I am a fourth-year student about to be kicked hard out of Cambridge at the end of the year, once I finally graduate. I am already preparing for pangs of wistful nostalgia for when my time is up, so I understand the vain fantasy of a heroic return to the city. The itch to turn longing of the past into a tangible present is something I can sympathise with. You must look no further than High Table at your formal Halls to your erstwhile Masters and Mistresses as a cautionary tale for such ill-fated indulgence. Look up next time you are there, and you’ll see them drunk not only on free college booze, but the sweet taste of nostalgia.

The overwhelming majority of Masters and Mistresses were once starry-eyed undergrads at this this place. A large number take up positions in the very same colleges they matriculated into 30-odd years ago. After a lengthy and successful career, they once more find themselves catapulted into those same medieval grounds, attending the formals in the same halls, and even drinking in the same old pubs they did as awkward, gawky 19-year-olds.

Shakespeare wrote old age was a ‘second childhood’. So, in some ways, ascending to college master must feel like a ‘second undergrad’. Except whereas undergrads have a feverish sense of inadequacy, making a comeback as Master and Mistress represents triumphant affirmation of your own success. It is one big pat-on-the-back.

But also, embedded in this role, is the ultimate nostalgia trip. Like week one Freshers, college masters are desperate to be loved, but they have far more means at their disposal to get the popularity buzz. Masters and Mistresses drinks with students, wisecracking at formal speech, and being able to play celebrity round college are all easy-to-please gestures they have at their disposal. This disguises the fact the job is a set-up for disappointment, derision, and head-banging frustration.

“Ascending to college master must feel like a ‘second undergrad’”

Don’t just take my word for it. Hugh Trevor-Roper, who after retiring as Master of Peterhouse in 1987, complained of “seven wasted years” he would not get back, after being fed-up with long-running guerilla warfare led by ultra-conservative fellows in that college. This is a headache not confined to the past. Pippa Rogerson, the recently departed mistress of Caius faced a crazed uber-Tory vanguard of fellows who went ballistic over the smallest of liberal gestures, like flying the Pride flag. Heather Hancock had a distinguished career in the Civil Service, at the Food Standards Authority (and firmly out of the public eye). Yet, she became a target of student fury after St Johns Voices was axed under her watch as Mistress of St Johns. Suddenly, she found herself dragged into public controversy during her retirement gig, rather than the height of her career. Alas, even those with controversial jobs beforehand, like the former Chancellor Rab Butler, must have felt head-banging frustration as Master of Trinity. Once having dictated the nation’s budget in his old job, in his new job he could not dictate then-Trinity undergrad, Prince Charles, keep his personal car off college property.

The good news for these individuals is most controversies ultimately fade into the backdrop and become more footnotes in Wikipedia pages. Nonetheless, Cambridge mark II risks tarnishing feel-good undergrad memories of Cambridge mark I.

“The good news for these individuals is most controversies ultimately fade into the backdrop and become more footnotes in Wikipedia pages”

Regardless, every master and mistress find themselves in an unwitting straight jacket when they sign up to this job. The youthful nostalgia of Cambridge is tied up with the giddy sense of future possibility this place promises. Undergrad life has intellectual autonomy and creativity at its heart. Some heads of college pursued this ethos in their professional careers, making substantial contributions to the arts, writing, and activism. Some of them forged authentically progressive credentials during this time. So, it’s bitterly ironic that the triumphal return to Cambridge as leaders kills the beating heart of what likely made them so nostalgic for this place.

To be a head of college, in practice, means too often being tied down by the shackles of college bureaucracy and pressure to conform to donors’ whims. The Masters and Mistresses have too often become depressingly quasi-CEO corporate figureheads. They are periodically wheeled out to sell their colleges idyllic grounds out to corporate conferencing for dodgy sponsors. More than a mirror image, the role risks being a parody of the promise of the Cambridge undergrad.

Masters and mistresses may be returning to the same grounds, pubs and gowns they knew before; but rather than an exciting opening act, it risks being a disappointing close of curtain. Maybe Cambridge is far less a concrete place than it is a glittering moment of youthful possibility. This makes whatever hope of heroic return a mirage. Nostalgia allows you to sip a bit of the past and invites you to get a little bit drunk on it. But the near decade-long stint as head of college, too often risks being one long splitting-hangover.

Want to share your thoughts on this article? Send us a letter to letters@varsity.co.uk or by using this form.