I had the opportunity to get a scholarship and study at Cambridge. The experience was out of this world.

The quality of education is excellent. I had companions from all over the world. Classes could be taken in multiple languages.

The teachers were generally very good. And the administration was good (a bit bureaucratic but it’s normal).

Cambridge University is known globally, with great allure of the various traditions and rituals that students go through. The University offers high-quality, rigorous education that is academically challenging for students enrolled in courses. The experience of supervisions and set work requires students to get used to heavy workloads, fast-turnarounds, and efficient working. Students often find it takes a few terms before they settle into a rhythm of studying that suits them. Outside of the core classroom, students have numerous opportunities to engage in wide-ranging extra-curricular activities at very high levels. Cambridge is a unique, intense, but unquestionably memorable experience that will leave students changed for the best.

Teaching quality is excellent – one on one supervisions with the leaders in the field. Wide variety of lectures & papers offered, as well as significant reign to do own research in third year dissertation. Amazing resources especially libraries – each faculty has a library and any student can go and study in it. The University Library Is one of the only libraries in the UK that legally gets a copy of every book published in the UK so always has books you need. College system makes playing sport casually really easy and fun, and is great for fostering tight friendship groups. City itself is beaut and easy to navigate (can walk pretty much anywhere you need to go).

After I completed a degree with the Open University I was so interested in my last course on family and local history that I applied for the above diploma. It was a very interesting course and I had great fun going to different archives and being able to get involved first-hand with original documents. The dissertation for the diploma was based on the fishing villages of Leigh on Sea, Essex, Paglesham, Essex and Lowestoft, Suffolk. The course was for one year so was quite intense as I also had a full-time job. It was really good though as it was my first real experience of being part of a university with lots of students and lectures that I could attend if I wished to. The tutor for the diploma also became my supervisor for my Masters degree at Cambridge and we were able to build a good relationship.

I completed a part-time Master of Studies in Local and Regional History. It was a very interesting course and I loved being able to use the university library and the college libraries as well as other collections such as at the British Library. It was only a small group of people – about 20. We attended Homerton College once a week during the first year during which time we had to complete and pass essays in related subjects. In the second year we had a tutor that we met regularly. My thesis was on the Old Poor Law in Terling, Paglesham and March, Essex from 1780 to 1834.

It was quite a hard course for me to do as I had another full-time job working in London. I had to ask for extra time to complete the course which was agreed – I was the only course member to have a full-time job as well as completing the course. I enjoyed my time on the course but I would have liked to have been able to do the course full-time so that I could make full use of the Cambridge facilities. At times I felt quite isolated from other university students – we never really met many apart from at some dinners as we were part-time and didn’t go to their lectures.