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Cambridge Modern and Medieval Languages (MML) Students and Applicants

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Reply 1560
Original post by -raisa
This is the 2012 MML offer holders' group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/302312506471213/

Oh don't be so pessimistic! What are your offer conditions?


Thank you! I've just requested to join :smile:

Um, it's A* in French and then AB in in the others. It's the french grade i'm wah about, but yeah, fingers crossed :smile:
Got into the Sutton Trust Summer School for MML. Really looking forward to it!
Original post by Buongiorno
Got into the Sutton Trust Summer School for MML. Really looking forward to it!


Congratulations! Where is that being held? I'm sure you'll love it...I went on a summer school run by one of the Cambridge colleges the summer after lower 6th (a long time ago now) and I had such a great time that I applied for MML because of that (well, you can't get much better than sitting outside on the grass on a hot summer's day reading Flaubert...:wink:).

If you have any questions about applying for MML or about Cambridge, just give us a shout :smile:
Original post by Crazy_emz
Congratulations! Where is that being held? I'm sure you'll love it...I went on a summer school run by one of the Cambridge colleges the summer after lower 6th (a long time ago now) and I had such a great time that I applied for MML because of that (well, you can't get much better than sitting outside on the grass on a hot summer's day reading Flaubert...:wink:).

If you have any questions about applying for MML or about Cambridge, just give us a shout :smile:


Thank you! :smile: I will be staying at St John's. I feel so lucky, it hasn't really sunk in yet though, but I feel so motivated to do well in my exams.
Just wondering if you can you obtain a degree in MML without the year abroad? Do they allow you to skip it if you are pregnant?
Thanks.
Original post by Shopaholic8
Just wondering if you can you obtain a degree in MML without the year abroad? Do they allow you to skip it if you are pregnant?
Thanks.


The only person I've ever known who skipped the year abroad (apart from people who changed Tripos after Part IB and so weren't candidates for MML Part II) was someone who had just got married and was also bilingual in the language she was studying. I'm not saying that it's not possible, just that it's very very rare, and would probably be judged case by case. You should really talk to your DoS and to the Year Abroad Office about this.

Best of luck!
Reply 1566
Hi all
This is going to sound stupid but..............
My son has an offer for 2013 for mml at caius which is obviously great but....
We are a very working class family from Durham and he is the first student in the history of his comprehensive secondary school to have an offer for Cambridge.
My wife and I are concerned that he will not" fit in " even though he is,i 'm sure, accademicaly suitable.
He also had an unconditional offer from Durham but is relishing the oppurtunity which Cambridge offers. The concern that I have is will his working class background be held against him?

Thanks
Gary and Hazel ( very proud but concerned parents )
Original post by thompa
Hi all
This is going to sound stupid but..............
My son has an offer for 2013 for mml at caius which is obviously great but....
We are a very working class family from Durham and he is the first student in the history of his comprehensive secondary school to have an offer for Cambridge.
My wife and I are concerned that he will not" fit in " even though he is,i 'm sure, accademicaly suitable.
He also had an unconditional offer from Durham but is relishing the oppurtunity which Cambridge offers. The concern that I have is will his working class background be held against him?

Thanks
Gary and Hazel ( very proud but concerned parents )


This is a concern that a lot of parents and students have before coming to Cambridge, and one that my own parents had for me (I was the first in a long time to get a Cambridge offer from my comprehensive, although I'm from London rather than Durham). I can assure you that you and your son have nothing to worry about :smile: There are some horror stories, but I know of nobody personally who has had a bad experience, and most people find that they fit in better at Cambridge than they did at their old school. I have loved being at Cambridge because I've been surrounded by people who are exactly like me; regardless of our differing backgrounds, accents and incomes we all love learning and we love our subjects. That is the way that we've made it to Cambridge, and he will start in freshers week on an even footing with everyone else because everybody deserves to be there, regardless of where they've come from.

I've never been looked down on by anybody because of my background, and I didn't find myself being particularly aware of my friends' backgrounds in first year - I just knew we had things in common that had nothing to do with where we'd come from! So please don't worry, he will fit in just fine :smile: My time at Cambridge has been the best experience of my life and has opened so many doors for me going forward, which I'm sure it will do for your son as well. I hope that helps, but feel free to ask any more specific questions if you have them :smile:
Reply 1568
Hi,
As a parent of a future mml student I would like to know more about the year abroad.
Do the colleges arrange this?
Do you have to arrange your own accomadation?
Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
Reply 1569
Thanks for the reply, it is really appreciated.
Are you still studying?
Can you explain to me how the year living abroad works?
If you have time and you don't mind could you please just tell us know, in as much detail as possible ,about life and studying at Cambridge.
Our son has no hang ups about Cambridge by the way and is really looking forward to it but we are a little concerned about the financial differnces between our son and the other more "normal/richer" students.

Thanks again for your reply.

Gary
Original post by thompa
Thanks for the reply, it is really appreciated.
Are you still studying?
Can you explain to me how the year living abroad works?
If you have time and you don't mind could you please just tell us know, in as much detail as possible ,about life and studying at Cambridge.
Our son has no hang ups about Cambridge by the way and is really looking forward to it but we are a little concerned about the financial differnces between our son and the other more "normal/richer" students.

Thanks again for your reply.

Gary


I'm about to sit my final exams, so I'm only a student for another couple of months.

What you do on your year abroad largely depends on your languages. For European languages (so French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese) you have the option of doing an Erasmus scheme, which means that you become an exchange student at a foreign university. If you do that, you aren't charged for your fees for the year, and you get a grant from the EU (I think). You can also join a scheme run by the British Council, where you become a language assistant teaching English in a school in your country of choice. Again, for that, you don't need to pay any university fees for the year and you get a grant of some description, and possibly a salary as well. I didn't do either of those because I wanted to go to Russia, which isn't covered under either scheme. If you don't go abroad under one of those schemes you have to pay half of your fees for the year, which is what I did (but that's covered under your student fee loan). If you don't want to either go on Erasmus or British Council, or you want to go to Russia, your options are to either volunteer for an organisation or get a job. Generally you need some sort of funds to volunteer, so I had a very decent job working as a translator at a big international law firm in Moscow for the year. They paid for my flat, flights and visa and also paid me. The year abroad is probably one of the most valuable things I've ever done, and while I didn't love every single minute of it and found it very difficult at times it was wholly worthwhile and I would do it all over again if I had the chance.

Life and studying is quite a big thing to cover! I'll try to be thorough. Studying takes up most of your time, without question. In MML we don't have loads and loads of lectures and classes per week, so people have to spend a lot of time working along, either in libraries or in their rooms. The work is hard and there is a lot of it, but you do usually find some kind of balance during your degree. People tend to work a lot during the day and have the evenings a bit more free, at least in first year, but there are always people who keep odd hours (I work best between 10pm and 2am, for example). The nice thing about Cambridge is that nobody looks down on you or complains at you for working hard - everybody knows that studying is very important. However, that doesn't mean that we don't have any fun. Most people have a pretty active social life, and being in a college can make it a lot easier to make friends with lots of different people, because it's a smaller group and you become a bit like a family. There are also lots of societies and sports clubs, and people tend to become friends within their subject groups as well. Some of my best friends are the people who I've studied Russian with since first year! Life is pretty normal I think (although we have more work than the average student). I don't really know what to say about it! I watch a lot of TV and read, I eat lunch with my friends, go to the college bar in the evenings, go out for a drink or to a club sometimes (although not as frequently as I did in first year), have people up to my room for chats and things. Cambridge is a really nice city to live in because everything is so close, so it's really easy to find fun things to do if you are so inclined. If I start going into too much detail I'll write forever and I have an essay to do, but if you have any more specific questions about life here then please go ahead!

As regards finance, you really don't need to worry. If your son qualifies for any extra maintenance grant because of your family income then Cambridge will essentially match that with their own bursary, meaning that he'll have more than enough to live on. I don't qualify for any extra support, so I live on the minimum student loan with a small monthly top up from family members, so I think it comes out at just under £6500 a year for everything, which is more than enough for me. College rents tend to be fairly cheap - much cheaper than if you were renting privately. College food is subsidised, so also tends to be cheap. I don't know very many specifics about Caius, but I do know they have some kind of meal ticketing system. Either way, it won't be excessively pricey. I definitely have the least money out of all of my close friends, but I rarely notice it except for when they're jetting off for nice holidays with their families! I do have to be frugal and budget, but I never feel like I'm trailing behind and I rarely have to say no to things because I don't have enough money, as everybody lives very cheaply here. It's also worth mentioning that even the richest students are stingy with their money so it's not like people are just splashing it around - my friends will only order pizza or go out for dinner if we can find some sort of special offer or discount online. So it's pretty easy to keep up, and I've never felt like it was a problem at all :smile: Again, this was something that my parents were very concerned about and they've been pleasantly surprised by how cheap everything is and how little I've felt the difference. I'd say the only time I really notice it is when my boyfriend buys me much more expensive birthday presents than I could afford to buy for him, but I can't complain about that too much!

Hope that helps :smile: If you have more specific questions then keep asking them, I'm happy to continue to answer!
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 1571
Wow,
Thats great that you have spent so much time answering our queries.
Thankyou very much,especially since you are doing your final exams,and we hope you get great marks.
My son is very intrested in Russia even though he will be studying French and German so that info is really useful.
Thanks again! You have been a great help:smile:
Reply 1572
Sorry to be a pain but could you clarify ,
Does the university have a variety of placements for the year abroad or do students have to source there own.
Thanks again

Gary
Original post by thompa
Sorry to be a pain but could you clarify ,
Does the university have a variety of placements for the year abroad or do students have to source there own.
Thanks again

Gary


The Erasmus and British council placements are organised through the university, but otherwise you have to fend for yourself. However, a lot of the departments have contacts in various companies, and there's also a year abroad database with all the placements and contacts from previous students' years abroad. I know a couple of people who found things through that.
Reply 1574
Thanks again.
I shall not bother you again

Gary
Original post by thompa
Thanks again.
I shall not bother you again

Gary


No problem, and it's no bother - just let me know if you have any more questions, I'm happy to help out :smile:
Hi guys :smile: So basically, I've got an offer to read MML (French and Spanish) at Cambridge in October, and I've just got round to looking at this reading list malarkey. Spanish is being updated, so I won't get a chance to look at it until June, but I was wondering if anyone who does/did French could help me out.

My letter says that I have to have some (or all...eep!) of the texts read by October, which is grand. But realistically, the text I want to read first is the text we'll be studying first, so I was wondering what one ought I go for first...Zola? Or Montesquieu...so confused!

Thanks :biggrin:
Original post by Catherine.
Hi guys :smile: So basically, I've got an offer to read MML (French and Spanish) at Cambridge in October, and I've just got round to looking at this reading list malarkey. Spanish is being updated, so I won't get a chance to look at it until June, but I was wondering if anyone who does/did French could help me out.

My letter says that I have to have some (or all...eep!) of the texts read by October, which is grand. But realistically, the text I want to read first is the text we'll be studying first, so I was wondering what one ought I go for first...Zola? Or Montesquieu...so confused!

Thanks :biggrin:


Hi Catherine. I'm a final year MML student and when I did French lit in first year (some of the same texts as you'll be doing but also some different ones) we worked backwards chronologically in supervisions, so starting with the most recent text (which would be either the film, or the Zola). The Zola wasn't a text when I did the paper, but I would imagine that it would be more enjoyable to read than the Montesquieu (which is basically a polemic disguised as an epistolary novel...it grew on me in the end :wink:).

You might also find this link useful: http://www.mml.cam.ac.uk/french/courses/ugrad/advice.html

Enjoy the books :smile: It's great that you're starting to read now, it will definitely make life a lot easier for you next year.
Reply 1578
Hi
Could you please explain to me what type of things take place in freshers week.
As a parent of a mml student I am interested in the types of activities and clubs which will be made available for my son.
He has an a* a a offer for mml at caius.
We are not a well off family incidentally,will this matter during freshers week?


Thanks
Gary
Original post by thompa
Hi
Could you please explain to me what type of things take place in freshers week.
As a parent of a mml student I am interested in the types of activities and clubs which will be made available for my son.
He has an a* a a offer for mml at caius.
We are not a well off family incidentally,will this matter during freshers week?


Thanks
Gary


Hi again :smile:

Freshers week is actually more like freshers three days, as the teaching term does start very quickly. Your son will be placed with a 'college family', consisting of two 'parents' from older years who will help him to get his bearings and probably some siblings as well, who will be other freshers. Pretty much all freshers week activities will take place in college. In my freshers week we had things like scavenger hunts, pub quizzes and dinners, and then also evening things, like club nights and college bops (fancy dress parties in the college bar). The clubs in Cambridge aren't amazing but they're good fun in freshers week. There's no pressure to drink if he doesn't want to, and a lot of people are teetotal when they start at Cambridge (and the whole way through!), but if he does want to drink there will obviously be opportunities for that! There will also be a lot of talks he'll have to go to about the academic side of things, and introductions to college life.

The finances shouldn't affect him. As I said before, if he qualifies for a maintenance grant then he'll qualify for an equal amount of Cambridge bursary, which means he won't struggle for money. Even if he doesn't, nothing in Cambridge is very expensive, and most of the freshers week activities will be inside college and free. He won't get left behind - people don't go out and spend hundreds of pounds! Everything is done very cheaply :smile:

The only thing that he will have to pay for in freshers week is his gown. He'll need one for matriculation (which is like formally becoming a member of the college). These can be quite expensive if you buy them new (around £50), but there are often second hand ones available for quite a bit cheaper when you arrive at college.

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