Cambridge Summer School 2017
At the end of the summer term at school, an email was sent around Year 11 about the opportunity to go on a free residential summer school at Cambridge University. It was what is called a "Low Participation Neighbourhood" summer school, which means that your postcode determines whether you can go- it monitors the level of people from your postcode who go to university. I applied quickly but didn't find out I had been accepted until a fair few weeks afterwards when I was on holiday in Cyprus (see my Cyprus blog posts for more on that)! When applying, I had to choose 3 subjects that I would be interested in studying. I chose History, English and Law and when I received the email to say I had got a place, I found out I would be on the History course, which I was super happy about, as that was my first choice!
The first day of the summer school quickly rolled around. On the drive up to Cambridge, I watched Lilo and Stitch, my favourite Disney movie. The journey went surprisingly fast and soon, we were there. We were a bit early for check-in, so we grabbed some lunch from a cute cafe called Fitzbillie's, which is a play-on Fitzwilliam's College, one of the 31 Cambridge University Colleges. After, we headed to Sidney Sussex College to check in. We were directed to the JCR Bar, where I said goodbye to my parents for the next 4 days and went to sign in. We were split into groups and each group was assigned an undergraduate student helper. Our group leader was Shen, who had just finished the first year of his Maths degree at Christ's College. He was supposed to take us to our accommodation in Sidney House, but, being from a different college, he got us lost several times! Eventually, we made it and I found out that my room was on the fourth floor- this meant dragging my very big and heavy suitcase all the way up there!
I dropped my case and quickly snapped some pictures of my room to send to my family, before venturing out into the corridor to meet the rest of my floormates. I quickly made friends with them, including Jamie, a fellow Potterhead, and Alice, the only other person I know who watches Chicago Fire! Before long, we had to make our way back to the JCR Bar, where we were led to Christ's College for an introductory talk, and, after that, ice-breakers! We were back in our groups for these and it was a lot of fun getting to know a bit more about the people around me.
We had another talk that afternoon, about university life. I sat with my friend Charli, who I met via Twitter when we were both searching for other people on the summer school! Charli has her own amazing blog, which you can check out here.
That night was quiz night. I love quizzes and I'm always striving to improve my general knowledge by learning random facts. Who knows, the fact that the solar system smells faintly of geraniums may come in useful someday! The last round was a bonus points round, with seemingly random questions. However, after the first two questions, the answers to which were Tom Hanks and Buzz Aldrin, I started to notice a theme, but wondered if I was just looking too deeply into things! But, when the last question of that round was "what was the theme of this last round", I knew instantly that it was Toy Story! Tom Hanks, Buzz Aldrin, Etch-A-Sketch and Barbie were just a few of the answers in that round.
The next day, we had 2 out of the 3 academic sessions of the course, which, for me, were History. Our lecturer was a postgraduate History student called Clare, who was currently doing her Masters at Cambridge, having previously studied in the USA, which is where she was from. I wouldn't exactly call the sessions "lectures" because they were so much more than that. They were interactive, fun and discussion-based. They were centred around the topic of Medieval Medicine, which is a topic I had never studied before. I was apprehensive about how interesting it would be, as I tend to prefer modern history, however, I was pleasantly surprised, as I found it immensely intriguing. My favourite part of the academic sessions was when we got the chance to transcribe ancient Latin texts from the Carolingian era. It was fascinating to see how the English alphabet has evolved into what it is today.
What was also great about these sessions was the opportunity to be surrounded with other people who are just as passionate about History as I am. Charli was in my group, along with another new friend, Tilly, who I met through my friend Virginia (the only other person from my school on the summer school). I don't mean this in a horrible way at all, but when you're at school, you're surrounded by people with varying levels of interest in the subject, and you sometimes feel anxious about asking questions, for fear of being ridiculed by the smarter ones, for asking "stupid" questions (I've learnt that there's no such thing as a stupid question, by the way), or mocked by the ones who couldn't care less about studying. So, it felt great to be surrounded by people who thought the same way I did and actually cared about the subject.
I could go on forever about all the amazing experiences I had during my time at Cambridge, but then this blog would be longer than the Alexander Hamilton biography I'm currently reading! It was an invaluable adventure, and I made so many new friends and learnt lots about a huge range of things, from social skills to History, to information about university life and Cambridge itself.
One last thing. I would like to say a huge thank you to the organisers of the summer school, the amazing friends I made whilst there and also to me, for pushing myself to apply in the first place, and for doing something so scary and new- staying away from home, without my family or anyone I knew.
Pip x
The first day of the summer school quickly rolled around. On the drive up to Cambridge, I watched Lilo and Stitch, my favourite Disney movie. The journey went surprisingly fast and soon, we were there. We were a bit early for check-in, so we grabbed some lunch from a cute cafe called Fitzbillie's, which is a play-on Fitzwilliam's College, one of the 31 Cambridge University Colleges. After, we headed to Sidney Sussex College to check in. We were directed to the JCR Bar, where I said goodbye to my parents for the next 4 days and went to sign in. We were split into groups and each group was assigned an undergraduate student helper. Our group leader was Shen, who had just finished the first year of his Maths degree at Christ's College. He was supposed to take us to our accommodation in Sidney House, but, being from a different college, he got us lost several times! Eventually, we made it and I found out that my room was on the fourth floor- this meant dragging my very big and heavy suitcase all the way up there!
I dropped my case and quickly snapped some pictures of my room to send to my family, before venturing out into the corridor to meet the rest of my floormates. I quickly made friends with them, including Jamie, a fellow Potterhead, and Alice, the only other person I know who watches Chicago Fire! Before long, we had to make our way back to the JCR Bar, where we were led to Christ's College for an introductory talk, and, after that, ice-breakers! We were back in our groups for these and it was a lot of fun getting to know a bit more about the people around me.
We had another talk that afternoon, about university life. I sat with my friend Charli, who I met via Twitter when we were both searching for other people on the summer school! Charli has her own amazing blog, which you can check out here.
That night was quiz night. I love quizzes and I'm always striving to improve my general knowledge by learning random facts. Who knows, the fact that the solar system smells faintly of geraniums may come in useful someday! The last round was a bonus points round, with seemingly random questions. However, after the first two questions, the answers to which were Tom Hanks and Buzz Aldrin, I started to notice a theme, but wondered if I was just looking too deeply into things! But, when the last question of that round was "what was the theme of this last round", I knew instantly that it was Toy Story! Tom Hanks, Buzz Aldrin, Etch-A-Sketch and Barbie were just a few of the answers in that round.
The next day, we had 2 out of the 3 academic sessions of the course, which, for me, were History. Our lecturer was a postgraduate History student called Clare, who was currently doing her Masters at Cambridge, having previously studied in the USA, which is where she was from. I wouldn't exactly call the sessions "lectures" because they were so much more than that. They were interactive, fun and discussion-based. They were centred around the topic of Medieval Medicine, which is a topic I had never studied before. I was apprehensive about how interesting it would be, as I tend to prefer modern history, however, I was pleasantly surprised, as I found it immensely intriguing. My favourite part of the academic sessions was when we got the chance to transcribe ancient Latin texts from the Carolingian era. It was fascinating to see how the English alphabet has evolved into what it is today.
What was also great about these sessions was the opportunity to be surrounded with other people who are just as passionate about History as I am. Charli was in my group, along with another new friend, Tilly, who I met through my friend Virginia (the only other person from my school on the summer school). I don't mean this in a horrible way at all, but when you're at school, you're surrounded by people with varying levels of interest in the subject, and you sometimes feel anxious about asking questions, for fear of being ridiculed by the smarter ones, for asking "stupid" questions (I've learnt that there's no such thing as a stupid question, by the way), or mocked by the ones who couldn't care less about studying. So, it felt great to be surrounded by people who thought the same way I did and actually cared about the subject.
I could go on forever about all the amazing experiences I had during my time at Cambridge, but then this blog would be longer than the Alexander Hamilton biography I'm currently reading! It was an invaluable adventure, and I made so many new friends and learnt lots about a huge range of things, from social skills to History, to information about university life and Cambridge itself.
One last thing. I would like to say a huge thank you to the organisers of the summer school, the amazing friends I made whilst there and also to me, for pushing myself to apply in the first place, and for doing something so scary and new- staying away from home, without my family or anyone I knew.
Pip x
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| Ready for the Formal Dinner |
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