We, the student mentors at Immerse Education, have very much enjoyed our first week together with the students at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and wanted to share some of the highlights of our previous days with you! Below is a record of activities, impressions, and pictures from each day!
Monday
After settling in at Christ college and the first academic sessions, we took our mentor families out for lunch as a group to help them get to know us and each other better! It was lovely to sit and eat together, and have a chat in between lessons. The afternoon activity was a walking tour of Cambridge, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed – we saw a lot of the colleges, and learnt about Cambridge life from punting to manuscripts to the night climbers.
In the evening, we hosted a fireside chat in the fellows’ garden, where the students asked the mentors questions about life at Cambridge. We discussed interviews, extracurricular activities, workload and lots more.
Tuesday
During the afternoon, the students enjoyed a game of Werewolf in the function room, in small groups, as well as a larger game in which all participants were involved. During the game, Pippa and Robbie (dressed in very interesting outfits) guided everyone through both day and night as ‘werewolves’ took villagers down, ‘witches’ used their healing potion and the ‘little girl’ did some peeping! The villagers were often outnumbered with notable death performances given by Scott, Augusto, Sehun and Zara! It was a fun game all around.
In the evening, despite the adverse weather conditions and a refreshing shower of rain, the students took part in Immerse Sports Day, with three-legged races, bulldog, and bench ball. Deserving winners and prized players included Augusto, Zara, Lara, Katrina, Eugenia, Dylan and Lalith! The highlight for students, however, was the final ‘sport’, where the mentors raced against each other whilst students threw water balloons – and eggs – at us. Despite the adverse weather, sports day was a success! Afterwards, the students had free time, where they socialised in the gardens of Christ’s College.
Wednesday
At lunchtime, a group of participants chose to tour around St John’s, including the chapel, the backs and the court where The Theory of Everything was filmed. Pippa led the tour, and answered questions about life as a student at a very big college! In the afternoon we took the participants punting and we learnt about the etymology of Cambridge along with other interesting facts. Afterwards, we went to Queen’s college for a formal dinner (three courses), in a hall with real William Morris wallpaper. Then we returned to Christ’s, where participants had free time – groups went to the library, sat in the fellow’s garden, and played board games outside.
Thursday
Thursday was a full and rewarding day. We visited Jesus College on a tour led by our student mentor, Alessia. Jesus College is the Cambridge college with the oldest university building (the chapel), dating back to the beginning years of the University of Cambridge when it used to be a nunnery. The college grounds we visited were the beautifully renovated college library, the chapel, the sporting facilities including four tennis courts for our tennis enthusiast students, and the college cafe.
Our cultural experience of Cambridge also included exciting museum visits from a choice of the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens and the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Fitzwilliam museum features an impressive collection of classic art overlaid with a temporary exhibition on the artistic depiction of the contemporary British artist, David Hockney.
We continued our evening with an immersive guest speaker event and an introduction to Philosophy by the amazing philosopher Nigel Warburton. The introductory speech was a great overview of the 3 important names in the development of the discipline: Socrates, Sartre, and Singer. Our students got involved in the discussion and asked questions, echoing their beautiful involvement in both the academic and social sides of the camp so far.
Friday
On Friday we ventured into Cambridge for a Scavenger Hunt!! Students had to search high and low for certain Cambridge attractions and pose for a picture beside it! Some of these included: Cambridge’s famous ‘dinky doors’, the mathematical bridge and some interesting selfies with college porters!! The winning Team was Santiago’s Team, managing to get all 26 pictures and still return to college before the time was up! The mentors were very impressed!!! In the evening, we put our brains to work with a quiz night! Rounds included: the finger round, the one-letter round and the baby pictures round! We learnt some new interesting facts about our Mentor team! The deserving winners were the Brad Stan team with 36 points!
