The Fourth of July!
The third day began with breakfast, as usual. I was excited today along with some others in my group because today was the first day we will actually be in a classroom. After breakfast, the high school group went to split in half. One half went to learn about writing personal statements and the university Cambridge. The other half went on a selfie hunt.
CBL knows that personal statements are an important part in applying for universities or colleges, especially in the UK. We learned a bit about these papers and then formed groups to write our own on a fictitious person. My group personally took it as a joke and inserted random and wired quotes. Which will definitely not be on our real personal statements. After that we read real personal statements other students have wrote before and have been accepted.
Something that the teacher said really caught my attention. The personal paper is the first real impression that the university or college gets of you. The only thing they know about you beforehand is your name and some other basic stuff. Following the talk on personal statements we discussed the different courses that you could take if you entered Cambridge. The teacher listed a lot of interesting courses that sounds like good courses to me.
After the morning session, we took a break. Immediately after was the MUN, or Model United Nations in the auditorium. I have done this sort of thing before but this time this session piqued my interest because of the engaging conversation we had and discussion about the real UN and its structures. We had a great session on the topic of disarming the world’s nuclear weapons. I think we actually voted to kick North Korea out of the United Nations during this. Then group was scheduled to go take a walking tour around the university to King’s Chapel, one of the most iconic places in Cambridge. It was a big chapel, filled with old-looking pews and shiny candles, ready for the next prayer.
We had a lunch break afterwards and then there was the final session of the day. Our teacher showed us pictures about the life in Cambridge, and to the surprise of many it was pretty nice. The stereotypical image of a college life didn’t fit into the picture that the photos told. At one point in the presentation the topic about walking on grass came up. Supposedly, you had to be a Fellow (a high-ranking member of the university) to be “privileged” to walk on the grass. But it occurred to me a strange thought. Does that mean that the gardener is a fellow?
Today is July 4, which means it’s the American Independence Day. The American delegates celebrated by playing the national anthem out loud on an endless loop and playing another match of soccer, which we supposedly won.
It was a fun and tiring day, like any other day here. Tomorrow we are going to London and I can’t wait to see the capital of the Empire (or nation)!