Hey everyone! I’m Mariam and I study Engineering at St John’s College, Cambridge. I would be lying if I said I’ve always been a mathematician, but my love for design and the technical journey to achieve feasible and practical outcomes reeled me in.
For a typical week, be prepared to brace yourself. You will have 10-12 lectures and 2-3 supervisions. Labs are usually 1-2 hours at the engineering department- the frequency of them per week depends on your lab group (some lab groups will do the experiments before you). Mine were concentrated in the middle of first term, but this term they’re really spaced out (and online). You are handed example papers to complete after lectures which test your understanding of lecture content. I think it is also important to note, these contact hours are completely independent from the time spent on example papers, coding, drawing, structural design project, exposition, integrated electronics project and lab reports you will ultimately have to complete. So, while it may not look too scary on a timetable, you will find deadlines creeping up when you least expect it if you don’t plan your week well. Seeing that most teaching is online, I adhere to the schedule given in the morning as this is when I feel most productive and can plan out the rest of the work for the day.
My interview experience was very different to most Cambridge colleges, mainly because I had a group interview. This was alongside about 10 other engineers that were having their interview on the same day. It was a complete curveball, but I feel like it’s very important to keep calm and go with the flow. Engineering interviews are extremely theoretical, so use i-want-to-study-engineering questions to think through complex physical problems that draw from A Level content. They love mechanics questions as generally they require the analysis of a situation in stages because it’s a great way for you to show how you break down your thinking in an interview. Listen to criticism really carefully so that you can reroute according to the nudges given. Remain confident, they don’t expect you to know everything so don’t let your mood waver. Also, very important thing, smile! Let them know you enjoy getting educated and pushed because that is the rigour and complexity you’re going to encounter for your entire time at Cambridge anyways, better to learn to smile through the pain from early.
In conclusion, you’ll have a love hate relationship with your degree but it’s the passion for it that will keep you going (also known as spiritual bondage). For non-coders, please learn to code before embarking on this course, because I am straight suffering through the computing work.