It starts almost immediately. Before you’ve unpacked your cutlery or figured out how to work the shower in your college accommodation, you’re already surrounded by people who seem somehow more prepared, more poised, more… Cambridge. They talk casually about their A-Levels like they were a minor inconvenience. They’ve read obscure books ‘just for fun’. They know what JSTOR is. You, meanwhile, are trying to unsubmit an essay that autocorrected “hegemony” to “hedgehog” on page two and wondering whether crying during a reading counts as critical engagement.

“I spent much of my first year chasing this ‘Cambridge Ideal’”

And so the myth begins, the silent, ever-present idea that somewhere in this university, there’s a perfect student. Someone who floats between lectures and formals with unflappable ease, essays polished, emails answered, emotionally balanced, socially thriving. They wake up early to go on runs by the river, mystifyingly unaffected by the previous night’s shenanigans. They write supervision essays that reference Derrida and make sense. They’re respected by their DoS, loved by their friends, and are somehow also making headway on a think piece documentary about sustainability. You try to play it cool, of course, but deep down you wonder: Why can’t I be more like that?

The truth is, I spent much of my first year chasing that version of myself, this imagined, unattainable ‘Cambridge Ideal’. I said yes to everything. Every event, every opportunity, every extra reading list, because I was convinced that saying no meant falling behind. I wore stress like it was proof of commitment. I’d arrive at lectures after four hours of sleep and as much caffeine as possible, convinced that burnout was just part of the process. When I stumbled or needed help, I internalised it as weakness. Everyone else seemed to be coping. Why couldn’t I?

“Perfection is not only unattainable, it’s a performance”

What no one really warns you about is how much of Cambridge happens behind closed doors. In private, the perfectly poised friend is also calling their mum crying. The one who seems to have mastered every supervision is secretly terrified they’ll be discovered as an academic fraud. Most of us, if we’re honest, are carrying around a kind of private turbulence, an undercurrent of anxiety, self-doubt, and the exhausting need to prove that we haven’t fooled admissions to get here.

It took me months to realise that perfection is not only unattainable, it’s a performance and one that costs far more than it’s worth. The more I tried to emulate that impossible standard, the more disconnected I felt from myself. I wasn’t learning; I was performing competence. I wasn’t growing; I was hiding my fear that I wasn’t enough.

“You don’t have to be perfect to be here”

Things began to shift only when I allowed myself to be more honest. When I stopped pretending I had it all together and admitted (first to myself, then to others) that sometimes I really didn’t. That I didn’t understand the reading. That I felt completely overwhelmed. That I needed a break. And with that honesty came something strange and radical: connection. The people I admired most weren’t the ones who had it all sorted. They were the ones who admitted when they didn’t, and made it safe for others to do the same.

There’s a deep kind of relief in realising you don’t have to be perfect to be here. You don’t have to prove your worth through relentless productivity. You don’t need to curate your life like a LinkedIn post. You just have to keep showing up. Keep trying. Keep allowing yourself to be messy and human in a place that often makes you feel like you shouldn’t be.

Cambridge is intense. It’s full of people doing extraordinary things. But underneath it all, it’s also just a collection of students – tired, overwhelmed, and brilliant in ways that can’t always be measured by grades or polished CVs. The myth of perfection will always linger in the background, but we get to choose whether or not we believe it.

I’m learning to choose differently. I’m learning to measure success not in flawless essays or packed calendars, but in quieter, gentler ways, like being kind to myself after a bad supervision. Like helping a friend get through a tough week. Like resting when I know I need to. Like trusting that I belong here, even when I don’t feel like I do. So, I may never be the polished, poised Cambridge student I imagined, but I’m here, I’m learning, and I’ve stopped crying in public (mostly). And, to me, that feels like growth.