Cambridge, a place where student campaigns flourish and die in a matter of minutes, is set to be the playground for a new squabble where Cambridge Defend Education (CDE) play the lead. This new campaign claims that it’ll end all the misery in our lives – it will solve all our problems and end our #week5blues for good. That’s the claim but the question is how exactly does it hope to achieve this? Without any real consultation with the wider student body, Cambridge Defend Education, propped up by CUSU officers desperate to justify their existence, have ruled that they will – on our behalf – campaign for Cambridge to adopt a termly reading week.   

I suppose it makes no sense to introduce a reading week and leave us desperately pressured trying to squeeze in all the teaching material in 7 rather than 8 term weeks. I make the assumption that CDE is of course far more intelligent than this and would rather keep the 8 teaching weeks and have a term based on 9 weeks with a reading week somewhere in the middle.

Their argument is that a 9 week term gives students a chance to relax a bit, visit parts of Cambridge they rarely get to see during term and improves the quality of education. I question every bit of that nonsense.

Students at Cambridge are some of the most focused in the country. They know exactly what they want and they’ll stop at nothing. If they had an appetite for the Fitzwilliam Museum or the Botanic Gardens, I assure you they’ll make the time to visit – after all they’re open daily from ten to five. No matter how much the University pressures us we can always make the time, if we choose to. But we don’t, we choose Cindies and a late night over a morning at the Fitz. Members of CDE might not choose to go to Cindies but they choose to go to protests and picket Union speakers instead. That’s also their choice.

I spend eight weeks here and I’m usually wrecked, physically, emotionally and psychologically and it’s not necessarily because of the workload. I hate being in a small bubble, I hate seeing the same people and I miss my double bed at home – I also miss mummy, my brother and my father. Yes I might be doing no work whatsoever for reading week but it still means I get to spend an extra week here. As an overseas student, I don’t think it’s possible for me to fly back home to spend reading week with family. It’s the same for the majority of overseas students here. Instead, we spend more time in Cambridge and rather than having five weeks of Christmas with our families, we get four and maybe even three – courtesy of the longer terms.

Moreover, there are serious financial issues to consider here. I come from a privileged background so I’m doing alright but Cambridge is pretty damn expensive for students –having to spend an extra week here may just not be feasible for some people. It means extra money on rent, food and bills. CDE, our champions of equality and political correctness, are completely disregarding the needs of underprivileged and overseas students. They did not consult us nor present any solid evidence that it would have a positive net effect – a frankly careless gesture.

But forget about overseas and underprivileged students, because clearly neither the CUSU President nor CDE care about our welfare, what is it that makes Cambridge graduates the best in the country? It is pressure. The more pressure this university and its teaching staff put on us to beat our personal best, the harder we try, the more we learn and the stronger our qualifications. Harvard, coincidentally a better university than Cambridge, adds even more pressure on its students than we do. Just ask anyone who has spent some time there.

A Cambridge education teaches you to be a responsible professional. But what does that mean? It means that we grow a work ethic and learn to think like adults because although CDE might want it, you won’t be able to call work one morning and ask for a week off your responsibilities. And once I’m someone’s father, I won’t be calling the nearest orphanage to take my children away for a week once they become a bit too much to handle. At Cambridge we learn about pressure and how to deal with it; we grow up so that later, once we graduate, we’re better at what we do.

Simply put, CDE are a group of middle class socialists who are desperately trying to justify their privilege to everyone by continuous protest. After complaining and canvassing, they block the right of speakers to free speech. Basically, it’s no wonder they’re finding the workload intolerable.