Finally, after four months of summer vacation, the first day of classes is upon me! It has been quite a first week or so for me in Cambridge, as while I am completely new to the university (a fresher as they call it, so all first-years/freshman are freshers), I am at the same time a third-year student in their Engineering program (remember, they get their bachelor's in three years!) - a very odd combination when it comes to get acclimated and meeting people on campus, which brings me to Fresher's Week - the week-long orientation for all freshers that is technically on-going but for all intensive purposes complete with classes starting tomorrow.
So what exactly happens during Fresher's Week? Of course, there's a lot of registration activities that go on, which include getting your room keys and your ID card. If you're an international student as I am, you also have to get your BRP (Biometric Residence Permit) and register your status with the college so that you can actually study in the UK. Like MIT, we also have introduction and welcome events with various people in college who attempt to mitigate fears among freshers that they were not "accidentally" admitted or that they don't belong at such a prestigious university. In addition, there was much talk about how being a member of a college will stay with you forever. However, I won't go into much detail about those events, as there wasn't anything too novel in their approach to discussing this material. However, the presentation I had about sexually transmitted diseases was quite entertaining and illustrative of the dangers of unprotected sex. They also had this great analogy between "sexual consent" and "tea consent" that I would encourage people to watch, and you can find it by looking up "tea consent" on YouTube.
For me, I saw six major differences between MIT Rex and Fresher's Week (or as I titled it, "Cambridge REX"), which are:
1) You cannot FYRE out of your room, so there are no rush events. Even if you may not like your room initially, try your best to adapt to it. More often than not, CME students have learned to like their rooms, and it has been extremely rare that a CME student has had to change rooms/colleges. Also, don't be worried that there are no rush events! Colleges most certainly hold events that are reminsicent of rush events. However, they are not designed to convince you to move into the college but rather to settle into the college and embrace what it has to offer.
2) REX is not university-wide as it is at MIT. Rather, every college has its own Fresher's Week program that its own freshers attend. Thus, you end up meeting a lot of people in your college but not many outside of it. This is not a bad thing per se, as there can be a lot of people in just one college alone, so you'll be almost certain to meet a lot of people during this week!
3) There is a more balanced distribution of introduction/welcome events and "fun" events (i.e.. water wars, food events, etc.) that freshers participate in, whereas freshman at MIT are confronted with an overwhelming number of choices of "fun" events to do during REX compared to introduction/welcome events. This difference probably has to do with the fact that Fresher's Week is not university wide. I wouldn't be surprised if you just focused on the events for a particular dorm at MIT, the distribution would become a lot more even.
4) Fresher's Week takes full advantage of the legal drinking age of 18. Indeed, many of the events, especially those later on in the evening, involve alcohol. During the week, we had several "nice dinners," once with upperclassmen and freshers in our department and once with our "families" (I'll explain those in a later blogpost, but essentially it's a group of freshers overseen by two upperclassmen who are our "parents"). Both times, alcohol was served. Many of the "fun" activities were actually social gatherings held in the college bar or at clubs in and around Cambridge. I will emphasize again though that while alcohol is quite prevalent, you do not need to drink in order to participate in/enjoy college activities. I might also add that you're bound to better remember the people whom you met if you are sober instead of drunk.
5) Cambridge has Activities Midway twice: once for groups (or societies) that exist in college and those that are University-wide. I will discuss the societies aspect of Cambridge in a future post, as that is certainly something that is certainly more extensive in Cambridge than it is at MIT for numerous reasons (e.g. active societies within colleges, more diverse student body and hence more diverse interests and therefore more societies)
6) Cambridge has a super awesome matriculation. Whereas matriculation at MIT was extremely informal and arguablly nonexistent, Cambridge goes all out with the formality and ceremony. I thought suit and tie was pretty formal, but here, they take it a step further with a gown (see below)! I must say that the gown looked somewhat weird to me at first drapped over my suit like a cape, but it does look somewhat reminscent of what you would wear at Hogwarts. Plus, I got to shake hands with the president of my college, who is also a member of the House of Lords, and his last name is Eatwell! How awesome is that?
Well, I think I should probably turn in now. Classes start bright and early here in Cambridge! Would really hate to start off the year by oversleeping...