After a smooth and exciting Arrival Day, most of the students were glad of an early night and a chance to relax before classes began this morning. The classes, ranging from English and Performing Arts to Life Sciences and Medicine, ran until lunchtime, when the students had the opportunity to find themselves something yummy from the many different restaurants, cafés and market stalls the centre of Cambridge has to offer. In the afternoon, Reach Cambridge took the city by storm as the students took part in our very first Instagram challenge: a Scavenger Hunt! The teams had a map of several Cambridge colleges and some riddles and clues to solve. Some of these included, ‘The oldest building in Cambridge’, ‘This coffee shop will make you blue’, and ‘Stephen Hawking is a Fellow here.’ If they got stuck, there were plenty of orange-clad supervisors around to ask for help (although we’ll be honest, some of us had to ask for help for some of the answers too… You learn something new every day!). The students then had to take a picture of the answer to each clue and upload it to Instagram. By the end of the afternoon, we had a whopping 170 photos to view – you can see a gallery of them here! The winners should be announced in a day or two, so watch this space…
After dinner in their colleges, the students then took part in some group “icebreakers”, a selection of games and challenges to help them get to know some more of their Reach Cambridge peers. The (very surprising) British summer weather meant we could spread out on the Downing College “Paddock” area, a large stretch of grass which will be home to many different sports and outside activities during the program. It was amazing how much hilarity and competitiveness the Balloon Game brought about, in students and supervisors alike.
All in all, things are off to a smashing start. It’s lovely to see the students mingling so well already – I can’t believe we have so many countries represented here! It will make for a fantastic World Fair… But more on that tomorrow…!
Written by Ros, Head of Pastoral Care
