity to try my hand at different things pretty easily if I wanted to.
