Reflections
Hey loves!
This is it. My first term at Cambridge has officially ended. I still cannot believe that I have really been here for eight weeks. The term has flown by and it has felt more like two weeks than 8 weeks. I took the past days off and relaxed a little. The eight weeks of term time are intense and that is why I needed to recharge my batteries after it. This is not to say that I did not enjoy it - quite the opposite is true! Although it has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life, it has also been one of the best.
To reward ourselves for ending the term, my friend and I went to London and did some shopping. This is the first time that I managed to get all my gifts in one day! We had a lot of fun and even ended up taking a class at the Apple Store. Both of us use an iPad Pro and we learned how to draw on it and use the app Procreate. I really enjoyed it and I think the class helped me to get a lot more out of my iPad. I had no idea that these classes are offered, but anyone can join, they are free, and if you do not have the device or just do not have it with you, they provide you with one. This is also a great opportunity to try out different devices and I wish I had known of this before buying my iPad Pro!
When the term ended, most of the students moved out almost immediately and it made me think about what has happened throughout the term and which memories I cherish the most. Thinking back of the term, the thing that comes to my mind first is how kind and open my peers are. We are only nine first-year law students at my college (which is actually a lot for a Cambridge college) and we are a group that sticks together. I got quite sick in the week before term ended and I was unable to go to my lectures for three days. My peers were incredibly supportive and went to the pharmacy for me, offered to go grocery shopping for me, and shared all their notes from lectures with me. This really showed me how close we all are and that we all look out for one another. It is crazy that we all have known each other for only eight weeks but are already so close to one another.
The classes I took in my first term were challenging, but also very interesting (ok, maybe with the exception of civil law...). I enjoyed learning more about British law and the principles that underpin it. What I loved most was learning about cases in which basic principles came into conflict with one another and how the courts resolved the conflict. Civil law was the most challenging subject for my peers and me, but this appears to be normal. When we asked our second years for advice, they told us that civil law has everyone confused in the first term, starts to make sense in the second term, and is loved by everyone in the third term - let's hope that this will hold true for us!
One of the things that helped me the most in ensuring that I stayed on top of my work is that I had a method for managing my time in place when I started at Cambridge. Since we had relatively little contact hours and a lot of work to do by ourselves at my high school, I was already used to making effective use of my time. I shared my time management method with you guys here:
When it comes to scheduling longer study sessions, I like to use a to do list only for this session. I usually take out my planner, write down all the to dos I want to get done in this session, and then I get started. I created a study session planner template ages ago and I have used it ever since. If you guys would like to try this method, you can find the template at the end of the article or download it here as a PDF document.
It was lovely to meet some of you guys during the meeting I organised for applicants to Cambridge. Two meetings will happen in the next few days, so please join us if you will be in Cambridge today or on December 10th - more details can be found here!
Lots of Love,
Elena
Please note that the quotation on my template is based on a quotation I found on various social media profiles. Unfortunately, I was unable to find out who wrote it. If you know who wrote it, please let me know - I would love to give the author credit!
The title picture of this article was taken by A.X.
