Newnham
When I first arrived in Cambridge, I couldn’t even find plodge. I typed ‘Newnham’ into Google Maps and ended up in Newnham village, completely baffled, calling my College family, who pointed me in the right direction. In hindsight, getting lost was probably the most accurate introduction I could have had to Newnham, because people I hadn’t even met were already helping me find my way. That’s the thing about Newnham: it isn’t defined by its buildings or location (even if the gardens do look great on Instagram) but by its people. Newnham is: running late to a DoS meeting because you stopped to chat with four different people in the Iris; persuading your friends to go to Co-op; and pulling too many chairs up to a tiny table in the library for a study session that quickly dissolves into whispered giggling. We are often asked how our revision is going or which May Balls we’ve booked, but it’s these everyday moments of small,
unplanned interactions that make our community so special.
Alongside them come the more typical rhythms of University life. The long hours in the library, pesto pasta, the relief of handing in essays with the realisation that you have to immediately start your next. Yet what stands out most is how none of it was done alone. Whether your neighbour from first year or a postgrad you met at rowing, there was always someone to mess around with, talk things through, or remind you that you were exactly where you were meant to be.
As we graduate, it’s these moments and these people that we take with us. Whatever comes next, I hope we carry forward the same generosity, humour, and sense of community that makes Newnham extraordinary.
Bella Gordon-Salem
Politics and History
