Gwenno: The best night out in Cambridge is so bad it’s good. It’s Sunday Lola’s. The process of going to Lola’s is long and brutal. It requires grit and dedication. Tickets for Lola’s are like gold dust. I spend hours of my Sunday scrounging Facebook, spending whatever’s left of my weekly budget to have a chance of lining up in its prestigious ticket queue. And for what? This ritual is at least an hour long, usually in subzero temperatures. In a desperate attempt to make the experience more bearable, my friends and I pass round stomach-turning drinks in reused milk cartons, containing more vodka than mixer. Inside Lola’s is even worse. The music is terrible, the drinks are extortionately priced and, worst of all, the place is heaving with men in drinking soc ties. If I’m not simultaneously lost, crushed and suffocated, I’m pleasantly surprised. Each Monday morning at 3am, I swear to myself that I’ll never set foot in the place again. Yet, by the following Sunday, I find myself back on Ticketbridge, ready to sell a kidney to return. I don’t know what it is, but Sunday after Sunday, I just keep coming back for more.

Fabian: The best night out is the simplest: go to the pub. Feeling down? Go to the pub. Feeling up? Go to the pub. Feeling slightly in between? Go to the pub. Which pub? The pub. There are many, but they all fulfil the central criterion of being a pub. Any pub that you can go to, you should go to (although I have a soft spot for the Elm Tree). Nowhere else can I spend £12 on two mediocre pints before drunkenly stumbling into hourlong conversations on everything from EU passports to Donkey Kong. The closeness of the seats, the warmth of the lights – it all adds up to fonder memories than the awkward chaos of the clubs. I will concede it can feel a bit unadventurous to sit in one spot for the whole evening. But the best nights are the ones where your next moves are planned only after the first, most crucial one: going to the pub.

Lotte: The best night out in Cambridge (and I’ve nearly tried them all by now) is not a Slipped Disc All-Nighter, a gig at the Cambridge Junction, the sweaty madness that is a Wednesday Revs, nor even a sophisticated night at the Cambridge Arts theatre. It’s not a Union debate, a romantic dinner at the Ivy, a formal hall held at College, or a Varsity Social (but feel free to join us fortnightly at the Anchor on Thursdays!). In fact, the best nights out are the ones you don’t expect, when the pres are the end of a work shift, a seminar on the Renaissance you didn’t want to go to, or a long day in the library. The happy accidents. The chance encounters. The nights out wearing your glasses, not your contact lenses, and when your backpack and cycle helmet end up coming with you to the pub. The best nights out are those spent talking nonsense with your dearest friends, over a cup of tea at whoever’s accommodation is closest – because those are the memories we’ll cling to when our time in this city is done, not the Cambridge fripperies that sparkle for only a brief moment before vanishing.

Clarissa: My best night out at Cambridge required a reluctant change of heart. For all of second year, my friends and I complained about the endlessly thumping bass of La Raza which kept anyone living in the neighbouring streets up until 4am. One evening, bored of Revs and Lola’s, we did the unthinkable and went to La Raza ourselves for its fortnightly Funk Jam. Sober and feeling the midweek blues, we had the lowest of expectations – but this may have been part of the magic. A bit awkward at first, the underground bar was soon filled with people boogying up a storm, as the live band’s clarinettist somehow managed to squat jump while playing. Funk Jam is an open mic night where acts hold the floor for only a few songs each, and its upbeat atmosphere is infectious. Live music with words you can sing along to (sorry JazzSoc), no entry fee and a switch up from the countless nights of sameness at local clubs made me change my mind on La Raza. The best night out at Cambridge was at my doorstep all along.

Asha: There is no “best night out” in Cambridge. It exists only in the fevered imaginations of motivation-lacking, serotonin-craving students, myself included. This “best night out” is merely an incentive used to deceive oneself into finishing that overdue supo work; it is a mirage, produced by one too many hours at the Seeley. Whether it’s Sunday Lola’s or Woo Wednesdays, you are guaranteed to be met with overpriced drinks (the cost of living crisis says “hi”), a frustrating amount of ABBA and a pervading sense of dissatisfaction when the night ends. Let’s be honest – the only good thing about Wednesday Revs is the idea of it. Nevertheless, the collective hope that, maybe this week, things might be better keeps us going back. My friends and I pathetically buy into it at every pres. We giggle, we drink, we self-deceive; we have a good time with the people we love and pretend that the rest of the night will be just as fun. Riding high on adrenaline, we ignore the impending disappointment. It requires a sort of doublethink that would make Orwell shudder. So maybe sit the next night out and chill with some friends – we all know pres are the best bit anyway.