Cambridge departments, the institutional masters behind our degrees. From the endless reading lists to modules with varying degrees of organisation and lectures that... range in quality, the departments are responsible for it all.

Yet, despite the crucial role that they play in shaping our university experience, the relationship between student and department can often feel quite distant. Not necessarily cold, as I am sure most professors would happily help a student if contacted. But still distant, with almost all interactions between us and the department machine kept to the confines of pre-set contact hours.

Supervisions do not really challenge this either, despite their more personal style, at least in my experience. A good supervisor certainly can build a bond of approachability and trust, but this sense of warmth stays limited only to the individual academic. The supervisor becomes a rare light of familiarity in a department still shrouded in mystery.

"Seeing a lecturer give the stage to their respective student society made me realise this is a department that would take my engagement seriously if I chose to put the effort in"

The result of this is that I feel more like a customer working with the department on a transactional basis as I go through my course, rather than an official affiliate and a genuine member of its academic community. Or at least, that’s how I feel about two of the three departments I belong to. Luckily for me, I am also associated with the Social Anthropology department, where a different approach to student relations is taken. It is this association that makes me think there is an alternative to the more common transactional relationship. An alternative that can make the Cambridge experience a little more fun and fulfilling for everyone.

One of the most decisive ways a department can build a connection with its affiliated students is in how they interact with its relevant student society. Here the Social Anthropology department really excels. Firstly, the department actively promotes the society. This includes putting the names of the society’s executive on the department website and giving up some lecture time in Michaelmas to the society president so that they can directly promote events to the first years. This has the obvious advantage of raising awareness. Moreover, it demonstrates a real respect for the students as genuine practitioners of the subject and a belief that their academic engagement should be acknowledged and celebrated. I remember attending the lecture in my first term in Cambridge. I could not even honestly define what anthropology was, and I wasn’t exactly bursting with enthusiasm for the subject. However, seeing a lecturer give the stage to their respective student society made me realise this is a department that would take my engagement seriously if I chose to put the effort in. That realisation was a pretty good motivator in pushing me to give the subject a real chance.

"Subject engagement then becomes more fun for students as they can pursue their niches with someone who shares their passion, and the department becomes more human as you get to meet more of its people"

The strong presence of the student society also helps strengthen the student-department link in other ways. For example, the simple fact that most society events are held within the department. This means its students literally get to engage with the subject right inside its physical heart, placing them in the centre of the academic buzz. You get to take part in all the discussions, discoveries and debates. Like an entry-level employee making small contributions to the business as opposed to a customer whose interactions are limited to just (quite literally) buying a degree qualification.

Demystifying the department building itself goes a long way to bridging the gap. Granted, this is more of an issue for humanities subjects, as STEM students spend more time in their departments due to labs. For me, I have never been inside my other two subjects’ equivalent of a department building, creating a real physical distance. But I know from frequent visits to the Social Anthropology building that just walking around and seeing the offices of your lecturers makes you realise how accessible these people actually are. It is hard to see them as distant characters who only appear on the lecture platform when you see how easy it is to just knock on their door. Because of this, more supervisors opting to hold their supervisions in their department offices instead of their college ones could be quite beneficial.

Academics should also be more open to referring students to their colleagues if they notice the student wants to explore something in another academic’s specialised area. Subject engagement then becomes more fun for students as they can pursue their niches with someone who shares their passion, and the department becomes more human as you get to meet more of its people.

But what would be the benefit of going through the effort to strengthen the bond between student and department anyway? Students become more motivated to engage with the subject for reasons laid out earlier. This should also lead to higher grades, as people use their increased subject engagement to produce more informed and creative exam answers. But departments will also gain the benefit of a more supportive student body. People are more likely to read department emails and attend department-run public events if they feel a genuine connection with the institution.

So, I say to both students and departments, why not try to interact with each other more? We are going to have to deal with each other a lot for a few years anyway, so we might as well enjoy each other’s company as we go along the journey.