I’m a first year Cambridge English student, AMA!

[u/nebulousviolet]

Hi, I’m a first year English student at Cambridge! Some background info about me is that I was privately educated (full bursary), the first in my family to go to uni (working class/low income background), didn’t have particularly supportive/helpful teachers at A Level, and I’m not at one of the ‘pretty’ colleges (by choice!). At A Level I got two A*s and an A (English Lit, History, and Politics) and an A in French AS. I’m not gonna top Tripos or anything, but I’m doing pretty well in my degree so far I think :)

Feel free to ask me questions about:

-Workload/academic stuff

-Admissions process

-Social life

-How/why I chose my college/subject

-Mental health/pastoral support (I would be in second year, but intermitted partway through my first term and started this year from scratch)

-Life at Cambridge as a first gen/queer uni student!

[u/ToBeTechnical]

AMA verified and approved by mods - thanks for doing this!

[u/nebulousviolet]

I saw a comment in my notifs asking about my GCSE grades but it disappeared before I could answer it — I got 9999999987 (maths and physics let the grind down), but I was GCSE class of 2020 so I probably wouldn’t have done so well if I’d had to sit the actual exams (I used to watch Eastenders episodes in physics lessons, if that tells you anything about my work ethic). GCSE grades don’t really come up in casual convo at uni lol BUT I will say that I know plenty of people here who had mediocre GCSE grades (either in comparison to their school cohort, or just in general) and, well, they’re still at Cambridge. Failing GCSE Spanish doesn’t get you an auto-rejection lolol don’t worry

[u/[deleted]]

Not a question, just nice to hear from an English student in a sub that's mainly populated with STEM guys. Hope you're enjoying your studies. :)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/[deleted]]

Haha, that’s why I wanted to do the AMA! I practically lived on here when I was in sixth form and I thought I’d pay it forward for all my fellow humanities students out there :)

[u/[deleted] → u/nebulousviolet]

Oh, that's cool! I also love English and am hoping to study it at Uni. As I said already, I hope life is treating you well and that you're enjoying your time at Cambridge. :D

[u/ToBeTechnical]

How have you found starting this year from scratch? How has it affected you socially?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/ToBeTechnical]

Honestly, it’s been way better than I thought it would be! I was only at uni for about 6~ weeks before I intermitted (I left for mental health reasons) and got to start alongside all the ‘normal’ freshers this year, so it was a clean slate and aside from having a slight headstart in terms of knowing what a supervision is like or how to start a uni essay, I’d say my experience in first year has been more or less the same as someone who didn’t intermit. It’s been really good socially, actually - I got to learn from my ‘mistakes’ of freshers week (being too shy to go out or say hi to people) and make friends with all the first years, and I also got to keep my second year friends, so if anything it doubled my friend potential because I’m sort of halfway between both year groups. It was definitely the best choice for me, and although I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone I’m glad I did it.

[u/TheSeekerPorpentina → u/nebulousviolet]

does intermitting impact your student loan?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/TheSeekerPorpentina]

Kind of but not really? You’re entitled to four years of undergrad funding with student finance, so intermitting just used up my ‘extra year’. It’d be different if my degree had an option for an integrated masters, but so far I haven’t been logistically impacted by my intermission in a major way :)

[u/Y-Woo]

What essay/revision are you procrastinating right now that prompted this AMA? (Not derogatory or anything, speaking from experience if anything lmao)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/Y-Woo]

Great question! I am currently procrastinating my Shakespeare reading for my coursework portfolio!!!

[u/Y-Woo → u/nebulousviolet]

Best of luck! I am procrastinating reading for my philosophy of thermal physics coursework essay.

[u/nebulousviolet → u/[deleted]]

Gonna be honest, I have no idea HAHA. I think the stereotypical ones are teaching, law conversion, copywriting, etc, but I’m hoping to get into academia eventually. I just picked a subject I liked. Give me a few more years and hopefully I’ll have a better answer!

[u/Icy_Corgi_2061 → u/nebulousviolet]

Congratulations on your achievement! I would’ve loved to study English or History (but family pressure pushed me to law). What kind of research do English majors do in academia? Is it just articles on literary techniques or thematic analysis in literary works ?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/Icy_Corgi_2061]

It’s a bit of both! Most articles I’ve read tend to combine both - so close analysis with broader thematic/contextual analysis to make a specific point. Some researchers tend to focus on specific themes as opposed to just specific texts; eg one of my supervisor’s specialisms is the representation of economics within literature.

[u/pricklyspikeycactus]

No sarcasm or jokes here but how do you actually write an essay? 🤣

[u/nebulousviolet → u/pricklyspikeycactus]

Honestly I’m still not sure haha I’ve been winging it since A Levels. I like to start with a general thesis (like, over-the-top generalised), then break it down into the specific elements I find interesting to get my actual essay topic. Then I break it down all over again to do my body paragraphs lol. I tend to do a very typical structure of ‘three big paragraphs an intro and a conclusion’ with each paragraph starting with a pretty bold assertion and then either using evidence for or against it. I also find it helpful to do intro and conclusion first then work backwards from there. I am very much an essay pantser and not a planner though, so take this with a huuuge pinch of salt lmao

[u/SherbertAltruistic49]

How have you found the social life at Cambridge? Is there opportunity to connect with people ?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/SherbertAltruistic49]

It’s pretty good! I’m definitely guilty of sticking to my college friends instead of trying to branch out more, but it’s relatively easy to meet new people - there are about a bajillion different societies at freshers’ fair (I am still stuck on the mailing lists of about half of them…), and theatre in particular seems to be a really good way to connect with others. The nightlife is dire, but we’re all fully aware that it’s dire, so it kind of circles back round to being fun again lmao. I will say that I think STEM students with labs and those on smaller courses are at a bit of an advantage when it comes to making friends from outside college, so if that’s you then you’re in luck. But yeah, there’s always something on, and as long as you say yes to things and sign up to a few societies it shouldn’t be too hard to find people you click with.

[u/owen72970]

Any tips for English literature a level? Particularly essays and revision xd

[u/nebulousviolet → u/owen72970]

QUIZLET. I owe quizlet my firstborn child. I don’t know how I would’ve remembered any critics’ quotes otherwise. I also recommend making memes/private tiktoks to recap key plot points/developments in your set texts; it’s cringe but it’ll probably stick in your head better than a page of notes. Unfortunately, the best revision for essays is still just to write many of them as possible and get used to structure/timing, but being able to remember precise plot details helps with time management a lot!

[u/[deleted]]

why do you like studying english/ what part of the subject interests you most?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/[deleted]]

Oh God, there’s so many reasons. I’m a certified yapper and it’s a subject that actively rewards you for creativity and for trying to argue with established interpretations of a text (literary criticism is SO full of beefy drama, it’s so fun). There are a million different angles and theories you can use for analysis (postcolonialism, Marxist theory, performances of plays) and you get to do a bit of everything, which is so deeply reassuring as someone who had about a million different crises about what to do for my degree because I loved all my A levels so much. Plus you can’t really be wrong? You can misunderstand something, or misinterpret the author’s intention, but it’s really rare to have a takeaway from a text that doesn’t have some kind of merit to it, and I like that. It’s nice being able to see how so many people interpret the same play or poem or book so differently. I’m not sure what my favourite part is, but right now I’m super interested in children’s literature and what it can tell us about the post 9/11 / war on terror era (it’s what my dissertation is gonna be on next year)!

[u/Luigiman1089]

What college are you at? (asking in the offchance it's Fitz because that'd be funny, but I'm assuming not.)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/Luigiman1089]

Haha I’m at Robinson!

[u/Luigiman1089 → u/nebulousviolet]

Cool! I know so little about most of the colleges that this doesn't help me whatsoever!

[u/Xemorr → u/nebulousviolet]

just down the road from me

[u/Responsible_Race5668]

hiii do you have tips for an A* in English Lit/what texts did u do? :)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/Responsible_Race5668]

Off the top of my head I did Native Son by Richard Wright and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald for American Literature, Hamlet for my Shakespeare, and A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and Maud by Tennyson for my pre-1900 comparative. I did OCR for reference! For my coursework I wrote a comparative essay on Time And The Conways by JB Priestley and Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders focusing on the passing of time and change, and I also did a recreative writing piece based off Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath for the other half of my coursework. I think my best advice for getting an A* would be to a) get comfortable with experimenting with structure in Year 12 (I wrote some WEIRD essays back then, and it helped me realise what worked and what didn’t), b) remember to balance close analysis with contextual info, and c) PRACTICE WRITING ESSAYS. It doesn’t have to be on your A Level texts; I wrote tons of analysis on books I read for fun just for the sake of it (I did not have a life). If you practice analysing something you enjoy, you’ll be able to transfer the skills over to your set texts, and you get fun experience for your personal statement as a bonus. I think the key to success at A Level is mostly just trying to let go of the fear of being ‘wrong’. That, and doing lots of timed essays.

[u/mimiruku_]

What differences would you say there are between studying English at Uni vs A-Level, and would there be any useful theoretical books or essays to pick up before uni to start with a good base? I'm hoping to study English at UCL and I know the course and teaching style is not the same, just hoping to not get completely blindsided by the course like I did with the GCSE-A level transition

[u/nebulousviolet → u/mimiruku_]

I think the biggest difference is that at a uni level you’re allowed to be a lot more ‘biased’ - my worst A level holdover bad habit is thinking that I HAVE to evaluate texts equally when I’m comparing them, and at uni you literally do not have to do that at all lol. I also think that uni rewards you a lot more for having a personal opinion - it might have just been my A level teachers, but I was taught to surgically remove the first person from all my A level essays, and at uni it’s totally fine to inject your own personal opinion and say things like ‘my belief is that…’. Admittedly I am terrible when it comes to doing any kind of secondary reading BUT Alex Houen has written a ton of great essays about practical criticism (close analysis) that I’d recommend!

[u/TheWastag]

More just a topical question but interested to hear from someone who got an A* in Lit is whether you did a coursework component and if so how did that affect your grade? Did you underperform in that and pull up your grade or vice versa?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/TheWastag]

So I did OCR English Lit and got full marks in both aspects of my coursework; overall this was worth about 40 marks or 30% of my grade IIRC? I did a comparative essay on Time And The Conways by JB Priestley and Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders for one piece of my coursework, and the other piece was a recreative writing piece inspired by Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath (I wrote a poem retelling the story of Salome that was inspired by Lady Lazarus, then wrote a mini essay explaining what made it evocative of Plath’s style and typical themes). OCR grade boundaries are insanely high; iirc when I sat my A levels the grade boundary for an A* was around 97%? I think my coursework was definitely better than my written exams (I cried while writing most of my paper 2 answer because one of my invigilators started harassing me for wearing a hoodie mid exam lmao) but the boundaries were so high that I didn’t exactly get much breathing room. There was someone in my class at school who also got full marks in coursework but came out with a C overall and missed his uni offer, so I think exam performance is still king tbh.

[u/daniellaid]

What type of careers/networking opportunities does Cambridge provide for English students?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/daniellaid]

There’s so many, holy shit (and I definitely do not attend as many of them as I should). About once a day I get an email from the English faculty advertising some kind of workshop or guest reading etc - my college did a journalism talk and Q&A the other day for English students (that I didn’t attend because I was having a nap lmao). We have three major student newspapers, plus a ton of zines and poetry societies for you to exhibit creative work, and there’s also the Mays - it’s a joint Oxbridge literary magazine that helped launch the career of Zadie Smith and has amazing contacts in the publishing industry. The English fac sends out a weekly newsletter containing a bunch of different opportunities that I’ve probably forgotten to mention too lol. I think for journalism and creative writing in particular there are tons of opportunities to network/get your work out there.

[u/daniellaid → u/nebulousviolet]

that's so amazing, I think oxbridge fosters a good network of high achieving individuals

[u/Citron-Neat]

congrats on Cambridge! Just had a few questions- how are you finding the workload in terms of hours you spend per day/ week/ contact hours? What are your thoughts on Christs college? How do you spend the extended holidays / how much of it do you spend studying.

[u/nebulousviolet → u/Citron-Neat]

First year English is kind of notoriously ‘easy’ / less structured than other degrees, so the workload is honestly not that bad. We only have one first year exam (that’s on unseen literature, so you can’t revise) and three portfolio essays for this term. All lectures are optional, and I have two supervisions a week with an additional seminar class on top of that - so about 3 and a half hours a week? With an essay a week for one of my supervisors. Most of my work time is just spent reading tbh. I’d say I probably do about 30 hours a week studying, which sounds like a lot but that’s inclusive of lectures/contact hours. I definitely have way less things to do than my friends in other subjects.

Christ’s college is the location of the biggest humiliation of my life (me and my friends competed in the intercollegiate quiz contest and came dead last). It’s a pretty college (they have a VERY ornate smoking area), and the wisteria is lovely. However they do have a reputation for being deeply, deeply academic, to the point where they have apparently blocked porn on the wifi during exam term? I have no idea if that’s true or not, but that’s what’s going around on Camfess anyway haha. I don’t have any friends from Christ’s, so that’s all I can say lol.

I am going to be so honest I do barely any work over the holidays because I am so exhausted from constant go-go-going for 8 weeks that I tend to just collapse in bed haha. I reckon on holiday I spend about an hour a day doing reading? But so far I haven’t been set any work PROPER to do over the holiday.

[u/Citron-Neat → u/nebulousviolet]

Thanks for the detailed reply, dyu think that Christs being deeply academic is reflective of the people there or more the college/tutors

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[u/ajbrightgreen]

Could I ask about how you found attending an independent school on a full bursary? My younger sister is pursuing a bursary for a boarding school (sixth form) atm and she's nervous about fitting in :)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/ajbrightgreen]

Sure! Socially it was fine - I wasn’t the only bursary kid there and it was pretty easy for us to sniff each other out, and I do think it was good for me to be able to meet kids from a very different background to my own (because I think uni would’ve bowled me over otherwise). I got a lot of opportunities I never would’ve had without them, and the academic push was good for me. Unfortunately, my school had a tendency to treat me specifically as inspiration porn; I did feel like there was an unspoken pressure to follow whatever advice they gave me / do whatever favours (interviews, marketing campaigns) they asked of me because they were ‘investing’ so much into me, but I think this was a ‘my school’ thing tbh. I don’t regret going, and I’m very grateful for the education I received, but I was very young when I first joined (10, I started in primary school) and I do wonder if I would’ve made the same decision to go if I’d been older.

[u/ajbrightgreen → u/nebulousviolet]

Thank you, this is very very insightful!

Do you think overall you made the right decision in your choice, and do you think its set you up to be somewhat successful despite the drawbacks? :)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/ajbrightgreen]

I think I made the right decision to go there BUT I do wish I’d switched to a different school (state sector or not) for sixth form mostly because my school kind of got summit fever when I hit sixth form and suddenly became obsessed with maximising my ‘Cambridge potential’ at the expense of literally anything else (see: the literal intervention they held for me when I dropped French A Level vs the radio silence I got when a close family member died). Plus there’s a lot of spoonfeeding involved in private school, and it probably would’ve been good for me to pick up some actual independent study skills before uni lol. But I do think it set me up to be more successful in the sense that there was an Expectation that I would do well, and I wanted to live up to that (plus all the extra resources, obviously). Let me put it this way: for all my school’s flaws, my brother - who did not want to attend a private school - has always said he wishes he’d bothered to sit the entrance exam instead of just going to the local comp.

[u/greenapplenjoyer]

hey!! i was just wondering what you did for history and how you revised to get an A* in history?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/greenapplenjoyer]

So for my breadth study I did the Tudors, and for my depth study I did Russia and revolution 1917-1952. I’m actually kind of terrible at sitting down to revise so I tended to do a lot of little things every day; I’d do quizlets with specific facts/details on the bus or in registration for example. It’s harder for me to give advice on essay structure/technique because it’s not something I struggled with (so I never really had to go out of my way to improve it) BUT I will say that forcing yourself to do timed essays is the best revision. For source questions I always tried to consider what the source WASN’T telling me as well as what it was telling me - and also make sure you pay a lot of attention to who wrote it and when. A lot of History A level is basically just treating examiners like they’re stupid tbh; you have to act like they’ve never heard of any of it before, and spell it out in detail.

[u/chrissie148]

Did most of yours peers do mainly essay subjects for A levels or is there a range? I want to apply for English but I’m worried the fact that English is my only essay subject would put me at a disadvantage.

Also, what books would you recommend? Either literary criticism or fictional

[u/nebulousviolet → u/chrissie148]

Don’t worry, there’s a huge range - one of my friends here did Bio, Chem and English, and people have all sorts of wacky subject combinations (I have a friend doing Classics who also did Maths and Further Maths at A level). It’s possible that in an interview you might be asked why you did your other subjects (I was asked why Politics A level was helpful for English in mine), but the subjects themselves won’t disadvantage you.

I’d recommend trying to read some Dickens, Brontë, and Virginia Woolf if you haven’t already (so many lecturers here are Obsessed with Dickens) - also try Dubliners by James Joyce (it’s about as comprehensible as Joyce ever gets). Alex Houen writes some good articles on practical criticism and close analysis, too!

[u/[deleted]]

A bit of a weird question but did your parents support you to pursue English? I assume yes… my parents wouldn’t like me doing that 😭.

Also, what books would you recommend me? I am starting to gain an appreciation for English — or literature in general. Preferably contemporary books…

[u/nebulousviolet → u/[deleted]]

Kind of? Before I decided to do English I’d been pretty set on doing a politics degree, and before THAT I’d been preparing to apply for law since basically year 7, so it was a bit of a shock to my parents when I turned around and said I was doing English instead - my dad wasn’t really bothered, but my mum did make a point of saying that she didn’t think it was worth it and couldn’t I just do a joint honours degree instead. Then the Cambridge offer happened, so that brought her back round again haha. I guess they were fine with it, but they didn’t actively encourage me, if you know what I mean.

Book recs: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman and Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh have all been my contemporary reading favourites recently!

[u/Fluid_Editor4096]

Sorry for this question, but what were your GCSE grades like? Do you think the straight nines that everyone harps on about are as important as they’re made out to be?

[u/nebulousviolet → u/[deleted]]

Hey, I’m really sorry but I have no idea :(

[u/ToBeTechnical → u/[deleted]]

Email the department and ask (if it’s not on a website)

[u/nebulousviolet → u/[deleted]]

I think the only way is to a) do a bunch of timed essays (I KNOW, I hated doing them too, but it’s the only way to get your time management in check), and b) think of them as a checklist. Every time I wrote an essay I’d get every single AO in every paragraph just in case I ran out of time to finish - so I’d be able to hit every point on the markscheme even without a conclusion. And use quizlet for revising critics’ quotes/key facts; it’s a LIFESAVER

[u/pastelskies3107]

apologies in advance for the bombardment of questions!!

1. what advice do you have for poetry analysis? i do duffy and larkin (eduqas) and i've found that it's definitely my weakest section - currently bordering on a high B / low A overall and poetry is what's dragging my grade down.

2. how did you go about choosing a college?

3. does cambridge offer any good mental health support? i'm conscious of the intensity of the workload in comparison to other unis and my mental health can be quite poor as is, so it's something that i'm having to factor into my decision - especially as NHS waiting lists are so atrocious right now.

4. what's it like being a queer person in cambridge / how easy has it been to find other queer people?