What is there to aim for here, but genius? Not just doing well enough in your exams, or having your supervisor occasionally compliment your work, but true, effortless genius. The kind that gets you a first without you having to try, the kind that intimidates your supervisors, the kind that gets your fellow Cambridge students to look at you in awe. We have set up the genius as an idol of brilliance, talent, and success. What does it matter if we are clever, if we are not that clever?

Cambridge is a melting pot of kids who were always told they were gifted, kids who are simply carrying on the family legacy, kids who were frankly surprised to even be here – and throughout their time at university, most of them will stare comparatively at this brilliant idol of effortless talent and find themselves lacking.

“Cambridge, as much as it prioritises student welfare, both is and has always been unable to eradicate the phenomenon of imposter syndrome”

The truth is that most people here did not get here through effortless talent. They got here through diligent hard work – and this constant comparison to the image of a true genius makes people forget the value in that. It makes them insecure, generally resulting in the common phenomenon here known as impostor syndrome. recognised as something the majority of people here feel at one point or another. The University has set up various welfare structures to deal with it. However, I believe that Cambridge, as much as it prioritises student welfare, both is and has always been unable to eradicate the phenomenon of imposter syndrome and the drastic comparisons to idols made by its students.

Cambridge is built on its idea of being among the finest. It’s old, it’s beautiful, and it is the height of academic success. This is their trademark, their selling point. Keeping it means intimidation and unsure feelings like ‘Am I good enough to be here? ’ in your students. Maintaining it is helped by the aspiration to be the stereotypical ‘genius’. It keeps students motivated, and thus, keeps academic results steady. Put a group of intelligent people – most of whom are used to being the top of every class they take – together in a competitive academic environment, and they will find that the only way to outdo each other is to aspire to effortless brilliance. It is very unlikely that this university will completely reevaluate itself – another of Cambridge’s key attributes is its resistance to change. And so, the way that the University functions now, from the ranked exams to the high supervision standards, will inevitably produce a desire to be the best of the best, and disparagement towards themselves of anything considered less.

“The success of others does not diminish your own, and not being as clever as others does not make you any less clever”

The thing is that genius isn’t the be all and end all. Not being hailed as a prodigy by every supervisor at Cambridge does not mean complete failure. Some people that I have spoken to have even been embarrassed that the only way that they could do well in their exams was through hours of revision, whereas some only have to do half the work. This is not at all the case for all students, many of whom are proud to boast about the large amounts of work that they have done on any given day. However, it is the case for a large amount of the student body, and this disparagement of the value of their effort shows a concerning standard that these students are holding themselves against. There is a mindset here that points towards the idea that having to work for good results makes you lesser than the others that don’t have to – that knowing that others are better makes you worse. It is another way that shows you not to be the best of all those around you.

This mindset is wrong. The success of others does not diminish your own, and not being as clever as others does not make you any less clever. Achieving high scores through hard work is just as admirable as achieving them effortlessly, perhaps even more so. Many students at this university should acknowledge this and stop fruitlessly chasing the shadow of their ideal ‘genius’ – a figure that perhaps is not as overwhelmingly great as their imaginations would have them believe.