Mentor Insights and Political Sciences (HSPS). I stayed on another year because there were topics within my degree that I wanted to study in greater depth. I particularly enjoyed The Sociology of Race and Gender, which I studied briefly in my third year. The focus of my masters degree is The Sociology of Marginality and Exclusion. Q: What encouraged you to study HSPS at your university and what other courses/universities did you apply to?
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ali Chinula caught up with Nathalie Holloway, former Immerse Education Mentor and Gonville & Caius College JCR President, to chat about her academic experiences and involvement with Immerse. Nathalie offers some great insight, including what studying at a top university is like and advice on how students can make the most of summer programmes like Immerse. She also shares anecdotes, secrets, and things she wishes she knew when she was 16!
Q: Hi Nathalie! Thanks for agreeing to this interview. What have you been up to since graduating from Cambridge and working at Immerse this summer? A: No problem! I am currently a masters student in Sociology at Gonville & Caius College, where I also got my undergraduate degree in Human, Social, 16
A: I was looking for a broad course because I enjoyed both humanities and sciences at school. I also wanted a course that investigated how the world works and how certain ideas of power structures, for example gender, are perpetuated. I found all of this in HSPS at Cambridge as well as courses that combined politics, international relations, and social anthropology at SOAS, St Andrews. Edinburgh, and Birmingham. I chose my universities largely based on various open days and course-specific events I attended. For examples, I decided to apply to Cambridge after going to an outreach workshop organised by Gonville & Caius College. Here, I attended interesting lectures on politics in China and interpretation. But the most important part of the day for me was getting to meet HSPS students who I could relate to and who seemed to love the course. Q: What are your favourite things about HSPS and your postgraduate degree so far? A: The best part of HSPS for me was studying Sociology. I think it is such an exciting subject because it relates to everything - you can understand anything from housing crises to the politics of hair from a sociological angle!
