Am I Still a Smart Postgraduate Student If...

I had some time to kill between the hours of queing to enrol and my department orientation so I decided to take the time to wonder around the “campus”


The Strand Campus of King’s College London consists of an attached addition to the Summerset House with a hideously ugly attached front building and a dozen attached row houses on one side, AND the attached former Strand subway station. The outside of these buildings are the same, but the inside has been cubed off into professor offices as I am quick to learn.

After spending hours in the original buildings, I thought a foray into the clustered side buildings could be fun.


I crossed a frosted glass bridge into that wing and entered a claustrophobic maze instantly. I went up a baby fight of stairs and then down another, dimly noting that the hall were narrowing like Willy Wolka’s factory.





What followed was a series of sharp twists, winding staircases, and swinging fire doors all along halls so slender that I could fan my fingers out down at my sides and still brush both walls. Only the change in side molding helped me distinguish when I was leaving one building and entering the next.

I bumbled into finding the object of my mission, the waterfront bar overlooking River Thames.

The trip back proved trickier. I thought I mentally mapped my route, but when I reached a sweeping staircase, I had no idea where I needed to go.


Working off faulty memories, I pushed through one heavy fire door after another almost bursting into a professor’s office because pop-up intersections lined with doors disoriented me. When I passed the stairs that stopped directly into the ceiling, I knew I was on the right path. At the multi-mini-stair intersection, I took the narrow stairs that wind around an old cage elevator painted bright blue, which didn’t lessen its creepiness.


Picking up speed, I almost took out a young British professor. I somehow missed the turn to the greenhouse bridge and entered a completely round room. I took old wooden steps into a tiny courtyard and made it back into the ugly front building that suddenly became a lot prettier.