A few weeks ago I wrote an article for Varsity about ‘debunking the stereotypes’  of the Oxbridge ‘golden bubble’ of academia. This week I shall be propagating the ‘real’ stereotypes which Cambridge students habitually become during their three years of undergraduate life.

I shall starting with the most easily stereotypable of the lot: freshers. Young and naive, excitable yet nervous, this group of undergrads all possess a similar eager-eyed look towards everything. Ask a fresher to sign up to the We Love Trump Society and they’ll do it. Ask one to take part in the Masked Scary Clown Society; they’ll be there. Even the Bring back Nick Clegg Society; they’ll buy lifetime membership. One can only pity the naive fresher, stumbling through the CUSU society fair, clutching 10 free mugs, dozens of society pens and enthusiastically signing up and spending their month’s allowance on a life time membership at the Cambridge Union.

Yet distinctively, some freshers arrive in Cambridge within a group of their own: the gap year fresher. Slightly older, with perhaps a bit more stubble and more a touch more street sense, this group of freshers will constantly make references to their time in Tanzania where they rescued a sabretooth tiger from the depths of extinction, or when they causally swung through the jungle like Tarzan in Cambodia. One can only hope they don’t compare the Cambridge night life with their experiences in Tibet.

The next group of Cambridge ‘stereotypes’ can be classified as being the ‘wild ones’: second-years. Having been at Cambridge for an entire year, second-years are no longer innocent, timid freshers. Second-years are ready to test their limits, both with alcohol and fun. Most probably by the second week of term they have already broken them, and exceeded them by quite some way. They will be the keenest to go out, the first ones down at the college bop, and the last ones to go to bed. They are also the group of students who fully realise just how little work is needed to be done each week (disclaimer: aside from vets and medics, that is).

They are also the group of students whom most third-years will be annoyed and slightly jealous of – especially as I sit here penning a dissertation draft while a bunch of second-years are happily singing ‘YMCA’ next door. With a swish of style, their arrogance and head full of confidence is something which all freshers admire. Now onto the last group: third-years.

Third-years are an admirable bunch who are prepared to sacrifice Tuesday Cindies, formal pennying, and all other kinds of lavish fun for the sake of a dissertation deadline or job interview. Third-years offer a mature sense of wisdom about the world of Cambridge, which second-years seem to lack. You often hear third-years talking in the college bar or library about present changes to the University which “weren’t there in my day”, and reminiscing about the ‘golden age’ when tuition fees  were smaller.

Third-years appear to be in a strange metamorphic transition between ‘studenthood’ and ‘adulthood’, and usually play parent when it comes to college kids, or college grandkids in some cases. To freshers and even second-years, third-year feels like a distant reality in a faraway universe; yet to the third-year, the prospect of leaving the ‘golden bubble’ is coming closer by the day. Expect third-years to not want to take any ‘student nonsense’ – they mean business, but also literal business, as they arrive in the college bar wearing a suit and tie, prepping for a consultancy job interview. They are the business