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."

But that's supposition - maybe he couldn't. A matho in my year failed first year exams and went to a very respected Russell Group to complete his degree but only got a 2:2 there.

That's why I said 'almost'.

I was set 70-80 hours a week in my first two years, in an arts subject. I only managed it by not going to lectures, which were about 15 hours a week, so I could use that time to do the set work each week. There was very little intellectual discussion or rigour, essays were never marked or commented upon, sexist comments were thrown about by tutors (this was in the nineties and they weren't used to us being there, some openly didn't like it).

I switched to another arts subject and got a good 2.1 while very stoned, suicidally depressed, drinking heavily and with an average just 15 hours' work a week (I counted the hours rigorously).

I couldn't get beyond a GCSE in maths, though! :)

Ha ha. One of my final exam questions was simply:

The Death of Art.

My brother's ex girlfriends studied maths at Oxford.
When the results came out, he checked on hers (as you do). She got a third.
Immediately afterwards, she told him (and everyone else) that she got a 2:1
She also fed that lie to her employer.
It was probably even easier to feed the same lie to subsequent employers.
She is now head of a large PLC and gave a few interviews in graduate brochures where she mentions her 2:1 😅
My brother dumped her without bringing up this reason.
She eventually married a guy who was on her course who bafflingly believes that she got a 2:1. Her teenage kids seem to believe she got a 2:1

Sometimes, it feels like we are helping her keep a secret that she will take to her grave, just that she does not even realize.

That should be ex-girlfriend - only one of them thankfully 😅

I have taught 2 students who went on to Cambridge to study Maths who felt similarly (and one more who coped well). One of the 2 said that his love of Maths was gradually sucked out of him, which I think is really sad.

My DD1 studied NatSci and I have to agree with a poster who wrote that good mathematicians don't necessarily make good teachers. DD found one of the 1st year Maths lecturers completely incomprehensible. In her supervisions, the supervisor said he had had complaints about this particular lecturer in previous years. DD dropped Maths after her 1st year. DD managed a pretty good work/fun balance throughout her 4 years: rowing, orchestra, chapel choir, dance and football all featured, but not all at the same time.

It's definitely subject dependent.

I'm not particularly bright and did next to no work at all - I did have to read a lot as it was an arts subject and I got a 2:1 despite the fact that in one of my final papers, only one topic I studied came up, so I wrote 2 hour long essays on subjects I had attended 1 lecture on. Given I scored 67% in that paper, but on the one paper I revised for I scored a lowly 56%... I concluded the marking was highly peculiar.

good mathematicians don't necessarily make good teachers

Yeah... back in the day when we were doing our chemistry degrees, sensibly there were two maths groups depending on whether you'd done (well) A level maths. Unfortunately the professor for the 'hard maths' would jump large sections of explanation as being 'intuitively obvious'.

Perhaps she got a 2.1 in her mods, though?

The thing about Cambridge is that once you get there you realise that everyone is at least as clever and mostly cleverer than you. I found that quite liberating and did lots of other stuff and enough work to get by. That was in 1985 . As a secondary school teacher of 27 years I have seen the increasing levels of perfectionism and anxiety in students. Our Oxbridge lot are a mixed bag - some super bright ones that thrive on it and sail through and some who struggle.