“It’s going to be harder for you than it is for them, you know?” is what my best friend, an international student in the Netherlands, told me after my offer to Cambridge was finally confirmed in July. I smile and say, “I know”, but in my head, I’m thinking that Cambridge (the great Cambridge!), with its prosperous international community, will be different from other universities. Cambridge, taking into account its claims of inclusivity and diversity, would surely be a place in which international students are welcomed and encouraged to thrive within the ‘international’ community. Right?

“The University of Cambridge goes to great lengths to encourage credence in such a community: ‘It’s a great place to be a student, so wherever you’re from, you’ll quickly start to make friends and feel at home’”

Along with the perks of being an international student – the biggest of all being the fact that when we have wasted all freshers-week conversation topics, we can always revert to the classic “It’s so weird that people drive the other way here in the UK! ” – come numerous difficulties: the culture-shock, the loss of the sense of one’s community, the feeling of embarrassment one feels every time they mess up the pronunciation of an English word during supervision, and so on. No international student is naïve enough to believe that, throughout their education, they will not encounter those twists and turns that home students never experience. There’s a whole TikTok subsection full of sardonic comments on this subject. But those twists and turns seem infinitely less intimidating, significantly less daunting when one believes in the existence of an international community: a community populated by people with which to share the same less-than-pleasurable experiences. The University of Cambridge goes to great lengths to encourage credence in such a community: “It’s a great place to be a student, so wherever you’re from, you’ll quickly start to make friends and feel at home.”

Having been here for six weeks and having spoken with a few fellow international students, I’m starting to wonder to what degree this summary represents reality – or whether it’s just naïve. In week zero, the international community seems more preponderant than ever, with numerous events organised by the ISC. By the time we get to week three, we see the ‘international-ness’ dissipating and giving way to ‘multinational-ness’ – that is, to a conglomeration of distinct national communities.

In week five, I’m talking to Oliver, an international student from King’s. He tells me he comes from a non-European country and hasn’t yet encountered many people who come from the same continental background as him. This leaves him “unable” to integrate within a national/continental community. As a result, he confesses that most of his time is spent alongside European students since he feels that it is easier to interrelate with internationals than with British students. Although he doesn’t describe himself as displeased with his current group of friends, he says “it would be nice” for more people from his environment ‘to be able to go to Cambridge’. Before finishing our interview, Oliver noted that his experience is one circumscribed to college life.

“Everyone I interviewed said that the interactions between international students and the international community are mostly limited to – or enhanced by – their college’s communal life”

Savannah, an international student reading History, has had a similar struggle: she has not yet met a lot of people belonging to the same national background. This also prompts her to orientate her social energy toward her college’s international community. Everyone I interviewed said that the interactions between international students and the international community are mostly limited to – or enhanced by – their college’s communal life.

Two international students from Trinity, Radu and Olivia, also base their testimony on their college-related experiences. Radu, who is Romanian, tells me that, while his national community is considerably more “close-knit” than the international one, he does consider himself to belong within the “general student body”: “My friend group is Romanian, and this is because I’m from Romania, but I get along well with everybody. I think it’s normal to try to get along well with everybody, to be friends with as many people as possible.” To Radu’s social conduct, then, the stratification often engendered by multinationalism does not bear relevance, although it has influenced the formation of his friend group.

Olivia, on the other hand, tells me she has felt a higher degree of integration within her national community than she experienced within the international one. She says it’s ‘easier’ to ‘link up’ with people who share her background while noting that this social orientation is also the result of her own volition: “Although I speak and interact with people that come from different countries, the connection established with people that come from my homeland is more qualitative.”

There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be: the shared language and common social conventions make it easier for students to ‘ally’ themselves to a group that shares their nationality or – in Oliver and Savannah – ‘international-ness’. University, unlike school, is a world defined by the concept of distinction. For international students, along with the distinction of different subjects comes one relating to different national backgrounds. For the international students here in Cambridge, another distinction arises due to the existence of our very own miscellaneous collegiate system. This leaves them searching for unity and similarity, each in their own way and with their own means.

However, there is something rather sad in the fact that, although numerous and ‘diverse’ – as the University’s website describes it – the international body is not united enough to overcome the barriers imposed by the collegiate system.

*All names have been changed.