On a cold November day back in Year 8, my Cambridge-educated History teacher told me something which I have remembered far better than any of his lessons on the Civil War. When challenged over his (unusually pink) choice of winter-wear, he declared to the class: “Only tourists buy Cambridge University hoodies. Real Cambridge students have a college scarf.”

As a result, it was only last week, when wearing my college scarf for the first time that I felt like I really had made it to Cambridge. As a Fresher you are told of various watershed, coming-of-age moments: your first trip to Cindy’s, for example, or your first all-nighter. But nobody mentions that very first donning of your college scarf; how it makes you feel proud yet slightly vulnerable to wear the insignia of ‘gown’ so prominently around the ‘town’; how you start to notice those at other colleges giving your scarf a sidelong look, trying to suss out your colours; that brief moment of acknowledgement, like a secret handshake, as if to say “Yes. I am one too.” Then there is always that element of thrilling jeopardy when wearing the scarf out and about, particularly when you come from a college as popular as St John’s.

But as I ventured to lectures last week, college colours adorning my neck, I noticed my scarf was actually, to my horror, a little bit scratchy. Now, I love that scarf, and nothing in the world would have persuaded me to take it off – especially seeing as it is pretty dam cold outside – but as anybody in possession of a college scarf will testify, they aren’t made of the softest wool in the whole wide world.

Perhaps in this respect, college scarves are an allegory of our Cambridge education. In a distinctly neck-tickling fashion, the Cambridge experience is not always a wholly comfortable one; the odd essay crisis or uninspiring lecture affords the scratchiness in the scarves of our higher education. Despite this, would we change them, either of these things? Wearing a scratchy scarf, or getting through a particularly tough supervision, seems to me the intellectual equivalent of eating my daily greens.

College scarves are on the whole, desired by people who don’t have one and worn with unquestionable pride by those who do.

I am here, scarfed-up and ready to go, in pursuit of an excellent education. This education, I will be proud of for the rest of my life. The same goes for the scarf. Sure, it has its minor down-sides, but it is nonetheless a badge of honour, and one I feel very proud and very lucky to be able to wear.