This week we are holding our Offerholders event, welcoming almost 120 Sixth Form students from all over the country to College. We like to give our Offerholders the opportunity to visit us overnight so that they can get a sense of what life is like here and really begin to feel at home. They have the option to attend lectures in their department, as well as meeting some of our current students and the Fellows who will be teaching them next year. We also invite them to visit our gardens, with our gardeners serving herbal tea and toasting marshmallows, and to sample our culinary delights in the Dome with their very first Cambridge Formal Hall.
This annual event is a highlight of the College calendar for all involved – for the current students, who are excited to meet potential new students and show them why they love Murray Edwards; for the Fellows who are able to meet their future supervisees; and of course for the Offerholders themselves who are able to get to know us and make friends that will last their time at College and beyond. Everyone is keen to welcome and support our Offerholders, to show them that Murray Edwards is a home away from home. We hope that all our Offerholders have a great time with us – and begin to feel that Dome can be home!
Heather Smith, who is a First Year, Biological Natural Sciences student, thinks back to her time as an Offerholder:
"I had no idea where I was going to put as my firm choice for university. Having been pooled to Murray Edwards, I had a lot of apprehensions. I arrived on the Tuesday afternoon and walked down the narrow stairs of the bar, nervous about whether I would fit in and whether I would even have anyone to talk to. I spent the afternoon chatting and feeling so welcomed by both the other offerholders and the current students there. After the new and exciting experience of Formal Hall in the Dome and the lively band in the bar social, my mind was pretty much set on putting Murray Edwards as my firm choice. Two years later, I am about to have an offerholder stay with me. The College has opened up so many doors for me - a scholarship for my gap year, joining the rowing club and becoming the College’s access officer, and much more. Most of all its such a friendly place to live and work and I hope you will all feel that too!”
