Um
I'm continually surprised on the PhD course
It was availability of funding
and resources which not a lot of
other universities have.
I requested a confocal microscope
in my department and we got it!
I think that's quite a privilege to have
because it makes my life so much easier
than traveling to other departments
to use resources, which saves time.
Today one of my lecturers sent us
an email of a live-stream
to a volcanic eruption happening in Iceland,
she was sending us this detailed email
breaking down the facts of what we've learned in lectures
which I found pretty cool and mind-blowing
to see something that's happening right now
relating to exactly what I'm learning in my course.
A way of study is definitely the supervision system.
I remember when I was in first year,
and the fact that I was then being supervised by people
who are literally like leading in their field
and I would be sat either in a room alone
or with one other person
just with that one professor
who's name's on all the textbooks.
In first year one of our lecturers,
he discovered the sodium potassium pump or something
and we've been learning about that since GCSEs
and it was like wow!
It was amazing to hear what he was doing,
where he discovered it.
It was really interesting.
That was quite mind-blowing!
Professor Ibbetson is my supervisor
and so often I'll read 2 or 3
of his articles for a supervision
and then like be able to speak to
the actual person that wrote them
about his work and I think that's really fascinating.
and also helps sort of humanise
these materials you're reading
because you're meeting the person
and understanding him as an actual person
not just an academic and
that is really cool and
that's sort of those moments where you're like:
'Oh, actually I'm at Cambridge and
this is a big deal!'
I put pressure on myself
when I first got here to never
extend an essay deadline
and then it got to second term and
about halfway through second term of first year
and I was like: 'I can't do this anymore.'
My doss was like: 'Just ask for an extension,
like it's fine!
Nobody's gonna crucify you this is not school!'
You don't have to stick to strict deadlines like that.
That's another thing I love about Cambridge,
the flexibility around your work schedule
you get to book your supervisions.
You don't get to book your lectures
but aside from that you can book your supervisions,
you can set your essay deadlines
You can really make it work around you,
so that you do have time to do things that aren't work,
which we all love doing!
I think especially with the social anthropology
part of HSPS,
I thought it was really fascinating
how new of a subject it is.
The lecturers emphasise that it's a new subject,
there's room for improvement,
there's room for criticism.
I didn't really expect to be encouraged
to criticise what I'm studying.
I guess it put me in the position of like thinking
I could be the next generation of thinkers in this subject
which is really cool and I no one's ever encouraged me
to think that way before!
Something that my doss really pushes
is that we can write on whatever we want to
for our lectures that week and that's an amazing thing
as an English student, especially coming from
A-level where it's very much like that is
the question you're given in the exam
and you don't really get much choice.
To write on basically any book as long
as it's in the remit of the paper
and anything you find interesting
like I wrote something on vegetarianism and John Milton
and I just thought that was so cool!
I wrote an essay using a piece of literature
as a lens, which in Maths Education
as you can imagine is a relatively unusual thing to do!
But I'd read a book that seemed to provide a perfect
intellectual way into the topic I was discussing
and very pleasantly I found that my supervisor enjoyed it
and got it and thought it was a really good essay
and that I did find quite surprising but a lovely one really!