The Cambridge Bucket List

From starting a flash mob during formal to skinny dipping in the Cam, LAUREN CHAPLIN presents the definitive Cambridge bucket list.

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Last year, The Independent published an article entitled ’50 things to do before you leave university’, which included groundbreaking and adrenaline pumping suggestions such as: ‘hand in an essay early’, ‘apply for internships and jobs’ and ‘if you think your lecture was particularly good, try and instigate a standing ovation.’

Let’s all just take a moment for that last one to sink in.

Tentative ideas certainly, but what else can one expect from a newspaper in which the idea of fun for many of its journalists is growing organic vegetables and debating global warming? We at The Tab believe that it’s time there was a definitive Cambridge bucket list, having spent far too long being exposed to the generic internet compilations which tend to be, quite frankly, a bit shit.

Become a protégé

Find the Diddy to your Notorious BIG

Most of the Fellows and Professors here are actually really bloody cool. Yes, even the old ones. Yes, even the really really old ones, who smell of tweed and intellectual fatigue and don’t understand your quirky pop culture references in supervisions.

Just consider some of the great partnerships of history; Socrates trained Plato, Huxley taught Orwell, and P Diddy mentored the Notorious B.I.G. If you find a fellow who warms to you, make like Disclosure and latch on, ASAP. They can impart their wisdom, help you cheat in your finals, and provide invaluable faculty gossip for you to include in a bestselling autobiography.

Start a flash mob at formal

If Glee taught us anything, it’s that just about anywhere can be an appropriate performance space, and where better than below the sweeping arches of your college hall? Think of the acoustics, the splendour, the unparalleled joy you’ll feel when you see that one of the Fellows has started to beatbox along.

Run wild in John’s

They won’t see it coming…

For many, urinating on the lawn of John’s is seen as the pièce de résistance of life at the Bridge, but surely it’s better for them to get pissed off than pissed on? Think big: re-enact the final battle of Hogwarts or climb onto the roof and lobby paintballs and water balloons (5 points if you hit an Etonian).

Mark your territory

Whether this means slutting around (there are rumours that one fresher achieved a clean sweep last year), going to a formal at every college or laying a cheeky brick in thirty one distinct toilets, make sure your visit to each college is laced with character. Bonus points for making it to Girton and Homerton, obviously.

Skinny dipping in the Cam

Many students promise to do this, but the best laid plans and all that… What else could match the murky depths, the freezing cold, the thrilling possibility that a Nobel Prize winner may catch a cheeky glimpse of your pasty buttocks? To paraphrase Kanye, it’s time to go C.A.M.

Catch an STD

Statistically this is bound to happen at some point, so why not make it seem intentional? At least then, hopefully, you’ll be laughing through your tears/crabs.

Gotta catch ’em all

Make an absolutely nonsensical and outrageous point of information at a Union debate

If anyone was bold enough to do this to Dawkins or the Archbishop of Banterbury, then I salute you. Possible heckles include the historic ‘Get yer tits out’ (Oscar Wilde) and ‘If God doesn’t exist then how do you explain bacon?’ (Karl Marx).

Ultimately, though, as a friend recently (and supportively) observed, I’m ‘just a fresher’; how can I know what eccentric activities should make up the definitive Cambridge to-do guide? Which brings us along nicely to Number 8 on the list – Go out, act like an idiot and have some fun. Yes you, the one about to post the cynical comment reading ‘Thanks for stating the obvious love’ or ‘I’m a Blues #LAD I love having #FUN’. Form a band, get arrested, streak through Market Square; to borrow from Alex Turner, Buck-it and See.