I still haven’t quite come to terms with the fact that my time at Cambridge has come to an end. Like many finalists, not only in Cambridge, but across the UK, across the world, I find myself thinking, why us? Why our year? It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Three years wouldn’t have been long enough, let’s be honest, but a little over two and a half just seems like a kick in the gut, and the heart. 

Three years ago, I was a nervous, excited, expectant schoolgirl, unaware of what was to come, the people that I would meet, the things I would learn and quite simply, how much I would fall in love with Cambridge, and indeed, Homerton.

Fast forward two years, as a History and Modern Languages student, it was around this time last year that I sat in my DoS’s office, sobbing, begging not to have to go on my year abroad. Little did I know that I was fighting for no more than two more terms, but looking back, do I regret swapping a year in the south of France for sixteen more weeks at Cambridge? Absolutely not. 

These last sixteen weeks, and indeed the many that came before, have been filled with memories that will stay with me forever. The over-excitedness at the release of a bop theme; the prospect of a group gossip with our laptops flicked open on Amazon Prime in search of a last-minute makeshift costume; the exhaustion and elation of walking back hom(e) through the cobbled streets from a May Ball at 4, 5, 6am; the many laughs shared and tears shed (happy ones too!) on the shoulders of people I have been lucky enough to call my family over the last few years. I know that, in time, it is only these memories that will come to define my uni experience, not the heartbreak I feel today that this has all been cut just a little too short. 

My thoughts will inevitably drift to Homerton, Hom, which is for me, my entire uni experience encapsulated within the confines of a great stretch of orchard that hosted too many Easter term procrastination picnics. It is in the cups of coffee relished for longer than we anticipated in the buttery, the great hall, the hangovers cradled there over brunch. It is in the constraints of a squat fresher room (or second year if you were lucky enough to be placed in West House twice) when too many people squeezed in for a pre-bop game of never-have-I-ever, and the inevitable hangxiety the next morning. It is in the gym that I never used, the comforting words and kind faces of our porters on the way to bed after a late night out, or cramming in the library. Mostly, it is in the arms and smiles and laughs of the girls I have spent three years living with, sharing probably a little too much with. 

My friend and I always reflect on our time at Cambridge with the comforting words, “we smashed it, didn’t we? Every single moment”. And as she sends me pictures of her blotchy face, I try to remind her of this, reassuring her in the same way I have been trying to reassure myself: we smashed it and tore it up so much that there was nothing left for us to tear. She replies with a simple, “there was still a little left to tear, Medwards was waiting for us…” 

Maybe she’s right. Maybe the thought of losing one last term means we will all be a little heartbroken about this for a while - but it is a heartbreak that we all share. As more and more letters of goodbye, pictures of Hom’s great hall and the faces of people who have sat opposite me in the library, in hall at Sunday brunch, faces who I have drunk a little too many glasses of wine or cups of tea with, Homertonians - as more and more crowd my newsfeed, I am confident that these are testimonies. Testimonies of the time we’ve shared together, testimonies that it is this, more than anything, that will see us through.