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Never met anyone like that. But then, there's about 20,000 students here, bound to be a few who are at least implicitly like that *cough* John's *cough*.

Gotta feel for the Johnians and Girtonians though, must get a bit tiresome hearing the same jokes over and over.

Funnily enough, one of the idiots I mentioned earlier was at John's...... :tongue:

Reply 7381

Serine Soul

Original post by Camilli

Some years ago, I took a tour of the University with a Stephen Fry-lookalike, and he said that one morning his flatmate (a science person) came back from breakfast absolutely crushed. Apparently, he'd been the only one in the queue for coffee who didn't have a Nobel.

Christ...

Reply 7382

Serine Soul

Original post by vincrows

Funnily enough, one of the idiots I mentioned earlier was at John's...... :tongue:

It's always John's!
The only thing I hope to have to do with them is their mayballs :tongue:

Reply 7383

username1865079

Original post by Thomb

Well the guy who I knew was a bit messed up by his family and had some serious issues with them. The girl was finding it really difficult to cope with getting low grades and I was messed up at the time having just got out of hospital. It was a crazy house.

TBH you refreshed my memory. I think it was summer when I moved in then we had freshers stuff, I think he did some work during that year and finished oh I can't remember LoL He got his grades capped anyway. I remember him being really down about it and I was in another world enjoying the sparkling wine strawberries punting and then the freshers free booze and so on... :biggrin:

You get the picture.

Enjoy the memory lane. :smile:

Reply 7384

username1865079

Original post by Serine Soul

It's always John's!
The only thing I hope to have to do with them is their mayballs :tongue:

But other John's I know are (more or less) normal.
In fact, one of them was the humblest and friendliest person I've ever met. He chose John's to do PhD because they were most generous with financial aid (he's from a not-well-off family in a faraway country) , so having too much money can be a good thing...................sometimes........ :tongue:

My daughter treated herself with the John's May Balls in the final year, but she did half/half-thingy (half-price ticket for working as a catering staff in one half of the time and enjoying as a guest the rest) as theirs is so expensive!!

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 7385

Rhetorical Hips

Original post by vincrows

Funnily enough, one of the idiots I mentioned earlier was at John's...... :tongue:

Ah well I don't know anyone there all that well so I won't judge :smile:

In response to the other thread - doing fine, just trying to cram an entire year's worth of revision + teach myself any lectures I missed in 2 and a bit weeks. Fun times!

And that's just for the MCQs. Don't get me started on essays... urgh

Reply 7386

Thomb

Original post by vincrows

Enjoy the memory lane. :smile:

It makes me want to get in even more having been an observer from the outside. :u:

Reply 7387

username1865079

Original post by Rhetorical Hips

Ah well I don't know anyone there all that well so I won't judge :smile:

I see you're enjoying a full-on life. :tongue:

Reply 7388

username2324315

What is HSPS like at Cambridge? Is it very competitive? If anyone does it or knows someone who does, if you could please tell me everything about it. There aren't that many online posts about this course so I don't really know the in's ans out's about HSPS.

Reply 7389

Serine Soul

Original post by vincrows

Yeah, I'm sure they're all generally lovely. I read somewhere that the college is offering like £10k bursary a year for students from low income backgrounds :lol:

I know what I'll be saving up for every year if I meet my offer! :redface:

The wound from missing my school prom still hasn't healed...

Reply 7390

The Wavefunction

Original post by jneill

- it's Cambridge...

Thanks for the information.

Can you just expand a little on that? Surely research is research, no?

Reply 7391

Doones

Original post by The Wavefunction

Thanks for the information.

Can you just expand a little on that? Surely research is research, no?

Ah, you didn't specify it was a research PG... all I know is any research pg is pretty intense anywhere :wink:

Maybe check in to the PG forum and ask the guys there:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=100

Specifically http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3533661

Reply 7392

Krollo

Original post by Serine Soul

Yeah, I'm sure they're all generally lovely. I read somewhere that the college is offering like £10k bursary a year for students from low income backgrounds :lol:

I know what I'll be saving up for every year if I meet my offer! :redface:

The wound from missing my school prom still hasn't healed...

I'm going to be missing mine... Sad times

Such are the costs of IPhO. Should never have left maths.

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Reply 7393

Serine Soul

Original post by Krollo

I'm going to be missing mine... Sad times

Such are the costs of IPhO. Should never have left maths.

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Don't worry you can go to 30+ May Balls, numerous other formals and all sorts once you're at Cambridge!

How come you didn't apply to NatSci? (Or are you thinking of Maths with Physics?)

Reply 7394

The Wavefunction

Original post by jneill

Ah, you didn't specify it was a research PG... all I know is any research pg is pretty intense anywhere :wink:

Maybe check in to the PG forum and ask the guys there:
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=100

Specifically http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3533661

Hopefully I'll have my masters in the bag by then! Haha, so I've heard. They're no picnick.

Thanks for that!

Reply 7395

sedqr

As an incoming arts students (subject to meeting my offer), I just wanted to get a bit of a flavour of what's to come.I know that I am incredibly lucky to be in a position to learn from the best and engage in intriguing, high-quality material. However, to what extent, at Cambridge, does the quantity of work overwhelm the "goodness" of one's engagement with the material? I have heard a lot about (sorry to generalize) many science students having a bad time struggling to keep their heads above water, but also those who genuinely enjoy their subjects not being able to get the best out of the materials because it is vast. Is this the case for many arts students too?

Reply 7396

username2015015

it seems to be quite a niche subject but does anyone on this thread do linguistics at cam? it would be really good to talk to someone who actually does the subject rather than trying to base my expectations on MML students or english lit students! also, at the open day I didn't get a great vibe from the actual town (city?) of Cambridge, so could I get a perspective on what the atmosphere is and what it's like outside of colleges?

Reply 7397

Lewjjj

I'm applying to Caius! :biggrin:

Reply 7398

Doones

Original post by Lewjjj

I'm applying to Caius! :biggrin:

You probably want this thread instead....

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3164815
The Official 2017 Cambridge Applicants Thread

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Reply 7399

emma.368

I have just finished my three year course at Cambridge and I really want to say to prospective students don't ever feel like you have to go there if you got an offer. I never truly felt I chose to go to Cambridge (first my teachers were saying you might be able to get in, give it a go, then when I got an offer everyone seemed to say well you can't turn down an offer from Cambridge) and although I have had some amazing times at Cambridge and met some incredible people I don't think I would choose to go there if I knew then what I know now, and many of my friends have said the same.

The workload is manageable in a sense, in that most people do manage to get it done, but generally at the cost of all but minimal free time. Yes, most people do have time to participate in some club, society or sport, but for most people throughout their degree (and certainly for me as a humanities student where there was always more reading to be done) there was never a point where I didn't have some work I should be getting on with, guilt-free relaxation is rare when you are at Cambridge. The standard of work expected and the sheer amount of it means that the three years are near enough constant hard work with deadline after deadline and the holidays not being much rest either.

Then, and I think this is by far the worst part, despite the hard-work there is no guarantee it will pay off. This could be shown in the feedback from your supervision work because the supervisors expect such high standards, or worse still in the end of year exams. They don't publicise this fact but in many subjects (if not all) they do have quotas for grades. This means that although an entire year group in a subject are some of the top students in the country a certain proportion of them have to get lower grades such as a 2.2 even if compared to students nationally they would still be some of the top. This can have a big impact for future employment with many graduate schemes or further education looking objectively at the grades and requiring a 2.1 or above, even if that 2.1 was harder to get at some places than others. Because of the demand for constant hard work and the limited positive feedback it is probably no surprise that mental health is a major problem at Cambridge.

On the other hand, I would like to argue against the stereotype of Cambridge students being elitist and snobby. I have never come across anyone looking down on other people because of the type of school they went to or how much money they have. During Freshers Week (NB: not a full week) I don't think I ever heard anyone talking about anything like that and for several months I had no idea what type of schools my friends had been to. Now in our group of friends we have people who went to a full range of schools from state and grammar schools (like me) to some of the poshest boys' schools in the country and we never even think about it. That isn't to say there are no people who look down on others because of their background in Cambridge but they are few in number, tend to keep quiet and are very easy to avoid. But it is possible this varies between colleges - rumour and stereotype has it that Trinity and St. Johns are worse for this than most other colleges, but the people I have met from there have been very nice. Furthermore, there are generous grants available such as the Cambridge Bursary for general living costs for those from poorer households or grants that are not means tested for specific things such as help with travel to sports matches or to help you fund research for your dissertation - but this does vary between colleges.

This has turned into a bit of an essay but I wanted to give some honest, informed advice on aspects of Cambridge I think are often misunderstood or misrepresented. Cambridge is a unique place and you get some great opportunities when you are there (on an aside, one thing Cambridge has that Oxford (and most other unis) doesn't is May Week - a fantastic week at the end of the year just for fun) but they work you incredibly hard and you may not get a grade you really deserve at the end. Unless you are the type of person who is naturally incredibly clever and probably would get into Cambridge easily, it is very likely you would have more time for fun and get a better grade if you went to another university.