Lucia Keijer Palau

Any expectations I had when arriving here are more or less a total blur. There are some things, though, that are relatively unsurprising: my supervisor intimidates me and drains my mental capacities in equal measure; wearing a gown makes me feel like a weird bat-human; and I’ve hit new levels of drenched-in-other-people’s-sweat (and body odour) at Fez. Certain things, though, have been somewhat more unexpected, like the Trinity mathmo who tried to pick me up in Cindies by virtue of the fact that he was a Trinity mathmo (“I would ask you what you do, but the real question is: Do you want to come back with me?”), and the shock that riding a bike in actual traffic (and rain) is terrifying and difficult, especially when done to the tune of the aggressive honks of drivers gesticulating at your soaking self from the comfort of their warm, dry vehicles. Time works in funny ways here, too. When I signed up, eight week terms seemed like a total doss – basically half a year of holiday – but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I feel like I’ve been here for ages, at least long enough to comfortably share clothes and overshare feelings with my staircase. Still, though, I don’t even want to think about how shattered I’ll be in a month if this is only halfway.

Anna Jennings

This is it, I thought, as I cycled across Orgasm Bridge on a borrowed bike too big for me, in my swooping black gown, heels wobbling in the basket. This is Cambridge, I decided, as I ashamedly pushed the bike the final few steps and turned to admire Tit Hall library and the stars. The reality was that this was just another in the series of moments that have felt quintessentially Cambridge in the whirlwind of this term – singing every word of ‘Let it Go’ in Cindies, debating Putin’s politics at 2am and waking up to drunk proposal texts being particular highlights. To say Cambridge is very Cambridge is to write poorly, but what I’m getting at here is that Freshers’ Week is somehow as intense, surreal and stereotypically Cambridge as I had hoped.

Of course, it’s not all rosy postcard pictures: there have been nights of frantically reading Spark Notes until 2.30am, some vomit, and a freshers flu that refuses to clear. As well as developing respectable punting skills, the biggest lesson I’ve learnt since getting here is that Cambridge is, rather obviously, impossible to define in one snapshot of a moment or 220 words. Although running through Cambridge streets, lost and late, listening to an audio book of Bleak House at 1.5 times the speed got close.

Yukiko Kobayashi Lui

Should you fake being an extrovert when it doesn’t come naturally to you? It’s the perennial problem for us introverts who have to engage in mandated socialising. Starting university is one such occasion, where everything feels like an ultimatum and you’ve convinced yourself this next introduction is going to make or break your social life for the next three years. It’s hard to reconcile being a recreational hermit with the fact that this is the 500th time you’ve said your name today – discounting, of course, the hundred times you’ve practised it in front of a mirror beforehand, just to be safe.

When so much of the first few weeks at Cambridge revolved around being willing to form coherent sentences around other people, it was difficult to allow myself to take time out to just relax. All the people I hadn’t met yet and the things I hadn’t done yet hollowed me out and drained my excitement. It left me with the discomforting feeling that I wasn’t doing Freshers’ Week right. I wonder if I would have felt less apprehensive about the first few weeks of term if I had shed my introvert skin a little. But that would have been a heavily retouched version of who I really am, and after all, what are first impressions if not wholly representative?

Molly Biddell

The ultimate bonding experience. Once the formalities of the fresher creed: name? (inevitably forgotten), college? (the same as yours, and actually on your staircase), and subject? (ASNAC – okay…) are over, pal pursuing begins in earnest. Quickly endorsed into a new lineage, bequeathed surrogate parents and a herd of new ‘blood’ siblings, the familyhood is quickly affirmed with the slogans ‘sista 4eva’ and ‘ma bruv’ which now plastered over chests after the freshers’ t-shirt party. The joy of formal, an occasion to show your new besties how fab you look in billowing black curtains, and even better once you’re sufficiently inebriated and debating politics with your DoS. The matriculation fish course shakes the uneducated (in terms of cutlery usage) from the more uneducated, and port proves a good jolly before you hit Cambridge’s infamous night scene. Oh, the madness that is Cindies and Fez. It’s epic. It’s tragic. It’s a chance to show your true Strictly self, whacking out the ‘big fish little fish’ remix. If the team make it to Van of Life, not only have you gone hard you’ve also undoubtedly made lifelong friends: a team, a gang, a posse. Five weeks in and you’re already married and have chosen the godparents. In Cambridge things move damn fast.

Maheen Behrana

I feel like I’ve been here forever. Not in that kind of exhausted, fed-up way I’m told strikes later in the year (though, to be fair, everyone is a bit exhausted), but in the sense that I feel like I’ve never known anything different. I’m used to it now: I get up in the morning, I (try to) work, I go to lectures, I work/procrastinate some more – the list goes on. Now it might seem like I’ve been finding the whole experience a bit wearing, but that’s not really true. Yes, I have felt Week Five looming overhead, and I have a sense of what the blues might be (I think I may have already had a trial run), but actually, in the grand scheme of things, the sheer intensity of Cambridge is most probably what has kept me going.

True, there is a lot of work, but there’s so much else to do beyond that when you leave the library. Cambridge is exhausting and intense, and that can take its toll; sometimes you miss home, miss your friends, miss being praised at least a little, but other times, when you do the things you enjoy, make new friends, and just reflect for a moment, it doesn’t feel so bad after all. Sometimes, I just put everything down and go for a walk, and it’s then that I realise what a beautiful place Cambridge is, and how lucky I am to be here.