It was only last week that academics and support staff at the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University went on strike at several lecture sites protesting against the failure to increase wages, something which, according to the Labour parliamentary candidate for Cambridge, Daniel Zeicher, was “an entirely reasonable demand”.

The protest, covered enthusiastically by the student press, drew significant student and trade union participation. Glyn Hawker from Unison told onlookers that “the University would not be open ever were it not for hardworking staff.” This was certainly a statement which provoked a warm, wholehearted response from many of the students present.

While such support is invaluable and undeniably positive, there is a critical disparity between student participation and the shocking lack thereof from the recently graduated.

Although Cambridge students may give an emphatic nod when questioned on the need to resolve key social issues – such as income inequality, access to education and minority rights – this activism is demonstrably short-lived and many long-term social campaigns are suffering when their main support comes from institutions with an annual turnover of a new, generally politically ignorant student body.

Consistency and sustained interest are of paramount importance for real and lasting social change.

How many Cambridge students actually go on to continue campaigns they were involved in at University, or perhaps even initiated? Is it through a growing sense of apathy or disillusionment that many relinquish their political voice? Is Russell Brand onto something?

I decided to speak to a variety of current and past Cambridge students to get a sense of the real motivation behind university student campaigning.
During last week’s rally, Mordecai Paechter, a first-year student at King’s, made it clear that “the students will support the staff all the way.”

Yet, as it quickly became apparent to onlookers, Paechter was also using the stage to preach his own political ideology. A student present at the protest told me: “I felt at some times he was drifting off the point – the need to increase wages – [and] was instead trying to convince the crowd of his own political beliefs.”

When I contacted Paechter, who is also an active member of the Marxist Society, he confidently told me that “I am going to speak for what I believe in. Sure I was there to represent CUSU and its motion, but at the same time this does not preclude me from identifying what is wrong with the system as a whole.”

When I asked him about the effectiveness, and perhaps even the motivations behind the majority of student campaigns, Paechter noted, “it’s not about the quantity of campaigns, but rather what we are campaigning about. The political organisations of the University need to give leadership to the issues that matter and explore the very heart of the problem.”

Is this representative of a wider trend, one where students hide behind campaigns in order to use it as a platform to disseminate individual political beliefs? And have we lost sight of their core meaning? As with all things human, everyone is different.
Most importantly, what comes across as shady manipulation is more often than not well-meaning. Whether Mordecai Paechter will continue his communist rallies after graduating remains to be seen.

I find myself wondering: why do students become so politically driven when at University? Is it the flurry of excitement of parent-free independence; a desire to espouse the philosophies so elegantly put forth by the artists, revolutionaries and thinkers we learn about in supervisions; or do we feel the impatient shadows of infamous student protesters impelling us to carry forth the tradition? Maybe we’re just generally frustrated.

“I used to get involved in several of the student campaigns, especially those related to women and inequality of access to education,” Amy Johnston, a former Cambridge student told me, “but at present I’ve lost all interest, and the pressures of work coupled with the need to excel in my profession mean that I have no time for any kind of activism.”

Amy also went on to say: “I think campaigning is a very ‘university thing’. You convince yourself into thinking you are doing something great and perhaps you are. Yet, ironically, by virtue of going to such a prestigious university as Cambridge the reality of post-university life is that you are sufficiently comfortable not to care.”
Of course, there are no definitive statistics to support her claim – except that, according to Admissions statistics, last year less than 6 per cent of Cambridge University graduates pursued a career in social, community or charity work – and neither is it possible to gather evidence on which students actually pursue the activist path, or whether this was reflected in their behaviour during university.
But undoubtedly the reality is that university campaigning is indeed a different exercise to the real world. The test of one’s passion for political and social issues is reflected in whether you can sustain it after graduating.

Ultimately, the motives behind student campaigning are not always clear cut or wholly sincere. But it is certainly important; the issues themselves would suffer for want of support. I suppose the choice rests on the premise that continuing to campaign will indeed raise awareness, regardless of whether its motives and longevity really are legitimate.