Question: How did you choose to study at Cambridge, and which college did you go to?

Nicola Grahamslaw answered on 18 May 2020:

Hi! My school were really keen to encourage me to try for Oxbridge. I was actually the only person in my year to go so I got a lot of help from the teachers. Looking at the courses, I liked the idea of Cambridge because the engineering course there is “general engineering”, so you do 2 years of all areas of engineering before you choose a specialism. I liked the idea of this, because with no engineering experience and no engineers in my family etc I didn’t know how to choose a specialism so wanted to have a go at the different types of engineering first. I went to St Catharine’s, the reason was literally just because I knew someone else who went there in the year above me, as I didn’t know anyone else at Cambridge. I would recommend looking at the size and location of each college before deciding, as well as things like what sports facilities, music groups etc they have. St Catharine’s was very convenient for the engineering department and for being right in town but a bit further away from the sports fields, it’s quite a sporty college (especially hockey), and it’s a smaller community where everyone knows everyone else. There’s sometimes more going on at the bigger colleges, but at a small one you feel like you know who everyone is, which some people like and some don’t!