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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

Does a reading-based degree take the joy out of reading?

Earlier this year, I was talking to a friend a couple of years younger than me, who was asking about the intensity of the workload at university. When I explained to her that having the amount of essays that I do was demanding, but not unmanageable, her response was “But you must spend your whole […]

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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

Humanities versus sciences: the disparity in contact hours and what it tells us about the degree

The disparity between STEM subjects and the humanities was made overwhelmingly clear to me the moment I was handed my timetable in freshers week. I compared mine with the girl I had just met, who was studying HSPS, hoping we would be together over the next few days. Amazingly, we noticed that they looked exactly […]

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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

Is Britain really as democratic as we think it is?

That the phrase ‘British democracy’ generates a staggering 188 million hits on Google is hardly surprising, for democracy ranks highly amongst the words most commonly used in conjunction with Britain. We have become so accustomed to its usage as a descriptor of our current political system, that the notion of an extremely democratic Britain is […]

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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

The Butterfly Effect of Ignoring Social Distancing

As a finalist, I thought I knew by now what to expect from the Cambridge year. However, this year promises to be unprecedented for not only students but also lecturers, supervisors and every member of the University workforce. With the Freshers’ and Sports Fairs online, it is clear that student life will be lacking in […]

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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

Confronting Churchill’s attitude and actions towards the Indian subcontinent

Few Britons made a greater impact on the history of the twentieth century than Winston Churchill. He is known as the man who led the fight against Nazism and was victorious, defended Western liberal democracy and later, in the Cold War years, proved his diplomatic strength against leaders such as Stalin.  Even before the events […]

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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

Why is being able to walk on the grass so important?

When you arrive at Cambridge, there are a lot of things that you are told are important, such as rowing, acquiring a college spouse and, on occasion, passing your exams.  In my opinion, these are all wrong. Through my years at Cambridge, I have learnt that the most important and indeed most exclusive thing in […]

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Michaelmas 2020 Opinion

Widening Participation: Scots in Cambridge

It can often feel like Cambridge and Oxford are hallowed, impenetrable institutions that are reserved for and only accessible to a certain class. This is the result of a wide array of intersecting structural inequalities, which prevent certain groups from accessing these universities. One group to whom this applies is Scottish students and particularly state […]

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Art Michaelmas 2020

Five classical music pieces to calm the mind

It is a fact universally acknowledged that being at any university comes with an immense amount of pressure. Not just in an academic sense, but perhaps even more so in a social sense. We are often made to feel, consciously or unconsciously, by parents, teachers and even each other that we are in the midst […]

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Art Michaelmas 2020

Fashion photoshoot: the May Week that time forgot

When May Week events were cancelled last year, students lost the chance to dress up in ornate ball gowns (or fancy dress for King’s Affair), to dance themselves dizzy until 5am, and to blow £1,000 in a week. In this fashion photoshoot, The Churchill Mallard photographer Rebecca Heath imagines the May Week that time forgot. […]