Nothing says work ethic like a large phallic symbol, right?stevecadman

Your desk is practically invisible beneath the piles of unfi led (or incomplete) work, bowls of cereal and discarded graze boxes (with all the seedy snacks left in – I know I was trying to be healthy but a few seeds just don’t cut the mustard), and your bed has become a depository for this week’s washing. This is not a productive work environment. So where can you go to find that happy place, where beautiful essays flow from your pen, and the gods themselves give you inspiration?

The first thought is the UL. Those dark towering stacks, low ceilings and barred windows may not scream divine intervention, but what they do say is: Work Ethic. It’s not exactly welcoming, but if you’re the kind of person who flourishes in dingy, oppressive environments, then the South Front may be just what you are looking for. For the bravest among us, the West Reading Room calls, beckoning you in with its enticing lofty ceilings and aura of panic. Here is the home of those in the last throes of essays and dissertations, and the pressure to actually do something productive is so weighty, that even considering going on Facebook in there feels like a cardinal sin. 

But the UL is SO mainstream. Why not find an edgier place to push the boundaries of academia, somewhere off the beaten track? You may well be tempted away from the conformist hordes in the hope of enhancing your connoisseurship of the numerous libraries of Cambridge. If high ceilings, very few books and tables large enough to traverse the Atlantic are your thing, then you will feel at home in the library of the Cambridge Union Society. It is untarnished by years of essay crises – being hidden away and undiscovered above the streets. You do need to be a member to use it, but if you need a space outside the phallic monstrosity of the UL, this is as good as any. There is room to breathe, no intimidating books, and, as I mentioned before, great tables. It is without doubt a pleasant place to while away the hours, philosophising on Heraclitus, or wondering how many trees it took to make a table that vast…

Alternatively, if your coffee addiction needs fuelling so often that proximity to caffeine is highest on your wish list, hiding out in the upstairs of an edgy, independent, organic coff ee shop may just be the answer. Don your horn-rimmed glasses, snatch up a copy of Voltaire and curl up in a corner looking wistfully intellectual. Inspiration will definitely come, provided you’re not too worried about becoming a jittery wreck, reduced to an hourly dependency on double-shot skinny Fairtrade caramel macchiatos. 

Everyone is different – some barely slink from their rooms to explore the (not particularly) wide world of Cambridge – but there are so many more places to work than just sat, hermit-like at your desk at 2am. Go crazy, and try working somewhere else for a change.