Before I was at Cambridge, I worked and then I went to drama school.
I was an apprentice in cybersecurity at a bank.
I was recovering from a long-term illness.
I was a presenter.
I was working a tech company.
I was traipsing around the country doing gigs and amateur dramatics.
I had a number of false starts, kind of thinking I wanted to do
various things at other universities and courses, and it kind of got me
absolutely nowhere, and every time I just found
myself kicking myself for not applying to Cambridge and to an English degree.
I became a mature student by accident really. I was determined to go to university
straight out of school and then life got in the way,
but now I'm here and I'm really glad.
You know I honestly didn't really think university was going to be for me until I applied,
and I just found the College was really welcoming and it just was right to be with a group of people who've had experience before
and we're all doing this kind of crazy academic journey together.
I loved the atmosphere here. I felt like it was somewhere I could see myself.
I felt like I could fit in. I love the fact that it's a city-based area,
so we're within a 10-minute walk from central Cambridge
but also it's got the green areas.
I think it can be often quite daunting being a mature student and wondering whether you're going to fit in with all the younger students,
but I haven't found it a problem at all. Most don't even know that I'm a mature
student and if they did know they wouldn't care.
You make what you want to make out of Cambridge
regardless of whether you're a mature student or not,
but a mature student suits those that may not want to be immersed into an
undergraduate culture again better. I think that's fundamentally what the
balance should be.
There are so many avenues, so many people you can go to when you need help and who are there to support you.
So you have your Director of Studies who's kind of in charge of your program while you're here. You've got your tutor there to help you
with any personal issues you have, and I'm in constant dialogue with them.
They obviously cater to the specific students a little bit and what kind of suits you best
especially if you like have learning needs.
Well one of the things I found most useful was our academic skills program which is designed for students returning to education.
So after a few weeks of finding out how to speed read and how to take decent notes I found my
essays were just getting better and better.
I loved the look of my course as well. I liked the mix of academics and practical which you don't get on a lot of music courses.
I love taking a text and applying it to kind of theatre of the time.
So taking a renaissance text and looking at how it would have been performed, how it would have
been received, and having that freedom to take a text anywhere I want to is really exciting.
So it just had the best of both worlds to me. It allowed me to explore what I'm actually
interested in whilst also allowing me to have the breadth to start off with,
so I didn't have to limit my options from day one. I really liked the idea of the teaching style,
the one-on-one teaching style, that was a big thing for me.
The fact that it's so personal and you get so much of that. Your teachers really get to know you.
I mean you have your typical lecture format but they mix that with supervisions and essentially
that can be anywhere between sort of one-on-one to one-on-three, maybe four,
and it's with someone who isn't the lecturer, and you get sort of another's perspective
of the topics that you're working on in a very close quarter scenario.
It's super helpful.
I think it's the best way
that's conducive to my learning style, and also to allowing us to really
go beyond what we're told at face value, which is what Cambridge is all about really.
It's all about the course, and Cambridge is full of such enthusiastic and like-minded people,
that because you're doing your course you're obviously passionate about it,
and you'll find people who are passionate like you and form friendships that way.
I'd say it's the best place I could possibly be right now.
You're surrounded by people who just know so much, and there's always something going on, something
new, something at the forefront of the field so, it's exciting.