"The Gebauer Fund was a game-changer in my language learning": How travel funding enhanced a Selwyn student's year abroad experience

Thanks to generous support from alumni, the college is able to offer students a multitude of options for travel funding. We spoke to Daniel, who has enriched his degree by using travel grants to spend his summers in Europe. 

This article has been adapted from the Annual Report 2025.

Being a student at Cambridge is a privilege – one that comes with its fair share of hard work but also a huge amount of support from friends, peers and college. As a current undergraduate on my year abroad as part of the modern and medieval languages tripos, I’ve been lucky enough to receive funding from Selwyn through the Gebauer Fund which promotes German-related activities, as well as from the Cambridge Bursary Scheme, both of which have played a huge role in my enhancing my experience. 

As is the case with many languages students, I have an interest in discovering and navigating new cultures and environments, which perhaps makes it excusable to set aside the vocabulary and translations to engage deeper with my studies in a practical way. This is where financial support has really helped me. I began German from scratch in 2022, and it is clear that being able to travel to Germany twice with the resources from the Gebauer Fund was a game-changer that made a real difference in my language learning. 

In my first year, I applied for the Gebauer Fund to attend a two-week intensive language course at the DID Deutsch-Institut in Berlin during the Easter vacation. The MMLL Faculty highly encouraged this trip for ab initio students and it was a great experience. Mornings were spent in structured lessons which reinforced and recapped what we had been learning during our first two terms at Cambridge, and outside of the classroom, we typically spent our afternoons exploring Berlin. Most notable visits were the Berliner Fernsehturm, the Museum Island, which hosted a range of museums, and Sanssouci Palace in the neighbouring city of Potsdam. More than anything I found it particularly rewarding to gain experience with speaking German, and although at this point I had not been learning German for very long, this experience greatly boosted my confidence. 

As a result of this, I applied again in my second year for another language course with the DID Deutsch-Institut – this time in Munich. It was particularly helpful in getting me ready for my oral exam in the Easter Term, where the conveniently small class sizes encouraged lots of speaking practice. Besides the language element, I was particularly intrigued to see if there was an opportunity to apply what I had been learning in my scheduled German Linguistics paper; I noticed some of the regional phonetic Bavarian features of German. And of course, exploring the city, including the beautiful Englischer Garten, was a bonus. 

In both instances, the Gebauer Fund took a huge chunk out of each trip’s cost for travel, accommodation and the courses. Moreover, without this support I wouldn’t have had the chance to experience Germany in such an immersive way while studying at Cambridge. 

Beyond the academic funding, the Cambridge Bursary Scheme has also been an enormous help through my time here. It’s given me the freedom to properly take part in student life at Selwyn and beyond. Events such as the Selwyn Snowball have given me some of my favourite Cambridge memories. More practically, this year the bursary has also made my year abroad much more manageable, covering some of my living costs while working in France as an English Language Assistant, and even giving me the chance to travel a little bit around Europe (including to Hamburg in Germany), which deepened my appreciation of my subject area even further. 

The financial support at Selwyn has made such a difference to my student experience. It has allowed me to bridge the gap from academic to practical immersion across my study of both French and German language and culture. Having access to these funds has opened up opportunities I likely wouldn’t have been able to make the most of otherwise, contributing to my experience overall.

For any students currently studying or considering taking up their studies at Selwyn, I would greatly recommend looking into the various funds available which can be utilised for a wide range of activities. The resources help students make the most of their time here, and in my case, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spend time in what has now become one of my favourite cities, Berlin.

Grants and scholarships can make a disproportionate difference to students. Many subjects would benefit from the provision of grants which can cost just a few thousand pounds per year, as they can be used for a wide range of projects within these subjects, such as help with dissertation costs, book and resource purchases, as shown here, for academic-related travel.

To discuss how you could help make a difference to students at Selwyn, please contact Sam Davis, our Major Gifts & Legacies Manager, on sjdd2@cam.ac.uk.