Imperial students will be required to take a social skills module

This is an April Fools article and all contents are fabricated. 

Imperial will be introducing a new creditless module called Social Dexterity to help students reintegrate into a post-pandemic society.

This compulsory module will be implemented from the start of the next academic year and will be continued indefinitely for all first-years after.

The module hinges on “life skills” lessons taught in secondary school, covering subjects such as appropriate conversational topics, writing professional and personal emails, dealing with peer pressure, and others.

The module will be available to all students on My Imperial starting this fall

Alice Gast, President of Imperial College London, said: “Considering our focus on STEM subjects, we understand that many Imperial students begin university deficient in certain life skills and pop culture references that could prevent them from enjoying themselves to the fullest.

“While this has always been an issue, the past few years have taken an additional toll on our students’ social development. So, even though this module may seem arbitrary, we want to cover topics that may have been glossed over in secondary schools as students strive to become future scientists and engineers.

“Recently, we conducted a survey – 52 per cent of Imperial students did not know how to run a washing machine before joining our university,” she mentioned.

Over 1,000 Imperial students were polled in this survey, which found that a shocking 83 per cent of students did not participate in Freshers’ Week events and another 26 per cent had never visited Camden before their second year.

Our FOI request only granted us access to the first segment of Imperial’s survey results

Structured over 1o weeks, the module is loosely modelled after Social Skills Training (SST) strategies. It includes material aiming to help students “adapt their style to enhance each and every personal interaction” and develop emotional intelligence and the “confidence to handle a wide range of difficult and demanding situations more effectively.”

Imperial’s Board of Directors issued a statement to The London Tab: “Due to the disciplinary inclination of Imperial College, staff have always been given professional SST, and we have decided to extend this opportunity to students.

“The module will be offered entirely online and will not be examined. However, students will be required to finish short quizzes after every module segment to ensure that they have completed the module.”

Imperial College’s Student Liaison Officer, Dr Yasmin Andrew said: “We believe that academic and social life should exist simultaneously for all Imperial students, and we hope the introduction of Social Dexterity as a mandatory module will improve the overall quality of social interactions amongst students and staff on campus.

“Additionally, we hope students will set out to improve the images associated with Imperial College in terms of socialisation once they’ve developed a more informed and amicable social personality through this module.”

Talks have been held at King’s and LSE to introduce a similar, non-compulsory module as part of their welfare resources, but they have yet to implement it.

Imperial is expected to release more information about this module tomorrow.

Make sure to check the date!

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