[chiligrinder]

Hi guys;


I go to a private school, and while it isn't one of the traditional single-sex ones like Eton or a very "posh" school like Harrow; I have never met anyone snotty. I come from a relatively affluent background, my parents can afford to school me. However, I can't afford holidays and would definitely not consider 10 pounds for a meal cheap; ESPECIALLY on student loans.
I personally used to want to study Physical NatSci although now I am more motivated in AMES related areas; however this is irrelevant. I am just worried about these snotty elitist unsociable snobs everyone seems to say frequent certain Oxbridge colleges?
I thought the fact I go to a private school is a disadvantage, as Cambridge will think I have had it easy academically; but the opposite seems to be true.
You should try and approach these guys more often; I can't imagine they are as awful as you make them out to be. And if they are; look out for people at other colleges. Have you spoken to your DoS about how you are feeling? You don't seem to enjoy NatSci as much as someone who elected to take it at uni? Maybe a course transfer after part 1 may benefit you. Either way; private school kids aren't all blasé idiots. I hope that you find some people who appreciate your company, whether they went to private or comprehensive schools :P

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
Thoughts?

Yes, Cambridge is hard, it has the smartest students in the country, what the **** were you expecting?

[Adhsur]

A lot of people have been suggesting you leave, but I think that might be a bit rash given that it such an achievement to be there, and you may be throwing away a lot more than you currently realise.

If things are really bad, I second the opinion to try and transfer college. I went to Trinity myself and have felt ever since that I went to the wrong college - there were too many people (many of whom weren't very friendly), and they were all too spread out and cliquey. I never really got a chance to make close friends within college. So I know exactly how you feel!

Feel free to PM me if you want a chat.

[illusionz]

If you have lectures 6 days a week then you're probably a natsci, amrite?

I felt pretty much exactly the same in my first year. I really didn't like and couldn't do several of the subjects I was doing. Now I'm in 3rd year and am coping well, doing stuff I enjoy and am good at (ie not forced to do physics and maths!!). I am very glad I stuck it out.

Assuming you can do one of your subjects to a good standard then I promise you, it will get better when you specialise.

If you have any questions then feel free to pm.

[sprazcrumbler]

(Original post by illusionz)
If you have lectures 6 days a week then you're probably a natsci, amrite?

I felt pretty much exactly the same in my first year. I really didn't like and couldn't do several of the subjects I was doing. Now I'm in 3rd year and am coping well, doing stuff I enjoy and am good at (ie not forced to do physics and maths!!). I am very glad I stuck it out.

Assuming you can do one of your subjects to a good standard then I promise you, it will get better when you specialise.

If you have any questions then feel free to pm.

Yup, Natsci. I'm hoping that will happen with me too, I always thought Chemistry was my best subject, and while I didn't dislike maths, I didn't really care for it either. It was easy enough at school that I thought I would be able to handle it, but clearly not.

I'm hoping when I can drop physics and maths I'll be able to do a lot better. I think I am doing disappointingly bad at chem this year just because I have to spend so much time trying to learn maths and phys.

[Altaïr]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
Sup. I went to a pretty average state school where all of my friends were the smartest kids there. I came to assume that this would hold true wherever I went, and that I would easily bond with other intelligent people at uni. I had done pretty well at school, all high A*'s and whatever, and thought that I could manage pretty well wherever I ended up.

So I went to Cam this year not really knowing much about it, I applied to Trinity to do phys natsci and got in. At the time I had no idea about Trinity's reputation, but since arriving I've discovered that it is hard working (top of the Tompkins table), full of geniuses (5 of 6 British Fields medals, 32 Nobel prizes), formal, conservative, and filled with private school kids (These last 3 points I think are related, Trinity has the highest private school percentage of any oxbridge college). And I happen to be lazy, untalented, not comfortable with formality, generally liberal, and state schooled.

My subject is possibly one of the unfriendliest at the college, Natscis are naturally unsociable, and Trinity natscis more so. The sciences are overwhelmingly populated with private schoolers, as years of high quality teaching is pretty much needed to get in, and private school is where you get that, and I feel that i can't really relate to them that well, they have grown up in some entirely different universe to me and we generally don't have a lot in common. Also a lot of fellow natscis have come from places like eastern europe, russia, china, etc, and while that isn't an issue in itself, these kids frequently hang out in their own country specific groups, and lack the level of fluent english needed for a chat type conversation, rather than a scientific discussion. Both of these factors make me feel pretty lonely within my subject, and I have no one to turn to when I need help with my work.

Needing help with my work happens frequently, I cannot keep up with lectures, cannot understand problem sheets, and barely know what is going on in my supervisions. I think that the education I received at school was inferior to that of pretty much everyone I meet, I think that somehow everyone else is both naturally smarter than me and more motivated than me (I sat next to some natsics at lunch one day and they were discussing whether there was a concise geometrical proof for divergence. I did not know what was going on). I feel like I lost a part of my personality when I went from "smartest kid at school" to "dumbest Natsci at Cambridge"

I think I get on better with people outside of my subject. But when I socialise with these people I still have problems:
1. A lot are posh, don't care about money. Think £10 for a meal is "cheap", have never had to deal with the violence and drugs and anti intellectual sentiment so rife at state schools, don't realise how different the real world is to their comfortable "prep school to public school to Cambridge" life. They don't know either, how hard it was for normal people to get to Cambridge.
2. My subject still gets in the way. I have lectures at 9.00 six days a week, I don't really get a weekend, my longest day stretches from 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM, and then on top of this, I have questions sheets to do which take me twice as long as others because of my stupidity. Due to these factors, I never really get to stay up late and hang out, never get to drink too much, Never get to do anything during the day.
3. I don't fit in. The people here are nothing like my friends back at school.

I think I am going to see how the exams go this year, and if I do too badly I will drop out and reapply for somewhere else. I visit my friends at Bristol when my term ends and it just seems so much more friendly there than here.

All in all, I am alone. I am failing. I am unhappy.

Thoughts?

This.

[sprazcrumbler]

(Original post by Altaïr)
This.

What does this mean?

[kka25]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
Sup. I went to a pretty average state school where all of my friends were the smartest kids there. I came to assume that this would hold true wherever I went, and that I would easily bond with other intelligent people at uni. I had done pretty well at school, all high A*'s and whatever, and thought that I could manage pretty well wherever I ended up.

So I went to Cam this year not really knowing much about it, I applied to Trinity to do phys natsci and got in. At the time I had no idea about Trinity's reputation, but since arriving I've discovered that it is hard working (top of the Tompkins table), full of geniuses (5 of 6 British Fields medals, 32 Nobel prizes), formal, conservative, and filled with private school kids (These last 3 points I think are related, Trinity has the highest private school percentage of any oxbridge college). And I happen to be lazy, untalented, not comfortable with formality, generally liberal, and state schooled.

My subject is possibly one of the unfriendliest at the college, Natscis are naturally unsociable, and Trinity natscis more so. The sciences are overwhelmingly populated with private schoolers, as years of high quality teaching is pretty much needed to get in, and private school is where you get that, and I feel that i can't really relate to them that well, they have grown up in some entirely different universe to me and we generally don't have a lot in common. Also a lot of fellow natscis have come from places like eastern europe, russia, china, etc, and while that isn't an issue in itself, these kids frequently hang out in their own country specific groups, and lack the level of fluent english needed for a chat type conversation, rather than a scientific discussion. Both of these factors make me feel pretty lonely within my subject, and I have no one to turn to when I need help with my work.

Needing help with my work happens frequently, I cannot keep up with lectures, cannot understand problem sheets, and barely know what is going on in my supervisions. I think that the education I received at school was inferior to that of pretty much everyone I meet, I think that somehow everyone else is both naturally smarter than me and more motivated than me (I sat next to some natsics at lunch one day and they were discussing whether there was a concise geometrical proof for divergence. I did not know what was going on). I feel like I lost a part of my personality when I went from "smartest kid at school" to "dumbest Natsci at Cambridge"

I think I get on better with people outside of my subject. But when I socialise with these people I still have problems:
1. A lot are posh, don't care about money. Think £10 for a meal is "cheap", have never had to deal with the violence and drugs and anti intellectual sentiment so rife at state schools, don't realise how different the real world is to their comfortable "prep school to public school to Cambridge" life. They don't know either, how hard it was for normal people to get to Cambridge.
2. My subject still gets in the way. I have lectures at 9.00 six days a week, I don't really get a weekend, my longest day stretches from 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM, and then on top of this, I have questions sheets to do which take me twice as long as others because of my stupidity. Due to these factors, I never really get to stay up late and hang out, never get to drink too much, Never get to do anything during the day.
3. I don't fit in. The people here are nothing like my friends back at school.

I think I am going to see how the exams go this year, and if I do too badly I will drop out and reapply for somewhere else. I visit my friends at Bristol when my term ends and it just seems so much more friendly there than here.

All in all, I am alone. I am failing. I am unhappy.

Thoughts?

I don't even want to look at the other comments, but I sincerely understand what you're going through OP.

Here's a

And another one for later

[M1K3]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
Sup. I went to a pretty average state school where all of my friends were the smartest kids there. I came to assume that this would hold true wherever I went, and that I would easily bond with other intelligent people at uni. I had done pretty well at school, all high A*'s and whatever, and thought that I could manage pretty well wherever I ended up.

So I went to Cam this year not really knowing much about it, I applied to Trinity to do phys natsci and got in. At the time I had no idea about Trinity's reputation, but since arriving I've discovered that it is hard working (top of the Tompkins table), full of geniuses (5 of 6 British Fields medals, 32 Nobel prizes), formal, conservative, and filled with private school kids (These last 3 points I think are related, Trinity has the highest private school percentage of any oxbridge college). And I happen to be lazy, untalented, not comfortable with formality, generally liberal, and state schooled.

My subject is possibly one of the unfriendliest at the college, Natscis are naturally unsociable, and Trinity natscis more so. The sciences are overwhelmingly populated with private schoolers, as years of high quality teaching is pretty much needed to get in, and private school is where you get that, and I feel that i can't really relate to them that well, they have grown up in some entirely different universe to me and we generally don't have a lot in common. Also a lot of fellow natscis have come from places like eastern europe, russia, china, etc, and while that isn't an issue in itself, these kids frequently hang out in their own country specific groups, and lack the level of fluent english needed for a chat type conversation, rather than a scientific discussion. Both of these factors make me feel pretty lonely within my subject, and I have no one to turn to when I need help with my work.

Needing help with my work happens frequently, I cannot keep up with lectures, cannot understand problem sheets, and barely know what is going on in my supervisions. I think that the education I received at school was inferior to that of pretty much everyone I meet, I think that somehow everyone else is both naturally smarter than me and more motivated than me (I sat next to some natsics at lunch one day and they were discussing whether there was a concise geometrical proof for divergence. I did not know what was going on). I feel like I lost a part of my personality when I went from "smartest kid at school" to "dumbest Natsci at Cambridge"

I think I get on better with people outside of my subject. But when I socialise with these people I still have problems:
1. A lot are posh, don't care about money. Think £10 for a meal is "cheap", have never had to deal with the violence and drugs and anti intellectual sentiment so rife at state schools, don't realise how different the real world is to their comfortable "prep school to public school to Cambridge" life. They don't know either, how hard it was for normal people to get to Cambridge.
2. My subject still gets in the way. I have lectures at 9.00 six days a week, I don't really get a weekend, my longest day stretches from 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM, and then on top of this, I have questions sheets to do which take me twice as long as others because of my stupidity. Due to these factors, I never really get to stay up late and hang out, never get to drink too much, Never get to do anything during the day.
3. I don't fit in. The people here are nothing like my friends back at school.

I think I am going to see how the exams go this year, and if I do too badly I will drop out and reapply for somewhere else. I visit my friends at Bristol when my term ends and it just seems so much more friendly there than here.

All in all, I am alone. I am failing. I am unhappy.

Thoughts?

By all means, get all the advice you can and make an informed choice. Cambridge is hard, and full of some of the brightest people in the world, more so at Trinity. Perhaps consider moving to a different college as you are certainly bright and those interviews selected you because you are capable to succeed on this degree and perhaps your current college environment is letting you achieve your potential.

The one case I have heard of was someone moving was to Caius from King's because he was autistic and could not cope with the tourists. It can be done as your situation should make it allowable for you to move college imo, rather than going to some other uni.

[a.partridge]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)

I think I am going to see how the exams go this year, and if I do too badly I will drop out and reapply for somewhere else. I visit my friends at Bristol when my term ends and it just seems so much more friendly there than here.

All in all, I am alone. I am failing. I am unhappy.

Thoughts?

I go to Bristol coming to the end of first year physics, so if you wanna 'swap' let me know any time haha.

don't forget we don't even finish until the 22nd of june so the suffering may be less intensive - but is rather prolonged, frankly I'd rather be enjoying summer now in exchange for having less time in the term to sit around watching youtube. Plus having to get a 1st class to have your degree be worth anything is another constant weight on the mind of a lesser uni student - so there are lots of mitigating factors in the difference in your satisfaction.

[mc1000]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
1. It is a state school. It is also selective. You need CCCCC to get in at 6th form.
2. It does as well as Ribston, which is also a terrrible Grammar school.
3. It did worse than Chosen Hill and Balcarras, which are both comprehensives
4. My childhood best friend was expelled when he was 14 for drug dealing at our school. He offered me drugs when I was 10.
5. I was beaten up and robbed outside my school when I was 13
6. I stopped a mugging outside our school when I was in 6th form
7. people frequently came into school during the day looking to steal bikes or beat people up
8. At the end of the day, a gang once walked into school and beat someone severely with baseball bats. They even had a get away car.
9. I said it was an average school. It certainly was better than some schools in Gloucester, and it was worse than some too.

I went to a grammar school that is one of the top 100 grammar schools in the country. Exactly the same is true of my school (granted, it's better than the local comps for A-level and GCSE results, and you typically need 9 B-grade GCSEs for 6th form entry, but the social factors are pretty similar to the ones you describe. Numerous pupils when I was there were expelled for various reasons - three incidents that come to mind were pupils smoking weed in the school car park, dealing crack, and beating up someone with a cricket bat.)

Also, most of the people there were thick as horse ****, yet managed to pass the entrance exam and had parents who can afford the money. Money is all it comes down to, really.

[Brutal Chav]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
Sup. I went to a pretty average state school where all of my friends were the smartest kids there. I came to assume that this would hold true wherever I went, and that I would easily bond with other intelligent people at uni. I had done pretty well at school, all high A*'s and whatever, and thought that I could manage pretty well wherever I ended up.

So I went to Cam this year not really knowing much about it, I applied to Trinity to do phys natsci and got in. At the time I had no idea about Trinity's reputation, but since arriving I've discovered that it is hard working (top of the Tompkins table), full of geniuses (5 of 6 British Fields medals, 32 Nobel prizes), formal, conservative, and filled with private school kids (These last 3 points I think are related, Trinity has the highest private school percentage of any oxbridge college). And I happen to be lazy, untalented, not comfortable with formality, generally liberal, and state schooled.

My subject is possibly one of the unfriendliest at the college, Natscis are naturally unsociable, and Trinity natscis more so. The sciences are overwhelmingly populated with private schoolers, as years of high quality teaching is pretty much needed to get in, and private school is where you get that, and I feel that i can't really relate to them that well, they have grown up in some entirely different universe to me and we generally don't have a lot in common. Also a lot of fellow natscis have come from places like eastern europe, russia, china, etc, and while that isn't an issue in itself, these kids frequently hang out in their own country specific groups, and lack the level of fluent english needed for a chat type conversation, rather than a scientific discussion. Both of these factors make me feel pretty lonely within my subject, and I have no one to turn to when I need help with my work.

Needing help with my work happens frequently, I cannot keep up with lectures, cannot understand problem sheets, and barely know what is going on in my supervisions. I think that the education I received at school was inferior to that of pretty much everyone I meet, I think that somehow everyone else is both naturally smarter than me and more motivated than me (I sat next to some natsics at lunch one day and they were discussing whether there was a concise geometrical proof for divergence. I did not know what was going on). I feel like I lost a part of my personality when I went from "smartest kid at school" to "dumbest Natsci at Cambridge"

I think I get on better with people outside of my subject. But when I socialise with these people I still have problems:
1. A lot are posh, don't care about money. Think £10 for a meal is "cheap", have never had to deal with the violence and drugs and anti intellectual sentiment so rife at state schools, don't realise how different the real world is to their comfortable "prep school to public school to Cambridge" life. They don't know either, how hard it was for normal people to get to Cambridge.
2. My subject still gets in the way. I have lectures at 9.00 six days a week, I don't really get a weekend, my longest day stretches from 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM, and then on top of this, I have questions sheets to do which take me twice as long as others because of my stupidity. Due to these factors, I never really get to stay up late and hang out, never get to drink too much, Never get to do anything during the day.
3. I don't fit in. The people here are nothing like my friends back at school.

I think I am going to see how the exams go this year, and if I do too badly I will drop out and reapply for somewhere else. I visit my friends at Bristol when my term ends and it just seems so much more friendly there than here.

All in all, I am alone. I am failing. I am unhappy.

Thoughts?

Oh god, just reading all this makes me more and more convinced that I'll be in the same position next year

Is there any chance I could ask you a couple of questions if you have the time?

To what extent do you think NatSci is an unsociable subject?

Is there really a noticeable difference (socially or academically) between private-schooled students and us state-schoolers?

Do you think the pressure and environment varies that much between colleges? I know Trinity takes a chunk of the International Olympiad nutters that are bound to be in a league of their own but do these individuals patronize everyone else and make them feel inferior?

I wish you the best of luck with your situation mate, look on the bright side, you'll get to specialize next year and won't have those Saturday lectures. Also, one of the NatSci advantages is that it's very versatile and opens all kinds of doors career-wise so if you decide you don't really like academia, you will easily be able to find a job in other sectors. PLUS PLUS even I (King's offer holder) envy you for your college choice. You are at the most prestigious college at the world's best university; of course you're going to be surrounded by geniuses! Your perspective of your own intelligence is likely to be heavily skewed because you go to Trinity but remember, the fact that you weren't pooled means that you started IA near the top of your year in terms of ability so if you ask yourself whether you've done an average (or above) amount of work throughout the year compared to others and the answer is yes, it means you are still a bloody genius, you are still above average in your year group and the only things keeping you down are self-confidence issues... which are easier to sort out than issues with NatSci knowledge. Chin up man

[Sigilion]

What I say may need to be taken with a pinch of salt, as I am a privately educated, foreign, somewhat asocial, conservative fresher Trinity phys natsci, and one who feels comfortable with the course, but it may be of interest.

I don't think you should feel inferior to anyone else here intellectuality. While I can't say it definitively, I'm fairly sure that everyone here puffs themselves up a bit (I certainly do), and everyone is having to put more effort into the course than they pretend to. We've all come from being top dog at whatever school we were at, and we want to keep acting like thats true here.

Hard as it may be to do so, I really think staying on another year will help, as everyone I've spoken to has found life much more enjoyable once they specialize.

To second something I think I saw earlier in the thread extracurriculars are definitely a good thing to do, particularly university wide ones. No matter how huge the workload can seem you can find the time for them, and meeting people from other colleges and years will not only add to your social experiences but could also help you feel more confident about continuing the course. Also a short stint doing something else can really help your productivity.

Finally, do your supervisors tell you that you can't handle it? In my experience they don't tend to be above pointing it out/lightheartedly insulting you if they think you aren't performing to the right standard.

Good luck on your exams

[lp386]

(Original post by Brutal Chav)
Oh god, just reading all this makes me more and more convinced that I'll be in the same position next year

Is there any chance I could ask you a couple of questions if you have the time?

To what extent do you think NatSci is an unsociable subject?

Is there really a noticeable difference (socially or academically) between private-schooled students and us state-schoolers?

Do you think the pressure and environment varies that much between colleges? I know Trinity takes a chunk of the International Olympiad nutters that are bound to be in a league of their own but do these individuals patronize everyone else and make them feel inferior?

I wish you the best of luck with your situation mate, look on the bright side, you'll get to specialize next year and won't have those Saturday lectures. Also, one of the NatSci advantages is that it's very versatile and opens all kinds of doors career-wise so if you decide you don't really like academia, you will easily be able to find a job in other sectors. PLUS PLUS even I (King's offer holder) envy you for your college choice. You are at the most prestigious college at the world's best university; of course you're going to be surrounded by geniuses! Your perspective of your own intelligence is likely to be heavily skewed because you go to Trinity but remember, the fact that you weren't pooled means that you started IA near the top of your year in terms of ability so if you ask yourself whether you've done an average (or above) amount of work throughout the year compared to others and the answer is yes, it means you are still a bloody genius, you are still above average in your year group and the only things keeping you down are self-confidence issues... which are easier to sort out than issues with NatSci knowledge. Chin up man

As Douglas Adams would say, DON'T PANIC. If you're worried, take it to the NatSci/King's thread where they'll be able to give you specific answers and possibly advice on how best to deal with your worries. (and congratulations on your offer!)

[LETSJaM]

Try moving to a college that is less private schooley, e.g. kings

<3 x

[TimmonaPortella]

(Original post by Dirac Delta Function)
Yes, Cambridge is hard, it has the smartest students in the country, what the **** were you expecting?

This, basically.

And I know this forum loves to rep the **** out of anything negative about oxbridge, but the whole I-feel-alienated-by-other-people-being-wealthy is far from general. There are a lot of people at magdalene far wealthier than me (I am also state schooled), but they really don't flaunt it; I don't feel alienated by it and I don't see why anyone should, people come from different backgrounds, deal with it. I realise trinity is a different thing, but we are supposed to be one of the more "traditional" colleges...

[JayReg]

Subbing for advice to deal with similar problems that I'm afraid I'll have next year.

Maybe try talking to your director of studies?

[Dirac Delta Function]

(Original post by LETSJaM)
Try moving to a college that is less private schooley, e.g. kings

<3 x

You can't just move colleges. And seriously, what's the fuss, Trinity really is not exceptional in how "private schooley" or whatever it is. Apart from it's size and wealth, it's more or less much like most other colleges.

[Blutooth]

(Original post by Brutal Chav)


PLUS PLUS even I (King's offer holder) envy you for your college choice. You are at the most prestigious college at the world's best university; of course you're going to be surrounded by geniuses!

Pretty sure the emboldened makes you a pussoir- if not said in jest. Anyway..

Usually around a third of Trinitarians get firsts, and so there are usually 2/3rds who don't. You're going to be surrounded by some geniuses but the majority are just going to be smart, hard-working individuals.

I appreciate your efforts to cheer the OP up Brutal Chav, but aggrandising the genius of Trinitarians isn't going to help. I'm sure they are in the main just a hard-working bunch. The OP has mentioned being 'Lazy" and less well-prepared thn the private-schoolers, so hopefully with a bit more effort or a change to his study habits, he'll get where he needs to be too. Sometimes learning takes time to properly sink in.

[G56]

(Original post by sprazcrumbler)
Sup. I went to a pretty average state school where all of my friends were the smartest kids there. I came to assume that this would hold true wherever I went

All in all, I am alone. I am failing. I am unhappy.

Thoughts?

It sounds to me like you where a bit arrogant and now your paying the price.