What a whirlwind last term was- it felt like a whole year went by! I had an amazing time, but by the end of the exams, I think it’s safe to say everyone was looking forward to the break.
I spent my first week in London with my girlfriend, and I almost forgot what to do with myself when not in study mode. I’m not embarrassed to admit I spent the first few days sleeping in and binging on Netflix. After a couple of (unproductive) days, I thought it was best to front-load my essays so I could enjoy the rest of my holiday guilt-free.
I then spent a romantic weekend with my girlfriend in Bruges, before heading down to the south of England, where I experienced my first traditional English Christmas with her family. The whole village came together to sing carols in the square outside her mum’s thatch roof house- I felt like I was in a scene from the movie “The Holiday”!
After way too much eating and drinking, we headed over to France for (more eating and drinking!) and skiing in the French Alps- or my case, the lesser sport of snowboarding, a fact that my girlfriend’s family of seasoned skiers reminded me of frequently.
A highlight was New Year’s Eve in Les Menuires, where we watched dozens of ski instructors come down the mountain with torches then form into the number “25”, which progressively changed into a “26”. Another was “La Folie Douce”, a DJ party on the top of the mountain, which was super fun, the only challenge was skiing back down after one too many rosés!
After returning to Cambridge on the Sunday evening before Lent term commenced, things felt a little different to last term. It was not just because I was older and wiser (although those exams definitely aged us a few years!). It was because I had developed such deep relationships with people from our study group, stream, and cohort. We had experienced the magic of Cambridge together and we had been through the trenches together. This term I was not going back to unfamiliar faces, I was going back to friends.
Only two weeks have gone by, but I’m already really enjoying the second term. It’s exciting learning different subjects and seeing new faces in class, especially in the electives, where we get to dive deep into topics of interest and discuss them with like-minded classmates. Stand-out subjects for me have been “New Venture Finance” which aligns with my career interest in venture capital, and “Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition”, where I learned about how to become an entrepreneur through acquiring a search-funded business.
I have a slight sadness knowing that we only have two more terms left on campus and that time will fly by, but I have comfort in the fact that I have already had an invaluable experience and made lifelong friends.