Cambridge Degrees

[Hawkins0001]

For anyone that has knowledge or has studied at Cambridge, How accurate is this perspective:

"#Camfession36372

As a second-year mathmo who has consistently done well throughout the past two years (predicted firsts in every single course, never late for lectures or example sheet submissions, revised courses thoroughly and did more years of past papers than the guideline recommends…), I feel that every paper I sit this term is telling me that for this course, hard work simply doesn’t pay off. Yes you need to work 50+ hrs weekly to even have a chance of scraping 2.1 (many people above median ranking last year got less than 65% on transcript, for example, which is unfair compared to some other courses) yet the exam questions won’t even ask any bookwork without a twist incorporating some ingenious trick that you need to pull out of thin air (I am not talking about STEP-style tricks, I am talking about multi-step, algebraically messy and strategically olympiad-style tricks that aren’t even given hints about). I came here to try to become the best mathematician I can be, but this course proves to be nothing but an ego-deflating, despair-inducing feast of condensed miseries glorified in the name of intellectual training. They will never acknowledge the fact the most of us in the cohort are simply unsuitable for the course and exams they have designed, and because we are no senior wranglers or potential field medallists, the sacrifice of our mental health is perfectly justified in the grand scheme of pursuing so called academic rigour. I loved and loved and loved maths. Now I just want to run away from it and learn how to feel (if only occasionally) happy again."

Yeah, creative ideas of untested scientific research wouldn't have been getting you marks in any of the exams I sat as a natsci. There was also neither any time nor any expectation of original research except in one's third year project which was 20% of the final year mark.

I agree with what @Ivesaidenough and @LeonardCohensRaincoat say. My DH has a 2.1 degree from Cambridge. He is obviously intelligent but it’s not really that that sets him apart. For one thing he lacks common sense😂.The only way I can describe it is that he has an incredibly different way of thinking things through. I think it’s these sort of thought processes that Cambridge require.

This student has very skewed expectations. They seem to think that working 7 hours a day for 8 weeks, turning up to lectures on time and doing their homework means they deserve a first! Cambridge and Oxford don’t hand out firsts for just turning up.

It is not for everyone, but the 8 weeks terms are very intense - students need to work at least 70 hours a week: Lectures 9-1 and labs 2-5 for 5 days, plus another 3 hours in the evenings, then 9-1 and 2-8 on weekends.

Sounds like this student is not putting the time in, and has a chip on their shoulder that they should be being rewarded for their “hard work” not actual mathematical ability. They would have been a better fit at a different university, where this would indeed get them a first.

Maths at Cambridge is exceptionally hard, and as others have said, really geared at the top third of maths students (and as someone with the highest A level grades in maths/further maths, I wouldn't have got in to start with). I know maths grads who firsts on 5 hours work/week, because their brains are really that good.

Incidentally, whoever said you should expect to do 70 hours work a week is overstating it - I did around 40, and got a 2:1 in another STEM subject.

The most useful preparation I had for going to Cambridge was not being top at school - three of us went together, all in STEM subjects. The other two got firsts....

I did maths at Cambridge 25 years ago. I completely identify with the last few lines of OP, by the time I left I had lost my passion for the subject which definitely peaked 16-18 (I loved Olympiad maths, had limited success off a year or so really putting my mind to that side of things, and thought that was how maths at Cambridge would feel like. There was maybe one course with a bit of overlap)

I have no idea how much the tripos has changed since I was there but I found the second year courses did not suit me at all, and the end of year exams were relatively disastrous for me, I was not in a great place after that. I think that was the year we had to do computer programming coursework which I did alright on and pulled my mark up to something respectable but I was still gutted.

I found third year a bit more accessible and was able to get back to where I was in first year, which meant my Director of Studies allowed me to do part III and that was more of the same, cherry picking the courses I could do and trying to second guess what topics were likely to be in the exams.

Cambridge was always famously welcoming to changing course, I knew people who switched to theology and geography having started the maths tripos, as well as (maybe more commonly?) physics.

I think my account would surprise those who know me as on paper it looks like I did extremely well at Cambridge, but I was actually struggling quite badly at times.

DS does 40-50 hours per week in term time (more in first year NatSci when they were doing four different subjects); in third year he also did some studying pretty much every day during the Christmas and Easter vacations (I think he took a couple of days off).
I don't know how this compares to Maths.

I did Natsci at Cambridge around 20 years ago. It was tough. Gruelling. First time in my life I couldn’t get high makes despite putting lots and lots of work in. It got easier in third year when I specialised in one subject and I came out with a high 2.1. I think it really did teach me resilience, gave me a great work ethic and I find myself constantly looking for challenges that really push me in my career now. It also made the accountancy and then law exams I did afterwards seem super easy and I flew through them!
OP’s post would likely have rung true with a number of my friends at uni but on the whole we stuck with it and came out the other side. It did break some people I knew though who either failed or dropped out which is very sad.

I've taught at the other university in Cambridge. It always struck me that papers we had to 'pass' would have been thrown straight in the garbage at the real Cambridge. A 2.1 from one, most certainly would not equal a 2.1 from the other. Seemed v v unfair to me.

In my opinion, there needs to be streamlining of university exams and coursework. So a 1st from university A means the same as a 1st from university B.

It isn't fair on students that getting a 2.1 at one uni is so easy that they don't need to even turn up. Whereas from another uni it requires over 50 hours work a week.

I was so disillusioned by my time at the uni I worked for, passing papers that wouldn't have made a C at GCSE level, that my whole view of university education has completely changed. We had "masters" students who couldn't string a sentence together and still 'passed', they wouldn't even have scraped a few percent at the uni down the road.

Not really answering your post. But, university's in my opinion, need MUCH more standardisation in grading and assessment.

Feels very unfair that someone who got a respectable 2.2 on a course as intense as this would miss out many grad jobs

I didn't do well in my 3rd year because I didn't figure out the rules. Once I'd worked them out, I did much better with less work (but still a lot!) in my fourth. I think it's actually the most useful thing I learnt from my whole degree! You can work your arse off at everything, but if you don't know what a client or a sport or even a garden plant want and need, you'll never get where you want to be. I can buy and plant and love any plant I want, but if it doesn't like my soil it won't flourish.

Where it matters - academia - the difference is already known.

Elsewhere, it doesn't. So not needed

A university degree is supposedly a measure of academic intelligence - which is irrelevant in the vast majority of jobs. As PP have mentioned many very 'academically intelligent' people have no common sense and/or life skills which are actually more relevant to success.

That's why companies have gone university blind, and have standardised tests/assesments.

Btw I do agree there should be a minimum -, as Master's degrees are money spinners from international students universities turn a blind eye.

But as an employer for roles needing intellectual capability Oxbridge doesn't impress me off the bat. My profession is chock full of clever people, what it lacks is clever people who can work with others to get things done....

Fair points, but as mumsnet has a wider base and sources, it seemed a good intelligence pool to garnish different perspectives

The thing about maths is that it’s never going to be a subject that rewards hard work. The brilliant students will be able to get away with very little. The lest brilliant ones can work all hours of the day and still not be able to achieve as much. And I’m afraid that A-level results are not a good indicator of who will be brilliant at the next level.

I did a BA at Cam 10 years ago (PPS) and can relate to this post. As a PP has written, you go from working hard but things coming relatively easy to you, to really struggling and having to review whether you are any good at all. It is a real ego blast. The students who suffered the most in my college seemed to be Medics, Vets and Maths. Quite a few people dropped out as a result.

However, there are massive highs. The supervision, the extra curricular activities. I wouldn't go back to Cambridge for the degree as it has little bearing on my current job. But I would go back for the connections and the experience.

A memory for me that sums up my experience of the teaching:
I had handed in a hand written essay a few days before supervision. Got to supervision and the lecturer asks where my essay is. I share I handed it to her 3 days prior. She says, oh yes! And then does a comedy walk around the room looking for it. 'Found it' in the bin and my only feedback is she wouldn't read the drivel. I had worked hours on it. Came away with a 2.1 in the end, but crikey it was a ride

I’m a Cambridge maths graduate. Agree with what other people were saying. School maths is ridiculous in many ways - loads of people get 100% in their final A level exams because it really isn’t that hard.

At Cambridge maths they want to find the next Stephen Hawking. So there needs to be clear water between the person who comes first in the tripos and the person who comes second. It isn’t really about the person who comes somewhere in the middle (me!) - they give us a 2.1 and send us off to make money working in finance.

It’s an amazing thing in many ways - I am proud to be an “also ran” in a system that was looking for perfection - but it is bloody hard on the ego.

They do explain all of this when you start - and that the person who comes top will still only be able to do a small amount of questions in the time available. I also remember being told on the first day that over the next 3 years every single one of us would cry at some point because it was too hard. I did!

This sounds very maths-specific. But also not unbelievable sadly.

I studied a humanities subject but this wasn't my experience of Cambridge. I did 2-3 hours of work a day, plus maybe one lecture, and spent the rest of the time getting quietly pissed or acting. I got a first in both parts of the Tripos. My best friend was a mathmo (one of the only women at my college) and also always got a first without doing a huge amount of work. Maybe the best person in the year was at a whole different level again, but a low-medium first didn't seem to me (or subsequently from experience of other universities) to represent an especially high standard of attainment. Of course, quite a lot of people get firsts...

Personally I did think that was the purpose of the methods, eg quoting fiction, the next Sheldon Cooper so to speak.

Plus it matches with your perspectives of people who were A* to then get to Oxbridge and then there more Average so to speak.

My DD did engineering at Cambridge - I think she found it similar to what @Ironoaks describes for her DS and physics.

I did a humanities subject there 20 years ago. The best piece of advice I got was in my first week, from my college "Dad". He said there are two ways to approach your time at Cambridge:

You can bust a gut day and night to try to get a first, and still risk not getting one, because it's not as simple as slog=results. There's an extra spark of something you need to get a first.

Or, you can do a reasonable amount of work, get involved in all the extra-curricular stuff, not lose your mind, and come away with a respectable 2:1.

He was dead right. Although in the end I did a fairly low amount of academic work, busted my gut day and night at the extracurriculars (which were my passion), lost my mind, and came away with a respectable 2:1 anyway.

So who the hell knows.

Much appreciated for your perspective.

I'll be honest, my original perspective was you grind that stone and you'll get that 1st, but after different readings, I'm beginning to agree with your "college dad"

Cambridge and Oxford are meant to be hard. The majority of students are hard workers who are very bright, a tiny proportion are geniuses. But boy, their brains are something else.

Cambridge experience is course and college specific. They vary to an extent they might as well not be the same institution. If you are looking for knowledge about Cambridge University only seek knowledge on specifics to what you intent to do there, everything else is irrelevant.

What a wise college dad you had!