The Student Room Group

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Reply 1
Hi! I'm hoping to apply to do SPS at cambridge next year. I'm doing history, maths, french and biology at AS. I was just wondering if there's anything you guys would have done a year ago to prepare? Work experience? Any extra-curricular activities? Any particular reading? Thanks for any help. Maria
Reply 2
Hi Maria
I'm a first year SPS student at Jesus and spent most of my gap year working for magazines, political parties and thinktanks. however most of the people i know doing the course haven't done anything similar.

The most important thing to do is to read the paper every day as at interview its normally important to have current knowledge to use and its very useful once you get here! Which areas of the course interest you most? The course is made up of four papers:
Politics
Sociology
Psychology
Social Anthropology
Depending on what your interested in I can recommend some books to read or dip into. You don't have to be interested in all four!
Reply 3
My interview had no current affairs at all...
Reply 4
Hence the world normally :smile:
Although they aren't going to go what happened last friday it can be very useful to have upto date knowledge to apply to arguments...
Reply 5
My interview had a lot of current affairs, because i kept bringing current events up and linking them to what they asked me- i found it easier that way
Reply 6
Well there was a little...

chatted about Cameron briefly ("compassionate conservatism? surely an oxymoron" - the one laugh I got all interview) and about Brown taking over Blair (one of the interviewers seemed to think Brown would be a true Old Labour PM - I disagreed).
Reply 7
The 7/7 came up alot in both my interviews
Reply 8
I'm still quite enamoured with that "oxymoron" comment.

Might use it again if the opportunity arises...
Reply 9
Psychology and sociology are the areas i'm most interested in. I've heard its good to have read a relevant book to demonstrate interest to write about in the personal statement and talk about at the interview. Any book suggestions would be appreciated. thanks. maria
Reply 10
http://www.sps.cam.ac.uk/undergraduate/admissions_guide_05_06.pdf actually has some background reading on page 6 and 7. I didn't read any of the books on there though :smile:
I was really interested in globalisation and read things like
Age of Consent - Monbiot
Statecraft - Thatcher
Globalisation and its discontents - Stiglitz
No Logo - Klein
Open World The Truth about globalisation - Legrain

And a few others, though they are more political than anything
I also read Learning to Labour - Willis which was useful and got my hands on an a-level sociology textbook, which provides occasional use on my course.

Read whatever interests you, often good to read reviews of the book (the guardian often has them on their website and you can google the title) so you can criticise it effectively. I often made a page or so of notes on key concepts, particular stats etc
Reply 11
Are there any particularly helpful extra-curricular activities for the course?
Reply 12
_maria_
Are there any particularly helpful extra-curricular activities for the course?

Doing an internship or some voluntary work with a politician, a think tank, an NGO is quite useful. You are rather limited what you can do for psychology due to patient confidentiality etc...
Reply 13
I didnt really do much extra-curricular activities but what I feel got me in was the fact that the more sociology in particular that I read the more into it I got and although I wasnt very well read at all I was really really enthusiastic.

I think with something like SPS its easy for people to apply for it not knowing what it is so REALLY look at the course in detail and KNOW what its about and be 100% sure that its what you want to do.
Reply 14
Emmalina
I didnt really do much extra-curricular activities but what I feel got me in was the fact that the more sociology in particular that I read the more into it I got and although I wasnt very well read at all I was really really enthusiastic.

I think with something like SPS its easy for people to apply for it not knowing what it is so REALLY look at the course in detail and KNOW what its about and be 100% sure that its what you want to do.

Just out of interest why did you apply for SPS rather than PPE when you have applied for economics and politics/ppe everywhere else?
Reply 15
i didnt have any current affairs in my interview either! well not specifically, i did bring some up.. but it was moulded to me (thank god) cos i dint really have a clue about politics!
Reply 16
notyourpunk
Just out of interest why did you apply for SPS rather than PPE when you have applied for economics and politics/ppe everywhere else?


To be honest I always thought that I wanted to do Economics but the more Economics I read the more I was like uh Why do people do that/Why do markets work like that etc. Which is better answered by SPS I think.

I didnt like PPE as a course becuase I find Philosophy a bit poopey from what Ive done at alevel. I only applied for that at Warwick because my best friend is there and I thought I might as well apply all six spots.

I also kinda knew I was taking a gap year and so wasnt really that fussed about applying this year.
Who else will (conditionally) be sitting this course in 10 months time? :eek2::eek2::eek2::eek2::eek2::eek2:

Mod Edit: I'm changing the title and location of this thread so it's for current students too - that way it'll be more useful and (hopefully) more friendly for everyone :smile:
Reply 18
Errrrm.. Me I guess! It feels a bit weird to say that, I keep having to look at the letter and remind myself!
Reply 19
*lurks* :yo-less: