University Life

There is a strange social dynamic in University two weeks into term. The hype of freshers is definitely a distant memory, and everyone feels fairly well acquainted with each other, but at the same time there are less things distracting us from the fact that nobody around us is a long term friend. Yet.

I regret to inform you that the workload has kicked in and I have been increasingly spending my evenings in the library rather than out with friends. This probably sounds worse than it is though; the library is very cosy and, while the workload is becoming significant, there is definitely sufficient time left over to do other things. Plus I love my subject, so the time spent working is certainly not unpleasant!

In Cambridge, undergraduates have supervisions as well as lectures. For Mathmos this involves a pair of students discussing problems sheets (which have been worked at beforehand) with a fellow of the college. They are more enjoyable and far less intimidating than I assumed they would be, completing the preparatory work for them is where most of the learning takes place.

Luckily all of my supervisors are really nice people, though once you spend time with them you start to realise that they are indeed human. The same, of course, goes for the lecturers  (the gem from today being: "so we have three 90 degree rotations. What is 3 x 90 again?!") but overall they have been very good too. At some point I'll probably do a blog about what I've been studying but probably not until the holidays; I'm doing enough at the moment without having to write about it!

There are so many interesting activities going on all the time in Cambridge. It's tempting to go to dozens during freshers week but once the work kicks in you realise that you only really have a couple of hours a day to dedicate to extra-curricular activities. So you can either focus on one discipline to excel in, or be involved in a few different things in a less committed way.

My initial plan was to get involved with the a church, CU, cycling, running, squash, chess, rowing and some kind of band. Unsurprisingly I am having to rethink; in reality I'll probably just be attending church, CU and a running club, which alone will amount to about 10 hours a week. Of course we also have quite a few compulsory social events, such as pudding and wine with the Master of the college, but these tend to worthwhile enough to justify taking an evening off from work for.

Somehow I have to bear in mind that all of this stuff - including academic work - is secondary to my walk with God. How does that work practically? I guess some things are obvious; going to church and CU meetings takes up quite a significant chunk of time, meaning that attending is showing some level of devotion to God. But we're not supposed to just be Christians in meetings. If anything, Jesus was least "Christian" when he was with the religious! He spent most of his time away from the religious scene: loving, healing and forgiving people. To follow Christ must surely mean to do this also.


"Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" - 1 Corinthians 10:31


"Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord" - Colossians 3:23

These scriptures state that we should glorify God in all we do. That in the same way that we honour God by worshipping Him, we can honour Him by living our lives in a way that points to Him. So when we are working or studying God should be glorified through us. When we socialise God should be glorified in us. Whether we succeed or fail, God should be glorified through us.

So. I may have gone on a bit of a tangent there. Sorry about that. This blog was supposed to be about University life but hey-ho; this'll do. Please do suggest topics for future blogs. The quantity of views that the blog is receiving indicates that people are enjoying them but I really don't have a clue what to write about (as you may have been able to tell) so do inform me.
See you again soon!