It was nearing the end of Michaelmas when Harriet stepped on the Northern Rail and watched the countryside rolling past the train window as she returned home from Cambridge, only to step foot again in the city almost a year later. Since published its into the intermission system at Cambridge, it’s been nearly five years. With the Student Union’s and the University’s dedication to developing the process in their , I can’t help but wonder what’s changed.
Something tells me the struggles depicted in Varsity’s investigation; the knotted web of Cambridge welfare systems and the misty haze of university bureaucracy, have not been banished to the late 2010s. People’s eagerness to speak to me about their experience made it clear that there is still much to be done. Information available online, although sparse and decentralised, with no formal undergraduate university page on the process, describes student intermission as a “complete break from their studies” due to “serious, unforeseen circumstances” (typically related to physical or mental health).
Given leave to “disregard terms”, students can then rejoin university, either where they left off or at the start of a new academic year. The process mainly seems to be advertised through word of mouth: most of the people I talked to had heard about it through friends who intermitted, and occasionally as a suggestion from college. Once students decide to intermit, their tutors must send an application on their b.