My top 10 tips for freshers starting their first year at Cambridge University

Congratulations! You’ve made it into Cambridge. Soon you’ll be sobbing over supervision essays, becoming briefly obsessed with someone you met at matriculation, and re-evaluating your life choices while eating cold cheesy chips at 2 a.m. from the van of life.

From the depths of The Tab archives and the highs and lows of personal experience, I bring to you, silly fresher, the ultimate top ten tips to surviving and thriving in your first year.

1. Join everything. Seriously, everything. Even The Tab. Especially The Tab.

Take the bait. Go to the freshers’ fair and collect tote bags like Pokémon. Join the wine-tasting society even though you still think chicken wine is a valid vintage. Your inbox is about to be flooded with society emails, all promising free booze and vague descriptions of transferable skills.

You will not stay in all of them. But the only way to find your people — whether they’re footballers, artists, or wannabe columnists with God complexes — is to try.

Personal tip: I joined what felt like thousands of societies during Freshers’ Week. I attended a couple and really only ended up sticking routinely with 4 or 5. I wrote for The Tab, and now I get to complain professionally. Worth it.

 

2. Don’t be shy — throw yourself at people. Platonically. 

Cambridge is crawling with future Nobel Prize winners and people who peaked in Model UN. But you know what’s better than accolades? Friends.

Talk to everyone. Literally. The person sitting next to you in that awkward icebreaker might be your future housemate, lover, or academic arch-nemesis. (All three? Cambridge is weird like that.) So smile, ask where they’re from, and remember names with the intensity of a free climber clinging to a rock face.

Also, don’t stress if you don’t find “your people” in Week One. They’re probably hiding in the Boat Club, the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, or crying in the UL. You’ll find them.

3. Eat your vegetables. No, seriously.

Freshers’ flu is not a myth. It’s real. It’s violent. It’s inevitable. One day you’re sipping Tesco Express rosé and making new friends in the corridor, the next you’re fever-hallucinating your DoS and losing your voice for three weeks. (This happened to me in the first term, and I had to communicate solely via my notes app, which I would not recommend.)

Combat this with vitamins, oranges, and the consumption of green things. And maybe just one night off from clubbing, yes?

Pro Tip: Bring Lemsip, lozenges, and a box of tissues in advance.

4. Go to the Cambridge Union (but don’t sell your soul).

Love it or loathe it, the Union is where you can watch actual famous people say weird things in a room that smells like overpriced wine and elitism. Attend one of those free ‘everyone welcome’ debates at the start of the term. Be amused at how someone can argue such a seemingly invalid point. Stay for the chips and occasional Anne Widicombe appearance.

During a Union visit to catch up with a friend, I found myself at the bar standing next to none other than Kwasi Kwarteng. Without thinking—and far too loudly—I blurted out, “Oh! That’s the man who crashed the economy!” To this day, I’m not sure if he heard me, but the raised eyebrow he shot in my direction suggests he just might have. So there you go, a point within a point, expect the unexpected around Cambridge.

If it’s not your vibe, you can still debate your flatmates about whether Wednesday Revs is overrated for free.

5. Go to a concert. Or opera. Or evensong. Or your college orchestra. Support the arts and other students, dammit.

Yes, I know, you’ve got 100 pages of Paradise Lost to read and your essay is due in 3 hours. But culture is what makes Cambridge… well, Cambridge.

Try going to an evensong—I’ve reviewed a couple for The Tab in what I can only describe as an Anglican Eurovision, and I’m hoping to cover more this term. It’s like going to a free concert in a stunning historic building, and they’re genuinely great to watch, regardless of your religious background. I have not seen one college choir that I haven’t thought is absolutely brilliant. (Though maybe I’m a little biased…)

You should also go to the opera, a concert, an orchestra performance or jazz. These events are everywhere, usually cheap or free, and filled with amazing budding talents you probably sit next to in lectures. I’ve got friends in various Cambridge Orchestras or bands, and nothing beats the smug joy of watching them kill it whilst you clap like a proud mum at parents’ evening.

Opera or orchestra not your thing? Go to a life drawing class, art group or a Fitz late. Watch some Cambridge student theatre. The Cambridge arts scene is incredible, and I’d urge you to take advantage of it whilst you’re here.

6. Try a sport. Any sport. Even if you were picked last in Year 9 PE.

Cambridge Sport is wildly inclusive. There’s a club for everyone: lacrosse, hockey, rugby, polo, football and even… ultimate frisbee.

Even if you’ve never kicked a ball in your life, there will be a team that wants you. Cuppers (college sport) is low stakes, high entertainment. Join. Play. Win or fail with pride. You’ll meet great people and gain a legitimate excuse for accidentally missing that one 9 a.m. lecture.

If that’s not your cup of tea, go and watch the sporting events around Cambridge! Go see a Bumps race and pretend to understand what’s happening, let the overachievers row while you sip your fifth Pimm’s and shout “ROW HARDER!” or “YES W1 LET’S GO!” from the bank.

7. Formals are not a competitive drinking sport. Please. I’m begging you.

Unlimited wine does not mean you need to channel Dionysus every single time.

Formals are one of Cambridge’s finest traditions: gowns, Latin grace, soup you can’t identify, and wine bottles that somehow reproduce on the table. But pace yourself.

Trust me: you do not want to be that person who is sick before dessert and then has to face your entire staircase at breakfast.

Drink the wine, eat the cheese, flirt awkwardly across the table, and just know when to stop. Your liver, gown, and college nurse will thank you.

8. Read your set texts. Seriously. 

Now this is more specifically for humanities students, but it feels too important not to include. Look, I get it. You want to read Middlemarch, but you also want to rewatch all of The Office before Week 1. The struggle is real.

But if you want to avoid that awful moment when your supervisor looks at you and says, “So, what were your thoughts on the post-colonial implications within this text?” and you realise you have absolutely no thoughts at all, read the damn thing.

I know this may sound obvious, but the new reading material week by week can get massively all-consuming, so make sure you have a really, really, really good grasp on whatever your supervisors have set you over the summer, whilst you can still luxuriate in having more than a day to read things.

9. Meditate, go for a run, or just go outside.

No one tells you how intense Cambridge can be until you find yourself crying because the college cafe is out of the Kale Kick. The term is short but relentless. So do what you can to not combust.

Find a green space (Jesus Green, Midsummer Common, a patch of grass inside your college you’re allowed to walk on). Go for a walk. Breathe. Touch said grass, metaphorically and literally.

Apps like Headspace or Calm are good. Or just scream into a punt pole — your call.

10. Remember: It’s okay to not be okay all the time.

Cambridge is magical. It’s also weird, intense, and even sometimes really quite lonely or sad. You’ll have moments where you feel like you’re not smart enough, not social enough, not doing enough. Impostor syndrome is basically the unofficial 32nd college.

But here’s the truth: you belong here. Your offers weren’t admin errors. You’re good enough, smart enough, and probably more interesting than you give yourself credit for.

You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be here. Trying. Learning. Occasionally crying. It’s all part of it. I bleached my eyebrows in week seven. We all make mistakes, just make sure they’re semi-permanent.

Bonus Chaos: A Few More Things You Should Know

• Friday Mash is wildly underrated. Go. Dance. Regret nothing.

• Sunday Kiki’s will exceed your low expectations.

• Row just once. To tell your kids. For the Instagram. For the pain.

• Go watch Bumps. Even if you don’t know what’s happening, it’s gloriously chaotic.

• Don’t date someone in your corridor. Please. Just don’t.

• Try to read for pleasure — even just one poem or one chapter of something unacademic. It’ll keep you sane.

• The UL is terrifying, but you’ll learn to love it.

• Your supervisors are actually really cool. Be polite. Email back. 

• Get a bike. And a helmet. And a dash cam. And emotional resilience.

• Write stuff down. You will forget that you have an essay due. Multiple times.

• Budget. And by that, I mean don’t spend £150 on Urban Outfitters during Week 1 and then live on crackers in Week 8.

Final Thought

You’re at Cambridge now. That’s wild. Absorb it. Enjoy the ridiculousness. Go punting. Fall in love with a Cellist. Submit an essay an hour late and cry in Hall. Write for The Tab (please, please, please) and get yelled at on Camfess.

Most importantly: don’t let it all pass you by while you’re worrying about doing it right.

There’s no perfect way to “do” Cambridge. But if you show up, try new things, talk to people, and occasionally eat a green vegetable — you’re doing it just fine.

Welcome to the best, weirdest, most intense few years of your life. You’ve got this!

(All photos are credited to Evie du Bois)