“Unproductive.” It’s the word on everyone’s lips as we all flood back to Cambridge ready for the onslaught of looming exams: “How was your Easter break?” “Ah, unproductive.”

The ever-unrealistic term length to course content ratio that constitutes almost all courses at Cambridge means that most of us feel we must spend the majority of both the Christmas and Easter vacations at our desks, catching up on work that would have been impossible to complete during term time (or, in my case, reading texts that I should have actually read before the start of the year... Whoops!). Because of this, the way in which we view these breaks – especially the Easter vacation – is changed, and our ‘holidays’ morph into A Period Of Time In Which We Should Be Revising, meaning that any plans we may make during this time are weighed down by the infamous Work Guilt. As a result, a whole five weeks intended to be infinitely ‘productive’ naturally become very ‘unproductive,’ as the prospect of five long weeks of study stretches dauntingly before you, inevitably eliciting unreal amounts of procrastination (namely, obsessive Instagram scrolling, wondering why everyone else seems to be out enjoying themselves while you’re lying face down on your bed, wallowing in self-pity and avoiding all the work that you declined plans for).

“Since starting university the thought of watching television had always come with a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that this was A Waste Of My Time.”

My question is, why do we define our ‘holidays’ by how much studying we have or haven’t done? Why is our free time qualified by our work? Although accepting a place at Cambridge comes with a certain level of commitment, it seems wildly unfair to me that we should donate all of our time to our degree. Thankfully, my sentiments were shared by my DoS, who – when I asked what the most productive course of action would be regarding Easter revision – told me to take some time to enjoy myself and asked if I was going on holiday. I decided that it would only be rude not to do as I was told… Alongside a few weeks on a language course abroad with the University, I made plenty of plans to spend well-needed time with family and friends; I spent a lovely few days in London over the bank-holiday weekend, paying a visit to the Southbank Book Market where I bought a novel which I then read - shock horror - JUST FOR PLEASURE. Wild, right.

Because of this, I found that when the time came to actually revise, I worked so much better: setting myself a finite amount of time to get work done in order to be able to go out and enjoy myself meant that I could be fully invested in both, and thus feel guilty about neither. This rule does not only apply to actually making plans to do things and see people: taking time to just relax is equally as important, and I must admit that I have found myself guilty of neglecting this over the past year. A conversation with friends about life and workloads at Cambridge prompted an incredulous “How on earth do you have time for all that?” I couldn’t answer, since I wasn’t actually sure myself. It was only when they started discussing what they’d been watching most recently on Netflix that I realised I’d barely watched TV in months: save for the odd festive film in the Christmas holidays, since starting university the thought of watching television had always come with a nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that this was A Waste Of My Time. So, that night, I decided to ditch the verbs tables and watch Bridget Jones’ Baby with my mum and a bottle of wine. As suspected, a half-naked Patrick Dempsey was much more appealing than my copy of French Grammar in Context.

Hitting the revision blues

For now, we all crack open the books and knuckle down for the final slog of this academic year. But when it’s over, and in-between term time, please stop feeling bad about having a bit of bloody fun