Cambridge - Lifestyle Monday

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,

Friday the 16th of September 2022, for me, was definitely a day to remember because it was on this day that me and my parents went to visit the Cambridge colleges for the first time. How strange it all felt indeed, on so many levels. I have been living in Cambridge now for 16 years. I have quite literally grown up in a university city and yet, regardless of how much I have recently spoken about these colleges on my tours, I had never actually been inside any of the colleges I talked about until that day and what a wonderful experience it was. To me, anyone who has genuinely worked hard in their life to even become a candidate for such an institution, deserves all the praise they can get. Oxford and Cambridge are steeped in tradition; they will always have their students who have had these universities planned as their end destination since they were very young. But hidden amongst them, there are those have spent many hours working hard to become a candidate, and that should be appreciated just as much. I never even considered myself to be a candidate for something like this, yet there I was standing in front of Trinity College with my mum, whilst a kind lady offered to take a photo of us. Undoubtedly and understandably, there are many outcomes to consider when applying to Cambridge. It's a highly competitive and highly demanding environment for someone to be in and what matters most to a lot of people is actually getting the offer to be there which, hovewever challenging that may seem, is probably as it should be. But for that day at least, I tried to enjoy the moment and take the time to celebrate a milestone, because I know its been quite a journey for me to actually get there.

Me and my mum outside Trinity College

All in all, the day could be characterised by speaking to students, going on tours of the colleges, and lots of walking in-between. Overall, we visited 6 colleges in total: Trinity College, King's College, Clare College, Christ's College, Selwyn College, and Fitzwilliam College. Trinity and Clare were my least favourite colleges of all the ones that we visited, not necessarily because the subjects seemed poor but because the environment in these colleges didn't seem to be like the environments I wanted to be in. At Trinity, we went on a tour of the college led by one of the students there and not only did the student seem reluctant to project his voice throughout the whole of the tour, he also began to criticise every student accommodation room that we went to see. So all I learnt from his tour, apart from the party culture, was that apparently he considered all the rooms to be too small and their facilities inadequate. Personally, I thought the rooms more than enough but as my fellow river tour guide Nick at work said, after I relayed the story to him, "well, he's probably lived in a palace for all of his life." I heard that Trinity College and St John's College have an atmosphere of the privately educated and I certainly got that from Trinity. But at least there was an organised tour at Trinity because at Clare it was as if the students forgot that you were there. Me and my parents walked into Clare College and granted it was quite busy, but we had to scramble to find a group that was going on a tour and when we did, we quickly lost the tour guides and the students didn't even try to keep us all together. We got so lost in the end, we decided to quit and call it a day. 42 IB points the college was asking for, which I thought was quite unreasonable considering how little attention they seemed to pay towards prospective students.

Trinity College

Trinity Dining Hall

Trinity Chapel

Sir Isaac Newton

Clare College

However, despite this, we did meet some other students along the way who were lovely and helpful and who genuinely seemed passionate about their course, which was nice to see. Although our tour at Trinity wasn't as helpful as it perhaps could have been, we did speak to a really helpful young lady who had previously studied English at the college. It has taken me a long time to choose which subject I would be interested in studying at university and it was only recently that I decided on history. But at the time I was still torn between English and history and that lady was really helpful. From what she had said, I gathered that at Cambridge you would get to study a variety of different texts from a variety of different epoques and you would also get the chance to read and analyse Middle English. I gathered that there was a lot of reading and a lot of essay writing involved in the course (as an English student at Cambridge, you are required to write at least one essay every week), but I expected that to be the case and to be honest, you have to meet similar expectations when you study history as well. The course sounded really interesting to me at the time and to be honest, I think I would be happy studying either English or history. But I got the feeling that this lady really enjoyed what she did because she really had a passion for all types of texts. Whilst I am someone who loves to read and loves to write, I have found recently that a lot of what I read is non-fiction or seems to be based on real life events. I also know that some of the things you read in English can be quite dense and difficult to comprehend and unless you have that passion and drive to push you through, the process can be pretty unenjoyable, especially if you're then required to analyse and produce essays on multiple texts. So that was what swayed me more towards history at the time but again, I hadn't yet made an affirmative decision.

King's College, for me, was a refreshing experience. I expected King's to be a bit like Trinity since it was founded in 1441 and still retained much of its 15th century style of architecture. However, despite its age, the college had the perfect balance between old and new. When we walked into the college, we were nicely greeted by two students who took us out on a tour. One studied psychology and the other studied history. Immediately, there was a contrast between King's and Trinity. The girl who studied psychology was really friendly and the guy who studied history was really welcoming and both students projected their voices really well throughout the tour. Towards the end, I was also able to speak to the guy who studied history, which was really helpful. He said that the history course was really flexible in terms of the time periods you could study and he also said that the course spanned millenia. I could also sense a genuine passion for the subject that he studied, which was nice to see. Too often at Cambridge it seems as though students are there not because they truly love their course, but because parents or outside influences say that's where they have to be. So to see genuine passion, that you could tell came from the heart, was rather refreshing.

And also, not that I think increasing diversity in education necessarily matters, but when you see black and mixed race students in a place like King's, already there's a difference between that and Trinity.

King's College

King's Accommodation

King's College Chapel

But King's wasn't the only place that was nice. Christ's and Selwyn College were also nice places to be. After getting some food at the market and stocking up on some snacks at the shops, we then made our way to Christ's. At Christ's College, we were toured by a student who was studying history at the college. Although he seemed to be quite socially awkward, he was actually really nice to speak to and really welcoming to those who weren't as used to the Cambridge environment as some other students. He told us that he actually came from a working class family and received a grant from the university to support his studies, so he was very much empathetic to those who were in a similar position to him. He took us around the college chapel, the student accommodation, the common room, the library, and the gym. Although the accommodation itself seemed a little bit claustrophobic, you had everything that you needed as a student in those rooms and the rest of the college seemed to be lovely and open. Obviously, I asked our tour guide at the end what it was like to study history at Cambridge. Again, he seemed really passionate about his subject, which was encouraging to see. He also told me that he was able to spend a few months in Canada conducting some historical research for his dissertation. I asked if there were any opportunities to study abroad as a history student and he said that the university is really willing to fund trips abroad if they see its worthwhile for your research. This was a huge positive for me because I think it would be nice for me to do something abroad during my studies as well. But what I was most impressed with at Christ's as well as Selwyn College, was the focus on mental health. Before I went to visit the Cambridge colleges, I very much associated the university as lacking in focusing on the students' mental wellbeing. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Christ's College, because our tour guide told us that he was a member of the college's student council and he tries to play an avid part in improving students' mental wellbeing. Similarly at Selwyn College, we took a tour around the college by a Chinese girl studying linguistics. Not only was she incredibly friendly towards us and also passionate about her subject, I also liked that she said to us that she actually enjoys cooking at the end of a busy day, because she felt that it was good for the mind. To me this showed that the college really did care about its students, which made me feel quite relieved.

Ostrich Burger from the Market

Christ's College

Selwyn College

Selwyn College Chapel

The last college that we visited during the day was Fitzwilliam College, one of the newest colleges in the city. At first, I was quite sceptical about visiting one of the newer colleges, because I didn't think it would have the same studious environments that the older colleges we saw had. And yes, Fitzwilliam certainly had a different atmosphere to it but it was a lot more calm and relaxed and overall, me and my parents were both pleasantly surprised. We were toured around the college by an English student who had just finished her degree, and was considering going on to do a masters at the college. She took us around the college where we were able to view the accommodation, chapel, library, gardens, and buttery. We were all pleasantly surprised to see fresh fruit and vegetables growing in the college gardens. My mum asked what happens to the fruit and vegetables when they are ready for harvest. She told us that they are mostly put in the meals that are served to the students in the buttery but if there are some left over, they are also distributed out to the students. When we went to Trinity College, we were actually told that that there are no stoves allowed in the student kitchens because the college wants to try and encourage you to eat in the dining hall with the other students. However, I liked the sound of Fitzwilliam because not only do they want you to eat well in the dining hall, they clearly also recognise the importance of cooking on a student's mental health, so they encourage you to cook as well. I very much preferred this ethos. At the end of the tour, I asked our guide about what it was like to study English at Cambridge. Similarly to what that young lady at Trinity told us, you will study a range of texts from a range of time periods and you're expected to write 1-2 essays a week based on what you're reading and studying. However, she also told us that for her final dissertation, she actually wrote a piece that combined her two passions, English and music. She told us that she was heavily involved in the college's orchestra as a lead singer and she therefore wanted to write an English dissertation that expressed this passion as well. I was surprised by how creative you were allowed to be as an English student. As someone who likes academics and the arts, I certainly saw Fitzwilliam as a fantastic place for someone like me to be in.

Fitzwilliam College

At the end of the day, we were so tired from all that walking that we practically hobbled our way back to Aldi where my sister had dropped by to kindly give us a lift back. I certainly had a few blisters on my feet by the time I got home and to be honest, I was still left scratching my head, pondering about what my next steps would be. Should I apply or should I not? That was the big question at the time. My parents encouraged me to sleep on the decision and see how I felt the next day, as they saw me stressing through pages of different leaflets that I had been given by students that day. It took me a few nights to think about it, it was certainly not a decision to be made lightly considering how committed you needed to be to get in, but in the end, I found myself writing that essential personal statement just in time for the 15th of October hand in. After much deliberation, history was my final choice because I knew it would be something that I would enjoy doing the most. However, I chose to apply to Fitzwilliam College because I had such a great tour with that enthusiastic English student, she certainly made us feel at home! I also reached out to my sixth form for help with my Cambridge application and they agreed to assist me, which I am forever grateful for.

I still have written work to hand in and potentially that foreboding interview to do, should I get shortlisted for it, but to be honest, I'm just happy that I'm taking a risk for once and actually giving it a go. As a rather introverted person, doing all of this is very much against my default position. But this is what this gap year is all about, trying new things and giving it all a go. If it works out, that's great and if it doesn't, there will always be something else out there for me and I probably would have learnt something from the experience as well.

Anyway, I am now off to visit Durham University which will be my back up option if all goes to pots at Cambridge. A full post about this will be up soon, so stay tuned!

Have you been to any university open days? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!

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See you next time,

Bye,

XOX, Juliette

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