I'd say the freedom.
Freedom.
Freedom, I guess.
Responsibility.
The main difference would be that
you are you're more independent
and you're more responsible
for your actions in comparison
to school where you have your parents
and people to look after you
and look out for you.
At university everything is on your time;
you plan your schedule sort of,
you plan what you want to go to and when.
At school you have teachers telling you:
'You have to do this! You have to do that!'
You know stick to a schedule
but in uni, other than your lectures,
you kind of set your own schedule.
You're very much doing it for yourself
and you're expected to take that on yourself
and structure your own life really
and I think that's the big change from school to uni.
I think uni, particularly Cambridge
there's far more freedom in what you get to learn,
the questions you get to ask.
That's what I've loved most!
You can choose what you do within your study a lot more,
at least for humanities, which is really nice.
For me at school I did;
History, Politics and French
and usually it was much bigger classes
whereas at university it's a lot of independent work
and then you'll have a supervision that's one-on-one.
Even with supervisions,
they tailor towards what your interests are
but then they give you the resources
to look further, to read further.
It's like going to a lesson,
you do the starter and
then you have to research the rest yourself
and come up with your own take
on whatever you're talking about.
I came from a very small school,
so teachers were constantly behind my back
to get work done
or like submit this, submit that.
At uni it's very different
you're just on your own schedule.
There are support networks
but they're not they're not chasing behind you to get work done.
Being able to not have a uni is actually really nice.
Also just being able to pop down to a study session
Have it been really casual really chill.
It feels like I'm able to work hard here,
as I'm paying to do,
and also enjoy myself a lot more.
And how you can play hard
after you've worked hard
is a really important question
to try and resolve as early as possible I think.
You're sleeping here, you're eating here,
your whole day spent in the college,
you can really make up your own times.
When you're living in halls,
you might be working 9-to-3 or 9-to-5 but past that time
you're still responsible for yourself.
In high school I feel like there are cliques,
there's a group that you're always with
and they're the only people you can really hang out with.
Whereas at uni it's completely different
because there are so many different levels to the student population,
like obviously you have college, you also have your course
but you also just have the wider university
and the different societies there.
I went to school quite far from where I lived,
so when I'd get home that was it for the day.
I'd just be in my room or playing video games with my friends
if I was gonna talk to them.
But once I'm here I can just pick up and go to the bar,
go to the pub, go to dinner with my friends,
cook with my friends.
I think you have a lot more time to explore
and to understand yourself better.
I think during uni years you're still maturing
but I think there's a lot of difficulties
and trials along the way.
Not necessarily just in university
but just in like your life
but then you have to juggle that with university
and I think it's really like precious time,
like I always think that these are some of my golden years
because it's like the time where I can get to know myself better
and see how I react to situations.
You aren't constrained by having to live
in a household with people who might not
particularly agree with your lifestyle choices
or your sexuality
or all sorts of things about the way
that you want to present yourself or your identity.
That's pretty important to lots of students.
Just meeting loads of new people;
new supervisors, professors, affiliated staff
and just getting to know what people's interests are
and seeing where the different alleyways are
because I think with university you finally specialise
in what you want to do,
whereas still at school you're, kind of
a jack of all trades!
There's something like 900
or maybe even more societies at Cambridge,
so you can't go to all of them,
which is why you have to choose to prioritise stuff.
I mean I guess it's a blessing and a curse
that you really have to structure your own time
and make sure that you're getting everything done.
For me that's been really helpful
because I've found that I can
waste less time and just get things done
and have so much time to myself.
I kept going to events and it was great because
everyone at Cambridge is here to meet other people.
Even if they already have friends
people are so welcoming
and so open to talking to new people,
whether that's a society event
or if you go to a formal
you'll literally start chatting to the people next to you,
like I sometimes think that people
literally just go to the events to meet new people.
University is a lot more fun,
I think it's nice to be away from home
and get that independence
and also you get to do what you want
and structure your own day.
I feel like I'm slowly adapting now
but it took some time at first
because there's just so much independence!