Everybody cycles in Cambridge.
I live off-site. This means I’m not on College accommodation, or University accommodation. It’s important to remember that Cambridge is a town with people living here who have nothing to do with the University, and I’m very lucky to have found a lovely place to stay. It’s about 20 minutes by walk to both the Law Faculty, and to St Edmund’s, time that’s cut in half when you cycle. That is good enough reason to acquire one.
The story of my cycle is a story of luck, and now of love. I’ve ridden it one day and I am remembering now how much I enjoyed cycling to places inside my gated community, and how liberating it is to be able to cycle on the roads. It’s not something I’ve done before and it’s something I’m enjoying thoroughly. I’m keen to see where all I end up going with the cycle, and what all it gets to see. Bike theft occurs commonly over here – and forget that, light theft does too, which meant some expenditure on accessories to keep safe.
Having been to a picnic earlier in the week, one of the members from there was kind enough to meet me again for crepes, which provided a fine opportunity to get to know someone outside of the Faculty of Law, which I’m certain will become my social hub – especially if our meet-up this evening is anything to go by. After eating some pulao I made, I ended up going to meet what I thought would be a few, and ended up being way more than a few LLMs. Like yesterday, it opened my eyes up to the diversity in the batch. As a fresh undergraduate (having completed a degree in May), I’m one of the younger ones in the class, which is comprised of, among others, some students who have completed a PhD. In conversation with them, I understood that unlike my own conditioning – which views qualifications very linearly (undergraduate, postgraduate, doctorate, post-doctorate), a large number of societies worldwide view qualifications as merely being indicative levels of education. Consequentially, it isn’t absurd to have done a PhD and then be doing an LLM – and the LLM is often pursued with a research grant; to gain both institutional affiliation and further specialization.
Now I’m thinking of all the wonderful doors this degree opens up for me. I can only smile, and hope that more people get to experience this.
Tejas Rao 