I don’t claim to be the world’s best friend – far from it – in fact, I tend to provide my friends with unnecessary details about my sex life, am extremely inappropriate every now and then and act plain weird sometimes. However, I like to think of myself as at least a reasonable friend, and I believe that part of this means that, when you hearing a friend knock on your door, you let them in without question. This is the case even if it’s late at night, even if they’re passed out drunk – it’s even the case if they end up spending the night on your single bed (leaving you to make use of all that wonderful floor space in your room). And, more than any other time, it’s definitely the case in exam term. Because people, especially friends, come before exams. Even when you’re at Cambridge.

This seems to be a serious issue in exam term, as no one seems to have the time for you – even your closest friends. It’s okay that they don’t have the time for you if you’re doing all right and are not in need of their help and support. You can carry on and do your own thing in your own time. It’s not okay, however, that your friends don’t have the time for you when you’re facing a crisis or in desperate need of help. It might be the stress coming from the impending doom the night before exams or you could be dealing with other issues such as family troubles, and have no idea who to turn to.

I say this being both Trinity College’s LGBT+ Welfare Officer and also as someone who needs quite a bit of welfare support every now and then to keep me in check – to make sure I don’t just “lose it” (as I like to refer to it), which I sometimes have a tendency to do. My first call for support is usually my friends, who I am grateful to have and more times than not are of enormous help (thank you guys). Because friends are good things to have in one’s life and friends that care can be the best thing ever – they also become essential in exam term.

I get the sense, though, that there is a very strange sense of distancing that happens in Easter term – a prevailing attitude, perhaps less in the arts subjects; “that I need to be working, sleeping or eating and I don’t have the time for your issues right now,” (said in the fastest speed possible so as to conserve time for essential revision). Maybe this is helped by the fact that as there are no more lectures to go to and you now spend quite a bit of time in your college library and see less of the people you used to see from other colleges. But it’s also partly because people just learn to "stop giving a fuck.”

I’m a big fan of evolution, survival of the fittest and necessary selfishness but I also believe that it’s within human nature to take a step back for a moment and set priorities right. Look above again (I reiterate) – actual living human beings take priority always, even if you end up talking them through an hour of their problems. Take it to be your new form of procrastination in exam term – problem solved! And don’t wait for them to call for help, because if you can see and feel that they’re doing badly then they probably are doing so badly that it’s showing to everyone around them. Keep in mind that talking to someone for an hour or two won’t drop you from a first to a 2.i. – if you  end up getting a 2.i., it won’t be because of having helped your friends out, I guarantee that.

So yes – it’s exam week this week, the week after and the week after that – but that is absolutely no reason why you should lock yourself away, ignore your friends when they call and not ask for support yourself should you need it. We all need a pep talk every now and then, so give up the act.

Final note: if you’re mates when the drinking games were on back in Michaelmas and Lent, you’re still mates in Easter when the going gets tough, because we really are all in it together.