An idyllic start to the 3rd day of our summer school, the English class went to the orchard tea rooms at Grantchester for cream tea, hot chocolate and passionate discussions about literature. Grantchester is a beautiful and popular spot for Cambridge students after exams, where everyone heads to the river that flows through the city to go swimming. Our students headed down to the river and talked about creative writing by the banks: an extremely fitting atmosphere, the river is a favourite of many Cambridge alumni, including Virginia Woolf and Ted Hughes. A busy morning of lessons also saw some Biotechnology students experiment on yoghurt to visualise microorganisms, whereas the Physics students were blown away by an introduction to the history of the universe.
After lunch, lots of our students flocked to the lovely Downing Paddock for an energetic afternoon full of sports – everyone was extremely excited for a competitive game of Capture the Flag! It was fantastic to see people make new friends and work together as a team. Some students opted for a more relaxed afternoon, decorating beautiful postcards to send home. This was a perfect activity to wind down from a very busy first few days of the program. Keep your eyes peeled for these!
Some other students tried out their taster courses. Today, we had Introduction to Coding, History and Politics, Community Outreach, Creative Writing, Architecture, and Economics. Everyone seems so eager and keen to get stuck in and our teachers always come back really excited about how attentive and enthusiastic everyone is! For our evening lecture, we had a really interesting lecture entitled Artificial Intelligence: friend or foe? This was so fantastic and up-to-date and our lecturer gave us a really in depth and interesting summary of the recent debates. Afterwards, some students decided to take part in the long-awaited switch night where students cozied up to play games, and other students took part in the spoooooky ghost tour. Our supervisors all decked themselves out in ghostly, white attire, and painted their faces an extremely frightening, deathly pallor and jumped out at the students, throwing marshmallows along the way.
Throughout, it has been so lovely to see the camaraderie between the students already and their enthusiasm to make new friends and different experiences. We are so grateful to be able to meet such amazing students and give them new experiences and try to make Cambridge a home away from home!
Again, check out our Instagram and tiktok (@reachcambridge) for updates!
