A few months ago, at the bottom of an email, I read about a particularly intriguing opportunity. This opportunity was the Student Travel Award, a new initiative launched by the Development and Alumni Relations office. The award would fund two undergraduate students to travel separately through Europe during the summer. They would visit Cambridge University Alumni Groups along the way, and act as student ambassadors. As I read about the award, I realised that this was something I would love to be involved in. After a lengthy written application, an interview panel, and a few months of booking, planning, and writing emails, I set off on my travels. Over three weeks this September, I visited six different Cambridge Alumni Groups in five countries and seven cities. It has been a complete whirlwind, a somewhat surreal adventure, and a huge personal learning curve.

My travels took me to Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Oslo, and Stockholm. In each city, I was welcomed with unexpected warmth and generosity, by both the alumni groups themselves and by individual alumni. Apart from the kindness I encountered, what struck me the most was the sheer diversity of the Cambridge alumni network. No two societies were the same; each one had its own unique composition, specific social calendar, and quirky idiosyncrasies. As a consequence, the experiences I had varied very widely.

During the three weeks of my trip, I had dinner with the President of the Cambridge Society of Paris; attended a lively tapas evening with the Cambridge Society of Madrid; met some fascinating people in the Cambridge Society of Brussels; visited Antwerp and Ghent with the Cambridge Society of Flanders; toured the Nobel Institute in Oslo with the Cambridge Society of Norway; and had a fruitful dinner discussion with the founders of the Cambridge Society of Sweden. And that’s just a sampling! It has been a very memorable and incredibly formative experience, both personally and intellectually.

Whilst travelling, one of my responsibilities was to share my experiences with fellow students. As this was the first year of the award, there was no established precedent for how to do this and I had a lot of freedom to experiment. After a little brainstorming, I decided to set up a blog and Facebook page, both entitled ‘The Cambridge Traveller’. The Facebook page is a collection of captioned photographs, posted daily, while the blog contains more in-depth accounts of my visits to each alumni group. Initially, I had only expected students to be interested in the blog, so it has been a pleasant surprise to have positive feedback about it from alumni too.

Above all, my travels have been a testament to the strength of the Cambridge community. It is a community that spans across national boundaries, that is truly intergenerational, and that unites students and graduates from all colleges and academic specialities. Together, we form a global network that supports, encourages, and inspires. I am incredibly proud to be a part of this.

When Fiona was travelling, she wrote a blog at thecambridgetraveller.wordpress.com and posted to a Facebook page.