Came Fresh

Colleges
The colleges are independent bodies within the University of Cambridge. There is 31 of them and they have got their own admission system, staff, facilities, accommodation for students etc. The biggest differences are in their assets, size, location, history, prestige and the number of students they admit for specific courses. Students apply to a college of their own choice. I have applied for “The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambride’ commonly known as “Jesus College”. I am convinced that this is the best sounding college because I can always say: “I am going back to Jesus”. Considering what my surname means (a rooster), I always smile looking at the college’s coat of the arms with three roosters.

College Parents
Soon after my arrival on 29th of September 2012, I met my college parents. Ideally, freshers have one college father and one college mother. However, numbers don’t always match up  as it was in my case  so I ended up being a child of a same-sex couple. The reason why college parents exist is to help freshers settling in. I had heard from my “fathers” via email two weeks prior to my arrival, which gave me a brilliant opportunity to ask any questions. The whole concept of college marriage seems to be very popular as some people start looking for their spouses only couple of weeks in their first (Michaels) term. I have heard that many freshers have married already so I think I had better start looking for my wife.

Supervisions
Those personal one-hour long meetings with a professor  it is usually one or two students  on a regular basis are undoubtedly the best aspect of the university education. For engineers, the time spent with a brilliant academic, who tends to be a leading researcher in his field of expertise, is used for discussing any difficulties encountered in homework. Engineers receive “Examples sheets”, that is, sets of questions based on what has been covered in the lectures, on a weekly basis and they are expected to work them out before the relevant supervision. Those “teaching sessions” are demanding intellectually but I feel enlightened after them.

Lego - compulsory!
The structure of Cambridge engineering course was one of the major reasons why I applied here. What I didn’t like about other engineering courses was that one applied for a specific branch of engineering, like mechanical, civil etc. How could I be sure what branch I would like without tasting it? Engineering course at Cambridge is very broad in the first two years and covers all branches of engineering. The students specialise in their third and fourth year. This means that I can make more informed decision regarding the branch of engineering I specialise in. Another advantage is that I will gain a basic understanding of other major areas of engineering. Finally, the course itself is really enjoyable! We started off playing with Lego Mindstorm. Having been split in teams of thee, we were given a task to build a robot that demonstrated some aspect of engineering so we built a tic-tac-toe playing machine. Currently, I can’t wait to build a radio and manufacture a little steel bridge I am designing now with my fellow engineer.