In this article, Billy reflects upon his experience as an undergraduate at university.

As a world-leading educational institution, Cambridge University will teach you things of incredible quantity and quality. Irrespective of the subject you study, you have access to some of the world’s foremost academics and experts in all the fields of knowledge worth knowing.

You live and breathe learning throughout your time at Cambridge because tremendous teachers and fellow pupils surround you.

You live and study alongside the best and the brightest, and these people (including you) will ultimately do great things in their careers, whether in business, science, art, or working with charities.

A Wide Array of Learning

I completed an English degree in the summer of 2015 but have remained in Cambridge University to study a one-year course in Management at the university’s Judge Business School.

During my study of English I learned an astonishing amount, including, but in no way limited to: the role of violence in medieval literature, the importance of size and scale in mock-heroic poetry of the eighteenth-century, and the use of aural aesthetics in the poetry of the First World War.

In my final year I did my dissertation on the evolving state of masculinity in contemporary New York fiction. The range and detail of Cambridge’s courses is astounding. Still, irrespective of the course you ultimately study, in my view, Cambridge teaches you something that is just as valuable and important as the course content.

Effective Time Management Skills

The pressures, intellectual rigour, and many other activities on offer while studying at Cambridge demands that you are organised, motivated, efficient, effective, and, above all, able to “just get things done.” That may sound incredibly general, so let me specify.

I mean that Cambridge University automatically forces you to be one of those people that has two one-hour lectures back-to-back in the morning, supervision on an essay that you submitted earlier in the week, training for a sports team you’re involved in, or rehearsal for a play you’re featuring in during the rest of the afternoon, a formal dinner to celebrate someone’s birthday or some other social event in the evening, and then when you think you’re done for the day, you need to finally put pen to paper on that essay you’ve been brainstorming ideas about or question sheet you’ve been preparing. Hence, you stay up until after midnight to get it submitted.

You learn how to maximise your efficiency

That might seem scary, but you acclimate to that sort of life. You’ll be surprised how quickly you become used to powering from completing one activity or task to starting another.

The ability to power from one task to another, regardless of your subject or extra-curricular interests, is underpinned by being organised and disciplined with your time, working hard when you need to but chilling out when you don’t, finding ways where you can squeeze in half an hour of work before you dash off to some event or some form of practice, and by knuckling down when you actually sit down to work instead of complaining about your workload. You have to be positive and motivated.

The “Just Get It Done’ Mentality

Your ability to “just get things done” is developed and honed by realising that Cambridge is not solely about education, by appreciating that there is more to a Cambridge education than just education. You should get involved with as much as you can in Cambridge.

Compete in a sport for your college or the university, be active in the student body, throw yourself into extra-curricular activities such as drama, art, or the vast array of clubs and societies across your college and the university as a whole. There is something for everyone – some activity always caters to even the strangest and most niche of personal interests.

Real world skills that employers value

Learning how to maximise your efficiency, to leverage your motivation, and to use your time to the most productive ends is a skill that any Cambridge degree teaches you. But unlike knowledge of the role of violence in medieval literature, it is a skill that has tangible application and worth in the real world. It is a skill that employers from all industries value.

They know the stresses and strains of a Cambridge education. If you can verbalise and demonstrate how you thrived in numerous different areas while at Cambridge, they will know that you are ready and capable to take on the real world. Do everything you can to get into Cambridge, and make the most of it while you’re there.

Attend a Pre-University Course at Cambridge

If you are a motivated high school student who wants to experience what studying at Cambridge is like, sign up for one of our award winning cambrige summer school programs where expert tutors from world-leading universities teach subjects like architecture, economics, management, psychology, and many more.

Please note that all views and opinions expressed above are the author’s own. Immerse Education is a leading independent summer school not affiliated with Cambridge University.