Freshers were left without a matriculation and carted off-site for their dinner last week, following unplanned power outages at the College.

The cancelled matriculation was a part of wider disruption caused by power outages that went beyond those anticipated by the College during a planned kitchen refurbishment.

Students were left without WiFi during the outages, with the dining hall forced to close on Monday (02/10), and the college bar shuttered on Thursday (05/10).

Wolfson students were informed of planned power outages on the Monday and Friday last week, according to emails seen by Varsity, but the first planned outage was lengthened after a generator failure, leading the college to cancel its matriculation just hours before the event. This was followed by a wholly unplanned outage on Thursday.

The College’s Bursar emailed students at 1 pm on Monday to inform them of “a problem with today’s power outage,” before notifying students of the cancelled matriculation at 4 pm the same day.

Due to the complete closure of the hall, students were assigned the use of a number of other college’s halls, including Darwin and Selwyn. “Cafeteria supper for tonight is also cancelled. But you will not go hungry!” wrote the Bursar.

One fresher told Varsity: “We were banished to Newnham for our dinner [...] They only informed us of the postponement 2 hours before the matriculation.”

Another fresher said: “We were all disappointed that matriculation was cancelled - and it is a bit odd that they would plan a power outage on the same date as an event as important as matriculation.”

One international student said that they lost 400 words of their thesis due to the lack of Wi-Fi during the outage: “It was very aggravating, given how much I pay for college fees,” they said. “The college has to stop gaslighting us on how the facilities are all okay,” they continued.

A Wolson spokesperson said: “We were very disappointed to be forced to cancel the matriculation event for students on Monday, but we communicated this to students as soon as it became clear that the unexpectedly prolonged outage would make the event impossible to host safely.”

“We have of course rescheduled the matriculation event and dinner, which is free for students to attend. We are very grateful to students and members for their patience during the work,” they continued.

The College's matriculation has been rescheduled for the 18th of October.