Bridging Course 2025
Alongside the offer letters that we sent out to our prospective new undergraduate students at the end of January, selected offerholders also received invitations to Selwyn’s bridging course. We are running this initiative for the second time in early autumn 2025, following a successful pilot scheme in September 2024. Again, the course will be generously supported by the Isaac Newton Trust’s Widening Participation and Induction Fund. The programme is not a replacement for the full induction that all incoming students receive at the start of October, but provides additional and more tailored support to students who meet certain criteria.
The bridging course is designed for incoming students, identified through the contextual data collected as part of the standard admissions process, who come from schools and colleges and/or areas that don’t traditionally send many students to Cambridge, or whose education has been otherwise disrupted. Being invited is not a reflection on students’ ability or potential – they have been given offers through the same rigorous process as all other students at Selwyn, and have the capacity to thrive here. However, we recognise that not all of our incoming students have had the same opportunities up to this point. We want to use the bridging course to address some of those potential imbalances by introducing participants to life at Cambridge and to its styles of teaching and learning with the aim of giving them the best possible start to their time here.
Our first bridging course cohort of 15 students (pictured with course director Dr Tom Smith at their undergraduate matriculation dinner in October) are now halfway through their first year at Selwyn. We asked a few of them to reflect on their experience of the bridging course now that they are some way into their studies.
Arran, a historian, said that the chance to experience social and academic life at Selwyn before the start of his degree was important to him: “It broke down misconceptions about Cambridge.” He thought the course was particularly helpful in introducing him to the form of small-group supervisions – one of the main modes of teaching and learning in Cambridge: “Mock supervisions deconstructed the fear I had of having an actual supervision. The bridging course had the supervision environment, but without the stress, so the awkwardness was minimised when I had my real supervisions in term.”
Monesha, who studies HSPS, agreed that “the supervisions were definitely helpful,” and also that the more “granular parts” of the course, for example on how to access Moodle (a commonly used virtual learning environment in Cambridge) and library catalogues were valuable: “It made coming to university a bit easier as it meant I wasn’t having to plant my feet whilst simultaneously grasping how to use online resources.” Monesha picked out the end-of-course formal dinner as a highlight – one of a number of opportunities to explore “Cambridge customs” and everything the college, university, and city have to offer.
Asha, a geographer, agreed that the mock supervisions and the formal were enjoyable and valuable experiences, and that just being in Cambridge to “get used to the general layout of the schedule and how a day runs” was excellent preparation for degree studies.
We’re sure that our incoming cohort of bridging course participants for 2025 will have similarly positive experiences, and we’ll look forward to welcoming them.
