Student Life | Learning to Fly by the Seat of Your Trousers

Flying by the seat of your trousers (or 'pants' if you are American) is a nifty little phrase I learnt that means to to do something difficult without the necessary experience or ability, or to decide a course of action as you go along, using your own initiative and perceptions rather than a pre-determined plan or mechanical aids.

Why does this matter? Because nowadays there is no room in companies for students or graduates that get by flying by the seat of their trousers. There is no room for error and even the easiest jobs are no longer "entry level". 

Unfortunately this means that for many skills that come naturally but are necessary in a work environment, e.g. communication, teamwork, you need to be able to prove you can do it before a recruiter lets you loose in their company. Woe betide the person who can't demonstrate the use of a transferable skill in a real life situation, preferably done under time pressure or financial constraints. But the point is, flying by the seat of your trousers, when phrased differently, is adaptability, is initiative, and is learning at speed, albeit with a larger risk of failure. However, our generation does have one thing on our side...

That's right. It's almost impossible to not know something with the ubiquity of immediate knowledge that is right at our fingertips. If a job description needs you to have a skill that you've never heard of; Google it. Read up on it. Research ways to learn the basics. Look for recent stories about it so you can engage with the topic if it comes up in an interview. Maybe even invest in a short course if you have the time. Make sure that you are not totally flying by the seat of your trousers, prepare yourself, and let Google give you, at the very least, a bit of padding lest your plane crash out of the sky.  

Let us learn from the very father of seat-trouser-flying himself, a man named Dougas Corrigan who flew from America to Ireland in the Summer of 1938. In those days, aircraft had limited navigation aids and relied mainly on the pilot's judgement. Originally he had submitted a plan to fly from California to Brooklyn, but he claimed his compass was broken, so instead he flew in the wrong direction, finally reaching Dublin 29 hours after taking off. The story of his trans-Atlantic flight was carried by many newspapers in America and the UK, including the following article in the Edwardsville Intelligencer, titled "Corrigan Flies By The Seat Of His Pants."

"Douglas Corrigan was described as an aviator 'who flies by the seat of his pants' today by a mechanic who helped him rejuvinate the plane which airport men have now nicknamed the 'Spirit of $69.90'. The old flying expression of 'flies by the seat of his trousers' was explained by Larry Conner, means going aloft without instruments, radio or other such luxuries." 19th July 1938

Corrigan was consequently nicknamed 'Wrong Way Corrigan' and starred as himself in the 1938 movie The Flying Irishman. A film and national fame aren't bad for a budding pilot flying across the world without full technical support or experience. So flying by the seat of your trousers needn't be a total wreck; you can learn from it and perhaps even make a success of it. But don't bank on it. If you haven't done your research, the chances are there is someone else going for the same opportunity as you who has. Too much reliance on trouser-power may mean you end up flying in the face of danger. 

Cambridge View | Boat Race Equality

It's that time of year again. Two crews of two coxes and sixteen rowers will battle it out for their place in Boat Race history on the 6th of April. Nine months of gruelling training will be recorded by just one word; "win" or "lose". Of course, history will truly be made next year, when the Womens' Blue Boats will join the men on the 6.8km course on the Tideway.

(The London Transport Museum)

Despite the centuries old tradition that the men's race is steeped in, I can't help but feel that somehow the women's race has become more 'Cambridge'. Compare the crew lists for the men and women. The majority of men are graduates, who turn up to Cambridge already with a wealth of rowing experience, some national, some international. The Boat Race offers them a chance to participate in a world famous competition, gain fame and go through exhaustive training.

Yet, the men's race is so competitive it is no longer won in training, but won in the recruitment drives before the season even begins. The Boat Race resembles the episode of The Simpsons where the Simpsons build a tennis court in their back-garden, but try to outdo each other so much that none of the family actually end up playing, as their spots have been taken over by Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and the Williams Sisters. In this case, Cambridge students and rowers are the Simpsons family, and have ended up on the benches, cheering on a boat of people who they have no interaction with, as they are so far removed from the circles of normal students. (NB I am by no means belittling the training the Blues' men put into the boat race. They will often row or erg the equivalent of a marathon each day, whilst trying to balance a rigorous Cambridge education.)

But when you look through the women's crew list, they are much younger, much more inexperienced. And that is a good thing. Most female Cambridge college rowers will have rowed with one of the Blues' Women, some will have even noviced alongside them. This may be just a personal thing, but it seems much more genuine to have someone who learnt to row at Cambridge represent Cambridge.

A recent twitter feed also revealed that many in the women's Blue Boat, both in Oxford and Cambridge, have aspirations to go on to row for Britain. The Women's Boat Race is a breeding ground for future female GB rowers, while the men's side is a playground for international ones. It is extremely unusual to have men like Ivo Dawkins go straight from college level to the Blue Boat.

As the women's Blue Boat come from colleges across Cambridge (not just graduate ones), they are able to take their experience and feed it back into college rowing come Easter term. Also, it gives college clubs a huge morale boost to see someone from their club progress to representing the University, as well as inspiring more people to take up the sport.

However, the youth of the women's side means that most are undergraduates, they are balancing the future of what will probably be their only undergraduate degree to represent the University. The truth is, they are putting much more at stake for much less recognition.

For all these reasons, I am so happy to see the women's Boat Race finally getting the recognition they deserve. On the other hand, I worry that the women's race could come to emulate the men's race, where the rowers are part student, part mercenary. There is a genuineness about the Women's Boat Race that I hope will not be lost in translation to the Tideway next year.

Cambridge View | My Enemy, The Erg

For those of you who have actually met me, I have probably mentioned at some point that I row. I may have even invited you to feel my quads.

Coaching on the Cam

I started rowing in my first term at Cambridge, and like most other things that happened during my first Michaelmas, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I was unashamedly peer pressured into signing up. While I have thrown myself wholeheartedly at the sport, enjoying the oft confused 'rowing at Cambridge' and 'rowing for Cambridge', one thing all rowers will agree on is the torture of the dreaded 'ergo'. It is also known to outsiders as 'the rowing machine'.

Mention this contraption to a rower, and their eyes will glaze over, a look of distant yet immediate pain will cross their faces. Sometimes their hands will rise upwards to the horizontal, as if in a hypnotised state, they will mimic the movement seared into their minds. What is it about this machine that scares its sportsmen and women so much more than a treadmill will scare its runner?

Firstly, (correct) use of an ergo will engage nearly every muscle in the body. If you are prone to pain faces, it definitely engages every muscle in the body. But there is more than physical pain. There is a constant mental effort to maintain technique, posture and rhythm.

In the midst of your physical and mental exertion, the screen hovers over you. The screen is a mirror, reflecting everything you do in terms of distance, time and split. If you let up for one stroke, the screen will show you the extent of your slip up. If you push with everything you've got, the screen will tell you that in your tired state, your everything isn't worth that much. It will taunt you with how far left you have to go; completely exhausted, you look up and discover you still have 800m left to go of a 2k test. At that point, you realise how much of rowing takes place in the mind, to fight through screaming muscles until the timer reaches zero.

The only way to beat the erg, is to erg more. The longer you stay away, the harder it is to get back on.

Student Life | Easy Computing Skills

Computing and tings

Some people are terrified by computers and technology. But we shouldn't be - we are the information generation. It's weird going into an office and showing older people how to tweet and blog, they see you as some kind of Zuckerburg-Jesus. They key to impressing your bosses is knowing the down-low on the downloads, and you don't even need to know HTML (but it helps).

• Gimp - Calm down, dear, it's just a photoshop alternative. Adobe can cost a lot of money to a student, even though they have a lovely discount available. For the majority of us, its infinite tools are just not worth it. Gimp is simpler and FREE. So while employers might not recognise Gimp, you will learn those magical transferable skills, for if you take on a job involving adobe photoshop.
• Anki - free flashcard software. Whatever you're studying, I guarantee that Anki can help you revise it. You create your own flashcards, and it cleverly orders them to show you the ones you find more difficult more often. My law friends use it to revise case studies, I use it for Chinese characters. 
• Infographics - To choose a programme according to your own needs, read this handy guide to infographics. You can link up your Facebook account to Inforgram, so you don't even need to sign up. Being able to gather and represent information has never been easier.
• Dropbox - Far cheaper than an external hard drive, save your work in dropbox so if the worst should happen and your laptop dies/is stolen, it is already stored online for you. Also, it's really useful as a shared space to work on group documents, for example, editing magazines. 
• Learn to Code - There are free sites that can teach you the basics, like codeacademy  and coursera.
• Social Media - Chances are you are probably already familiar with most of the basics anyway. But start thinking about it from a business perspective, and try to be versed in all the main platforms that companies are trying to gain a presence in (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and perhaps Tumblr). Twitter is probably the most important of these, so learn how to use tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Tweetdeck. 
• Blogging - Not technically software, but still technological. If I can do it, so can you. Blogging isn't just for wannabe journalists; the ability to write, structure passages and present information in an interesting way is vital to any job. There are loads of free sites ready to host your blog - wordpress and blogspot are probably the most common.
• Mailchimp - Learn how to manage, write and format your own newsletters, try doing this for a student society you are part of, or show initiative and set one up for your local community!
• Websites - the step up from blogging. Wix, Godaddy and Squarespace take you through from choosing and purchasing a domain name to helping you with layouts.

Student Life | Money Matters

Making Money

Students are generally poor. Not all of us can be born Alan Sugars with blood type AB Hustle. However, I'm going to share some simple things you can do to make a few extra pounds.

I know it's hard to part with, but selling your old, unwanted clothes and possessions clears space and makes you money. There are a number of different sites and methods you can use, depending on how much time you want to commit to selling. eBay is of course the online marketplace behemoth, but recently some of the things I've listed that would have been snapped up  before haven't sold at all. Saying that, if you sell something highly desirable (e.g. anything from Topshop), you're going to get a lot of attention. If you have an alternative or vintage wardrobe, you might want to try ASOS Marketplace or Etsy, which attract that kind of audience. Recently I've discovered an app called Vinted, which allows users to swap or sell clothes, and it seems to have a very young and active audience. Try Amazon for your books and DVDs, and gumtree for furniture. The negatives of all these sites are that it is time consuming to photograph, list, and add descriptions to each individual items. Then you've still got to deal with postage and feedback.

Car boot sales offer a way of getting everything off your hands in one morning with no commitments after the sale. Look up boot sales in your local area, pick a day when the weather is clear, and turn up with a boot full of your junk. Unfortunately, this does mean waking up at an unholy hour and standing in a field while strangers rifle through your belongings. Also, you are likely to only make a couple of pounds per item, so the key here is quantity, not quality.

If you're too busy/posh to bother with a boot sale, try using a company that buys your clothes, bags and accessories by the kilogram. I used Return to Earn with all the stuff that didn't sell at a boot sale. Sign up on Facebook (you get 70p per kg instead of 60p for liking their page) and they'll send you a sack. Fill it up and arrange for collection. You can receive your payment via cheque, paypal, or, if you're feeling generous, donate your payment to St Mungos - a charity for the homeless. I got my payment straight into my paypal after a couple of days. Having been through it, I can say it's definitely the most hassle-free method, and after looking at some of the other places that offer the same services, I'm pleased I went with Return to Earn.

Many of you might skip this suggestion, but here goes: crafting. Yeah, you heard me. If you've got a free day why not use up all your scrap paper, card and stickers to make greetings cards. Try covering boring note books in fabric, or turning the dangly earrings you never wear into phone charms (you can buy 20 straps for £1.80 or less on eBay). There are practically infinite options for turning your old junk into stuff people might buy, and you don't have to be an artist to do it.

Saving Money

The sad truth is you'll be poor, but you'll still insist on shopping because your eyes and fingers are conspiring against you, and before you know it you've accidentally filled up a basket and clicked the 'buy now' button. So make the most of this inevitability, and love your points cards.

• Loyalty points cards - get them and make the most of them. For example, you can sign up for a Nectar and use it to do your weekly shopping in Sainsburys, and link it up to your eBay account too! Also, everyone should definitely have a Boots card.
• 16-25 railcard - a definite must have if you're likely to travel (studentbeans offers a discount on the yearly cards), or student oysters for london based uni students. A lot of people don't realise you can link up your Student railcard to your oyster and get discounted off-peak travel. National Express also runs a young persons coachcard
• Unidays - If you shop a lot online, Unidays is a great way of verifying your student status and checking which stores run student discounts. They also have an app for when you're on the high street and have forgotten your student ID. 
• Renting clothes - Do you have a big event coming up that you have have have to wear the most gorgeous and possibly designer dress to? Have you considered renting a dress rather than buying one? If yes, say hello to Girl Meets Dress or Wishwantwear, one hell of a lot cheaper than a designer dress. Let's face it, how often are you really going to wear that full length ball gown? Of course, if you have have friends, try borrowing clothes of them for free.  
• studentbeans.com - I recommend joining Studentbeans for the offers page, it's pretty good and frequently updated. I won free Special K cereal and Palmers moisturiser in the space of a week. Needless to say, it was one of the proudest weeks of my existence. Studentbeans also has some useful hints and tips pages to get you through uni.

Also, uni is full of events with free refreshments and snacks. Stuff your face and gather biscuits like so:

For the culture vultures, don't worry, it's not all about shopping.

• Entry Pass - a scheme run by the National Theatre, allowing students and young people into theatres for just £5.
• Mousetrap Theatre Project - a charitable organisation, offering 19 to 23 year olds the WestEnd 4 £10 scheme. There is a catch though, you need to have attended a non-fee paying, non-selctive school, which, to be honest, is most of us. 
• Timeout - y'all should know what this is already. They keep a good twitter feed. 
• YPlan - a great app for finding stuff on in London and making spontaneous plans

Student Life | What to Pack

Essential packing list

You can find a pretty extensive list of all the boring things you'll probably need here.

What kind of zombie apocalypse weapon is that, gurl?

Apart from stuff on the above list, consider taking;

• Thermos flasks - using these to make your own tea or coffee is going to save you a bomb. I mean the literal explosion that's going to happen in your heart when you see your bank statement. Also, if you want to be eco-friendly, take a large thermos to store hot water in, so when you want a cup of tea you don't have to boil the kettle every time. 
• Tupperware - in the same way a thermos can save you money and confound Starbucks, you can save loads on food through packed lunches. Just make a bit extra for dinner and eat the leftovers for lunch the next day. Old cases for stacked writable CDs make excellent cases for bagels.
• A calculator - I can hear the arts students wincing already. Smart phones and computers do have calculators, but for job applications, nothing beats a good old scientific calculator. If you're a second or third year student, the chances are applications for large, competitive companies are going to involve a numerical aptitude test, so save yourself time and money by packing your own - it doesn't take up much space! 

• Business cards - again, freshers aren't going to need/care about these things. But for stressing finalists, the great thing about business card etiquette is that if you hand someone your card, it's near impossible for them to avoid handing you theirs. Buy hundreds for a few pounds and collect important peoples' details with them. It's like swapping your basic un-evolved pokemon for shinies. Also, conference cases can be bought from £10 upwards. They normally come with a notepad, and contain spaces for business cards, ipads, pens. If you're thinking about going to a job fair, consider buying one of these to look more professional.
• Printer - from personal experience, I cannot tell you how much time I have wasted spent walking to and fro from the library. Not worth it. Just get a printer for your room, it works out cheaper in the long run.
• Pack of postcards/cards - I can't speak for all unis, but at Cambridge you end up leaving notes in other peoples pigeon holes all the time. If you've got loads around the house you never use, you might as well take them with you. Who doesn't love getting postcards?   
• Fancy dress box - collect every fancy dress item in your house and pack it. If you're thinking "when am I going to wear the octopus costume I made in year 8 for a school play?", the answer is up to you - you make the opportunities. Become a campus costume legend or fade into outfit obscurity. Also, the old blue gingham dress you wore at primary school makes a great Alice in Wonderland pinafore. 
• Coat - alright, this is here just for me because in the excitement of buying a whole new set of stationary and the flurry of packing, I *once* forgot to pack my winter jacket. Learn from my mistakes.

Cambridge View | New Hall to Murray Edwards

The Dome in Snow (Holly Smith, iPhone)

This is my college. Looking like something between an observatory and a mosque. 

Before I came to Cambridge, I had no understanding of this funny college system, and I made sense of it by equating it to the houses of Hogwarts. It is exactly that. Although you study with students from all over the University, you eat, drink, sleep, and live with your college compatriots. 

The typical Cambridge View: King's College Chapel (Holly Smith, iPhone)

So there I was, a scared little UCAS applicant forced to pick one of these little buildings which are part of the bigger collection of buildings that I wanted to be a part of. I had a checklist too: old (must have turrets!), in the centre of town and fairly large. Boom, hello St Johns College, you look friendly. Evidently, I did not get a place at St Johns, but I was placed in the dreaded 'pool', to be fished out by Murray Edwards College. 

Clearly, there are no turrets. However, we do have a dome. THE Dome, in fact, as we are the only Cambridge college to have one. We are a college of unique elements in more ways than one; our acronym can stand for a debilitating sleep disorder and we have a split personality, as far as I'm aware, M.E is the only college to currently use two names, M.E formerly known as, or perhaps one could say, neé New Hall. 

Considering the names of the other colleges, something seems amiss: Christ's, Churchill, Clare, Clare Hall, Corpus Christi, Darwin, Downing, Emmanuel, Fitzwilliam, Girton, Gonville and Cauis, Homerton, Hughes Hall, Jesus, Kings, Lucy Cavendish, Magdalene, Newnham, Pembroke, Peterhouse, Queens, Robinson, St Catherines, St Edmunds, St Johns, Selwyn, Sidney Sussex, Trinity, Trinity Hall and Wolfson. 

Of the above colleges, 11 have names relating to Christianity, 12 take names connected to their founding or first principals, 4 have names corresponding to their location, and 2 after notable alumni.  Only Lucy Cavendish bears its name in honour of the woman herself, despite her never being a member of the University of Cambridge or having nothing to do with the college sharing her namesake. Neither Sir Winston Churchill nor Sir David Robinson attended Cambridge, but both wished to leave a legacy within the University, and were heavily involved in the creation of their respective colleges, although Robinson's input seems mainly fiscal.

Undoubtedly, the trend of the founding benefactor's name being adopted for the college as a whole runs  throughout the history of the university. Yet I can only find one other case that is similar to Murray Edwards - Cambridge's second oldest college, Clare College. Originally called University Hall, it changed it's name to Clare Hall in 1338 to honour an endowment left by Elizabeth de Clare. 

Below is the account from Murray Edwards College describing the 2008 name change:

"In June 2008 the College announced that it was receiving a donation of £30million from Ros (1981, née Smith) and Steve Edwards, the largest personal donation to a Cambridge college in the University’s 800 year history. The College was founded in 1954 without an endowment, despite the founders' efforts to find a donor who would endow and name the College. So the founders decided to adopt the name "New Hall" until a donor could be found to endow the College and secure its future. This donation from Ros and Steve Edwards forms the College's foundation endowment, and so in 2008 the College announced its renaming as Murray Edwards College to recognise the vision of its first President, Rosemary Murray, and the generosity of the Edwards family."

While one cannot fault the Edwards' on their kindness towards the college, I feel disappointed. As one of the three all female colleges of Cambridge, I feel that the new name doesn't reflect the youth, dynamism and uniqueness that New Hall did. New Hall seemed like a bold statement in amongst the old, traditional and male collegiate world. Now we have taken on the name of an alumna who has taken on the name of a man. All this by a college which won't allow pole dancing classes run on its premises for fear of damage to its reputation, irrespective of demand. Personally, I feel this name sends out a worse image - we were up for sale to the highest bidder. My college was established in 1954 as "the third foundation for women" (the other two being Girton and Newnham), and the feminist inside me can't help but think that this is a betrayal of its principles. 

Autumn by Huntingdon Road (Holly Smith)

Murray Edwards Garden love (Holly Smith)

Yet perhaps, I am reading too deeply into this. A name is just a label for what happens inside the college, and no name could change the vision, drive and innovation of the students who I am honoured to share this college with. Eventually, in the perpetual and everlasting history of the institution that is the University of Cambridge, the name Murray Edwards will just be accepted, just as Downing is Downing. New Hall will join the ranks of University College (Clare College), God's House (Christ's) and Buckingham College (Magdalene), names of bygone eras. 

While I personally dislike the name 'Murray Edwards' (and its attached nicknames 'Mudwards', 'Medwards' and the legendary, 'Hurry Bedwards') I am proud to call myself a Murray Edwards student because of what the college stands for.