Hiya! I’m Robyn and I am a Human, Social and Political Sciences student at Jesus College, and I really want to paint a little bit of a picture about what life is like at Jesus. Just a little note about the name, which in true Oxbridge style is actually ‘The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge’, as profound as that sounds it doesn’t mean that we are a specifically religious institution, while every college has their own chapel and multifaith provisions, other than that Jesus just has the name and the multitude of cheeky puns and innuendos that follow.
I applied to Jesus without much deliberation in my mind – Jesus was and always had been my first choice since I went on my first access residential in year 12 (of which many more followed) and there truly was no competition for me. But having studied in Cambridge now for two years I can confidently say that college allocation is a strange process of falling in love with wherever you go. One of my closest friends at Jesus was pooled here after two earlier college applications/allocations and when she started her freshers week she had never visited her college (which is a position I imagine a lot of our incoming students will resonate with) yet she’ll tell you herself that she couldn’t imagine herself anywhere else. College allocation is strange in that way, and while I say with a biased smile that Jesus is the best, in reality colleges are places that fit to suit you and everyone finds themselves at home in a surprisingly short period of time.
In the spirit of this self promotion Jesus is a great college, we’re quite a large college in Cambridge so we have all the benefit of a larger, more diverse student body of around 500 undergrads spread out across a large college grounds in the centre of cambridge (don’t mind the name its over 500 years old). We’re close to all the lecture sites (less than 10 mins walk), 2 mins from Sainsburys and the main highstreet and market square, and just over the road from a pretty lush pub. But more specifically Jesus has a very connected and active student community, student politics is lively in jesus with our current climate justice campaigns and really hard working liberation officers in the JCSU (student body council) working within the broader decolonisation and diversity campaigns within the university making Jesus a real place of change and student voice in recent years.
Moreover, access at Jesus is really integral to our college community. We are a diverse student community with a majority of ‘maintained school’ students at 73.4% of our current first year, with every new year group even more diverse of the last. Our ‘jambassadors’ society at Jesus is truly my pride and joy, as the most subscribed to society in our college community that works to run our student ambassador scheme that involves current students in the access projects our college runs. Before the pandemic we regularly ran residentials, open days, subject taster days, personal statement workshops etc, at college for students in our specific target regions in London and the North East (where I am from). And while the pandemic has hindered our in person capabilities in the past year, we have still been running loads of virtual events.
From the perspective of a working class student myself, Jesus has always felt like a community that cares and genuinely values students like us. I remember fearing performative support from the University and dreading the nightmare image of actually arriving and finding out that all the support and friendly atmosphere was a big scam designed to draw us in and make the uni look better. But it just is not. The whole student body is fun and lively with our regular bop parties, nights at the college bar, sports clubs, societies, even plant sales, and the all important formal hall fancy dinners (£7 a ticket too!). We have a lovely cafe in college with cheap coffees that makes for the perfect chill study space with friends, and it is in these social spaces that we run all our events so everything happens right on campus. Jesus feels like a community of friendly faces and an administration that wants to make Cambridge accessible. Infact, we are proud to have the first black female master at an oxbridge college!
Life in college is great, we have beautiful and affordable student accommodation, all ensuite, recently refurbished. We even have college houses, right outside college still only seconds from the library, which is a massive rarity in cam and offers students a more ‘classic uni lifestyle’ that I know I was personally really drawn to. I know for a fact I could sit here and write a hundred pages on why Jesus feels like home, but I’ll leave that up to the alternative prospectus which I really recommend checking out, and leave you on this note; while any college will suit you well, I really recommend finding one that you can see yourself living in, one that feels like ‘you’, with the kind of accommodation, location and facilities that you are drawn to, and the kind of atmosphere that makes you excited to start uni life.
Lots of love,
Robyn 🙂
Check out Jesus College website for more details!