Musings on marriage and software piracy win students trip to Cambridge

Kym Brooks from Burleigh Community College in Loughborough and Emma Brookes from Chesterfield College in Derbyshire spent last Friday attending seminars and visiting the Colleges and Museums of Cambridge before being presented with their awards and £300 each in prize money. The girls’ colleges also received £200 each for producing a winning entrant. The prize money was kindly donated by the Cambridge Political Economy Society.

The girls were declared joint winners after judges found it impossible to decide between Kym’s fascinating insights into ‘Marital Behaviour in Britain since the 1960s’ and Emma’s ‘Who, What and Warez’ – a sociological essay on the shadowy world of software pirates known as the Warez community.

Dr Brendan Burchell who organised the competition says the standard of entry was impressive and he’s delighted with the results:

“The competition gave us an excellent chance to develop our links with schools and colleges, and to inform them about the opportunity to study Sociology at Cambridge through the Politics, Psychology and Sociology (PPS) degree”.

Both Kym and Emma were alerted to the competition by teachers at their respective colleges and they were accompanied on their visit by a teacher. The competition deadline of 30 May meant they had to juggle their writing with sitting exams – but both said they’d enjoyed the challenge.

Kym said she’d never expected to win but was really delighted by the opportunity to visit the University of Cambridge:

“ I’ve never been to Cambridge before and I’m just struck by how pretty it is. We’ve been really spoilt while we’ve been here and everyone’s so casual and friendly. I loved our presentation ceremony and we got to sit in on a seminar where the numbers of students were very small – it’s a really unique way of teaching.”

Sociology teacher at Burleigh Community College, Kirsty Freeden, who accompanied Kym on her trip to Cambridge said:

“ The competition’s been a fantastic opportunity that’s created a real buzz around the school. Everyone’s very proud of Kym and her achievements. Its my first visit to Cambridge as well – and after the welcome we’ve had I’m hoping to use my experience here to encourage more of my able students to consider applying to Cambridge.”

For Emma, the trip was her second visit to Cambridge as she’d already attended a taster day to Cambridge and Oxford organised by her college in June. She’s just applied to read law at Magdalene so she says it was useful to visit in term time and really get a feel for the place.
“I entered the competition because I thought it was a fairly unusual and unique opportunity – you don’t find many competitions for sociology students! I got the idea for the subject after watching a television documentary on the Fake Trade – I’m really interested in how law links into key ideas about ethics, class, gender and justice. Its been great to see a seminar while I’m here and get a feel for the teaching – I think the teaching system of supervisions here is really clever, and can help you enormously if you like to be pushed.”

Emma was accompanied on her visit by teacher Stuart Booker who’s keen to encourage his students to aim high.

“Competitions like this are invaluable in terms of getting students thinking about going for top-class universities. Anything that means they achieve something tangible and that the seeds of going to somewhere like Cambridge are planted is a great thing. The University’s been so welcoming – it would be fantastic to have regular competitions in different subject areas to spread the effect.”

The Department of Sociology will be running the competition again in 2008/9 and has opened the competition out to include essays from A level Psychology students; many students applying to study sociology at Cambridge haven’t studied sociology at school.