Past Lifestyle Article: Success at Cambridge?

7/10/14

For a university ranked first in the UK and fifth in the world, ‘success’ is a particularly weighted term. It is the force which continues to drive the University of Cambridge to academic excellence and both a burden and a source of inspiration to its students. Before joining the ranks of Cambridge students, most of you will have enjoyed the experience of being big fish in comparatively small ponds. However, come October, this will all become a distant memory as the pond becomes a veritable ocean filled with show-directing, newspaper-editing, politically-active geniuses who manage to have that essay nailed before you’ve even started the reading, despite taking on more extracurriculars than you knew existed. What you may not know about these people is that they’re probably doing all of this at the expense of sleep, quality of output, and other elements of the university experience.

Of course, there are those super-human beings who appear to balance everything perfectly, but these are rarer than you might think and, unless you thrive on such mayhem, don’t attempt to become one of these deities. As a Cambridge fresher, you’ve just spent at least the last two years of your life working tirelessly to get here; balancing academia, part-time work, extracurricular activities and work placements in a bid to secure your place at a top university. My advice to you now? Stop!

Yes, you may have been the best in your year and enjoyed the sense of achievement; you may even have done countless miserable things just for the sake of another accolade to add to your personal statement, but you’re here now and you no longer have to work so hard to fit a particular mould. This is the time to start living for you and not simply for the reward of a place at the university of your dreams. Be selective about the societies you get involved with and to what level you choose to engage with them. It’s up to you: it’s only your first year and you’ve already succeeded in getting a place at Cambridge, so resist the fear that you don’t deserve to be here. 

First year is your chance to have fun, make new friends and try new things. You still have to work hard and sometimes it will feel like a struggle, but if you spend too much time worrying, you risk missing out on a wonderful experience. There’s help to be found if you need it and no one expects you to write anything earth-shattering in your first year. Try and let go of the compulsive need to be the best, or at least ease up on the competitiveness. One of the worst things you can do to your self-esteem at Cambridge is compare yourself to those around you; everybody here is brilliant in some way and it’s important to remember that you are too. When you do start to doubt yourself (and you inevitably will at some stage), focus on these simple truths: you sat the same examinations as everyone else, you went through an equally terrifying interview experience, and you have as much right to be here as the person sitting next to you in your lecture.

First year isn’t necessarily about being a success: it’s about having what you, personally, deem to be a successful university experience. So, take part in college swaps to your heart’s (or liver’s) content, skip a lecture to go to that audition and hit Cindies as often as you can. Keep on top of your work and relish the experience of being continually challenged, but don’t let it control you. Perhaps, for the first time in your life, you have the opportunity to work hard and play harder: seize it!

Originally published: http://www.varsity.co.uk/lifestyle/7464