Greetings, all! It has been long time no write! Indeed, Lent term was quite a busy one for me! I had six (!) modules last term, which is one more than the usual five, and boy was it noticeable! Even my DoS told me that he would never let any of his normal Cambridge students do this but was only letting me do it because I'm an exchange student (in short, I can picked all of my modules before I left MIT so that the MIT side would know what my academic program would be this coming year, but I could not have foreseen at the time that it would be split four modules in Michaelmas and six modules in Lent)! I figured that it wouldn't be too bad because the amount of time spent going to lectures and supervisions is still not at the same level as it is at MIT, but things quickly became a logistical nightmare when almost all of my supervisions started in Week 4! By Cambridge standards, that is very late, and many supervisors were trying to rush to have at least two or three supervisions before term was over. Given the logistical difficulties in just even planning one supervision, trying to juggle five or six all at once was not fun to say the least. However, I did take pride everyday knowing that I was probably doing 20% more work than every Cambridge engineer and here I am now, two-thirds of the way through the year! It feels great to have come this far, though I know the biggest challenge still lies ahead: the Tripos.
Originally, I had intended to write in this post about the experience of having to move in (and then out) of another room in college as a result of having to accommodate all these conferences and delegates that my college would be hosting as it does every year. Well, fortunately, I was only 50% correct. True, they were accommodating conferences and delegates, but I did not have to move! I think it was luck of the draw though, for I knew many others who had to move out of their old rooms and into new rooms, sometimes not even for the entirety of the vacation (e.g. just a week). Given the amount of work it takes to move in and out of a room, that can be quite inconvenient, but in my case, a moot point. I guess I could consider that karma in return for having endured six modules the term before? :)
It is quite nice to have this vacation though in between terms, especially given the hectic schedule I had the term before and the one that I am going to have next term with exams and projects. Given that my exams start right at the beginning of term, many of the engineers in my year are staying in college as well. However, for many students, most of whom are local, they have left for home in various parts of the UK, meaning that college and University student life has quieted down significantly (e.g. the bar is closed, and even the dining hall is going to close for Easter weekend). I do appreciate the peace and quiet, as I have come to associate the rowdiness and noise at Cambridge more with the stress and work of a term, which this vacation is (technically) not (I still have to do a good amount of studying for my exams though).
While I have been able to relax a little more during the vacation (e.g. no 9 am lectures, so fewer sleep-deprived nights!), the thought of 10 final exams does feel a little daunting. I have never had to prepare for this many exams before, and even at MIT when I took five modules during a semester, I didn't have five exams to study for. Even the amount of material I have to study for each of my modules feels daunting as well. Having looked at Tripos questions over the Christmas vacation, while the exams are shorter, they are detailed and thorough, more so than I had expected before I sat down and did some of the past Tripos papers.
Perhaps it is merely psychological because of the novelty of Cambridge Tripos to me, as MIT certainly teaches you a lot of material too that you have to memorize and understand by the final exam. In addition, the time frame is shorter since you are examined at the end of each term rather than all at once at the end of the year. Hopefully that is the case, and of course, studying the material well couldn't hurt either in alleviating my anxieties. :)
As I am on vacation now, I do hope to post a little more frequently since a lot did happen during Lent term that I would love to share with you all! I will also post again about my Easter vacation towards the end of it as we get closer to the Tripos. So stay tuned!