Leadership Turn

A Fresher’s Reflections

by Jonathan Farrington on June 21st, 2007

Joe Farrington, my son, went up to Cambridge University last October to begin a four years Masters degree in Natural Sciences and has just completed his first year.

His preferred college was Gonville & Caius and much to his delight he was accepted.

“The College is one of the oldest and largest, being originally founded in 1348 as Gonville Hall by Edmund Gonville, and then re-founded in the sixteenth century by John Keys; it is often referred to as Caius (pronounced Keys) in his honour. The College is characterised by a spirit of academic excellence and endeavour. We have over 100 Fellows in College, many with globally renowned reputations, of which Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, is probably the best known.” (An extract from the official Gonville & Caius website)

With the b5 “Theme Day” focussing on academia, I thought it opportune to catch up with Joe and discuss his reflections on his “Fresher” year at one of the worlds most prestigious and until very recently, arguably, most elitist universities.

Jonathan: You no doubt went up to Cambridge last year with pre-conceived ideas and perceptions of what life would be like – how different was the reality?

Joe: Socially, it was very different. Whilst there are some people in my year group who never seem to leave their rooms, the vast majority of people here have been fantastic. I’ve never felt that because I wasn’t at Public School (private fee-paying school) I was in some way inferior, it really just isn’t an issue. If you’re here, it’s because you deserved your place, and I think people respect one another for that, and everyone is ready to go out and have a great time when there’s a dip in the workload.

Academically it’s been more of a mixed bag. I’ve found supervisions (one or two students and a member of staff, which I have four times a week) a lot more useful and a lot less intimidating than I had imagined. I definitely hadn’t bargained on a 9am start six days a week though, and spending half of my Saturday in a lecture hall took some getting used to. I’d done quite a lot of research about course content, so most of the work we were doing was along the lines of what I’d expected it to be when I’d selected my courses.

Jonathan: When you look back over your first year, what have you enjoyed most and what have you least enjoyed?

Joe: Exam term stands out as quite possibly the worst seven weeks of my life. The attitude really was that if you weren’t at a lecture/supervision/practical you really ought to be in your room hitting the books. It was certainly a lot cheaper than Michaelmas (Autumn) or Lent (Spring) terms, because I rarely went out, but the fact that no one was going out, and the constant feeling that there was so much to do that it would be impossible to get through, was quite morale-sapping.

Some of the practicals were also very dull: In nearly every Chemistry practical we did roughly the same procedure and produced a white solid, and in Physics in one week we rolled balls down a slope to measure the value of G!

May Week so far has been fantastic. So many people I haven’t seen properly in weeks that I’ve had the chance to catch up with, and I organised a Pub Crawl (visiting as many bars as possible in a given time) last night [Tues] which had a really good turnout and was great fun.

Pembroke May Ball tonight [Wed] which I’ve been looking forward to for months.

I also really enjoyed “Fresher’s Week” (where new undergraduates are introduced into University life), just getting to know so many amazing people, and the dinner Caius held in honour of Stephen Hawking was a great experience, even if I had to queue for about three hours to get a ticket.

Jonathan: How have you coped with the workload and how many hours of lectures and supervisions do you have every week?

Joe: I feel I’ve coped reasonably well. No mental breakdowns so far and I’ve made all my deadlines. The hardest thing in making the transition from A-Level to Cambridge is that in Sixth Form you can generally answer every question and understand pretty much everything that’s going on. Here, you really have to go through your lecture notes with a fine tooth comb to grasp the concepts and make good use of your supervisors who are there because the University knows that it’s not easy to learn everything when it’s being constantly fired at you for eight weeks at a time. I’ve got 3 hours of lectures plus one supervision a week for each of my four subjects, then roughly 10 hours of lab time on top of that. So that’s 26 hours of contact time and most of the rest of the week is taken up doing problems for the supervisions.

Jonathan: Everyone talks about the long vacations Oxbridge (Oxford & Cambridge Universities) undergraduates enjoy, but what percentage of your holidays do you devote to academic work?

Joe: I don’t think our holidays are that much longer than those of people at other universities, judging by when my friends seem to be around. The only answer I can really give to that though is probably not enough. An Oxbridge term is exceptionally intense, and when I come back most of the time the only thing I can really bring myself to do in the first week is sleep. After that I’ll generally sort out my notes, try to do some reading about what we’ve been studying For example over the Easter holiday, I had a look at past Tripos (first year examinations) questions and made some revision notes.

Jonathan: Gonville and Caius was your first choice college and I know you were pleased to be accepted – do you regret that choice in any way?

Joe:  I absolutely love Caius. Everyone at every other college seems to feel the same way so I’m sure it’s not unique, but I’ve never been very patriotic or had much ‘school spirit’, but here it’s very different and I feel a great sense of loyalty to and pride in my college. I think that was why it really hurt when that so called font of quality journalism – The Daily Mail - published an article about “Fresher” drunkenness at Caius. This was something that merited a tiny section of a tiny column in Varsity – the Cambridge University magazine - (which you’d generally expect to be reporting Cambridge issues), but was a large and prominent feature in the Mail. The worst thing was the article ended with a short note about how a student at Bristol had been killed whilst drinking, which is surely far more newsworthy than a few people being sick. Just strikes me that there are certain elements of the press that will go after us simply because we’re Oxbridge, and similar or worse events at other universities will be ignored.

In terms of regret all I’d say is that it would be nice if we had a river front, and I also wish we had a student run bar which was more open to people from other colleges. Having visited the bar at Emma (Emmanuel College) on a formal swap, (formal dinner invites from students at other colleges) there was just a much nicer atmosphere in there because the people behind the bar were students and very pleasant. Caius bar has certain members of staff who don’t seem to like students very much, which is why I’m always shocked they applied for the job in the first place. If you happen to want to bring anyone who is not a member of Caius into the bar, you have to sign them in. In my naivety, I assumed this just meant they were my guests, but the barman told me this meant that “whatever he said they did, I was responsible for.”

Jonathan: Which of all the social aspects of Cambridge life have you enjoyed the most?

Joe: I’ve really enjoyed going to the Union (Cambridge University Debating Society) this year. There have been some very interesting speakers, some big names in the debates and it was a convenient way to get out and socialise with people from lots of other colleges in the bar with a conversation topic readily provided by the motion.  Formal Swaps are great fun, especially at the colleges which take Formal Hall (formal silver service dinner in college) a bit more seriously than Caius and “pennying”, (student game involving small quantities of alcohol) though frowned upon, is definitely a good way to quickly get to know new people.

Next year I’m getting onto the team which writes “Varsity”, taking some photos and maybe do some film reviews. I’d also like to do more with Amnesty, because this year it seemed to clash a lot with things I had to do.

Jonathan: Joe, thanks for taking the time out for this interview and for being so candid. I am delighted you have immersed yourself with such apparent ease into all things Caius.  Enjoy the rest of the May Week celebrations (in June) and I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

From Wikapedia…..

The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and has a reputation as one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

The University grew out of an association of scholars in the city of Cambridge that was formed, early records suggest, in 1209 by scholars leaving Oxford after a dispute with local townsfolk over a killing.

The universities of Oxford and Cambridge are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In addition to cultural and practical associations as a historic part of English society, the two universities also have a long history of rivalry with each other.

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