Is it too late to quit Cambridge?

I'm going to throw it back to a couple of weeks ago: its Thursday of Week 8, excitement is in the air, students rush about with enthusiasm unparalleled, throwing every forgotten pyjama top they found behind their bed into a suitcase.

You can hear the satisfying slam of car doors and the chirping of parents as they usher their bleary eyed and grey-faced offspring out for 6 delightfully Cambridge-free weeks.

Can you tell we're ready to leave?

As you leave behind those all too-familiar streets trodden daily in various stages of exhaustion, stress, intoxication… you name it. You find even the sights of the M1 a refreshing and welcome change, you feel liberated.

No, you don't have a supo tomorrow at 11 nor do you have to wake up and be present and somewhat alert for a Dos meeting at 9am you can do whatever you want.

However, inamidst this joyous discourse of unchecked optimism having left Cambridge, comes the little voice which takes on the reprimanding tones of your Dos: "But what about your work? Make the most of your holidays… you've got a degree to revise for, remember?"

He/she has a point. And a good one too which is also undeniably shit.

You weigh up your options, abandon the ominous outline of the revision plan you were fruitlessly concocting and come to the conclusion: Why come back?… a dizzying prospect of endless possibilities.

Quit Cambridge!? I hear you cry… no it is indeed not too late!

An essay a week? How about two a term? Optional lectures? Sounds ideal. You're probably well used to the cries of horror elicited from your friends at other uni's in response to your crippling work load. You, yes you, could join this priviledged bunch and laugh ruthlessly at the perils of your Cantabrian comrades.

Bristol. Sussex. Nottingham. Dundee Met. Anyone, anyone at all is better.

Goodbye 'Bridge, Hello UCAS Clearing.

Roll on July 5th.

Speaking of courses. How about shaking it up a little? Mycenaean agronomy getting you down? Your love for Latin love poetry run dry? It's all good.

How about a Brewing and Distilling degree – passion? check. Proficiency? double check. (@Heriot Watt Uni, I am coming for you.)

"the production, but mainly the consumption of alcohol has long held my interest…"

You could even really push the boat out and sign yourself up for the infamous Harry Potter Studies at Durham. Klute Wednesdays and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Count me in. Inevitably, your Harry Potter knowledge probably vastly supersedes your current knowledge of your course anywway. Cambridge's loss.

Or you could abandon uni completely… you could merely live a carefree existence idling away your days outside of the fiery pity of academia, nursing your war wounds, half-listening, offering half-hearted advice to the trials and tribulations of your mates still confined within the hallowed halls.

Supervisions be gone. Look back with nostalgia upon the days of cumpulsory 9am's. And let the memories of those Dos meetings fade away into nothingness.

Cumpulsory 9am's can do one.

Also, with your intensive academics put on the back burner, maybe, just maybe you might have time for a social life!? I'm not talking dancing in a sticky basement, clutching a VK, shoulder-to-shoulder with some sweaty guy wearing a Pirate Hat donning a drinking-soc tie stained with blue VK. I'm thinking real clubs – night outs which begin at 12 sans queue and end in the ungodly hours of the morning.

Maybe you could join all the societies you were tempted to join during Freshers then, once those first essays dropped, any prospect of reinventing yourself through something new appeasing those pushy society reps or meeting the gorgeous boy who handed out the flyers advertising it, vanquished.

"At Cambridge, you will spend your free-time trying new things to enrich your learning…"

Whether you are in the final stages of your last year or in the last term of Freshers and think you've seen enough, there is still hope for you.

As shown, there are innumerable benefits to leaving the 'Bridge once and for all… but, of course, you could stay? You put in so much to get here and all and you've got everything to gain right? Why quit now? And fun, in it's own unique form, does happen sometimes, so I guess its not all bad.

Genuine smiles? Who knows.

Hello stress. Hello crippling sense of inadequacy. Bring on Easter Term 2018: I guess there's May week at least to look forward to? Brewing and Distilling will have to wait.