The scenery

There’s not many places where you can do grocery shopping at a market which has been in the same location since Saxon times, or at a Sainsbury’s situated opposite a 400-year-old college. The narrow side streets and cobbled pavements knit together the plethora of ancient colleges, and we take our daily stroll past them for granted. If your hometown isn’t quite this historic, the landmark closest to replicating the spires of King’s Chapel is probably an electricity pylon, and no one will be strutting around in gowns, only hoodies. Arriving outside your door after two months away will be a wonderful feeling, but I can’t be the only one who will sorely miss the beauty of Cambridge.

The nightlife

You’re lying to yourself if you think you will go home and fail to question why Pirates of the Caribbean or High School Musical isn’t being played on your next night out. When we go out, most of us (sorry Girton) can walk to our chosen destination within 10 minutes, meaning the money that would be sent on transport at home there and back can instead be spent on Van of Life, and the lack of dress code removes any sense of pretentiousness once you are inside. Cambridge clubs are unashamedly cheesy, but that’s why we love them.

Motivation

There is an odd, somewhat unfortunate, correlation between pressure and motivation. The reality is that the majority of us will have vacation work, and because there is no tight deadline, we will probably accidentally leave it until the final week for completion. At least when you’re in full term and the pressure is mounting, your motivation is firing on all four cylinders.

Never a dull moment

At Cambridge, there is always something going on: theatre shows to be seen, swaps to go on, societies to partake in. Watching television is a distant memory, not to mention getting eight hours of sleep per night. For the first few weeks at home, being able to relish the recuperation of lost hours of sleep in your own bed will feel incredible I’m sure, but after that, it won’t be long until the craving for the non-stop schedule of Cantab life resurfaces.

Food

By student standards, here at Cambridge we eat rather well. At formal, you are served three-course meals which cost little over £10, while dressed in gowns worthy of Hogwarts and sitting in halls which have been used for centuries. May we be ever grateful for the brunch provided by all reputable college butteries on a Saturday morning, and for impromptu gyp meetings when half the corridor accidentally coincides mealtimes. (Although, perhaps the substitution of endless pasta for genuine oven-cooked food upon our return home won’t be such a bad compromise after all...)

College gossip

Instead of worrying about important things, like the American election and the economic implications of Brexit, for the past two months we have been able to immerse ourselves in regular updates of college ‘news’ instead. We’re all conscious never to be invasive or rude, but a little idle chit-chat about what’s going on in the world of your neighbours is a bit of a guilty pleasure, in which even the bedders can’t help but join, and that we will all miss while we’re away from the bubble. 

Friends

Cliches aside, last but not least must be your college companions. Over the past two months you and a select handful of your peers have achieved a lot together. You will have spurred each other on through Week Five, been squashed within an inch of your lives in the queue for Sunday Life, and shared many a DMC in the corridor in the small hours of the morning. But the ever-growing bond between you will be rudely interrupted as you are ejected back into the real world for six whole weeks, where your friends no longer live within a five minute walk from your room.

No doubt we’ll pick up exactly where we left off next term though