It was another jam-packed day at Clare on Thursday, as students were treated to a wide array of interesting activities and lessons to bring them towards their first weekend in Cambridge.

In the afternoon, students were lucky enough to benefit from two talks given by some very influential guest speakers. Firstly, students heard from Mervyn Mensah, an acclaimed public speaker who uses his experience of tackling poverty, homelessness and working with young offenders, to motivate the next generation of young people. He has a fresh, enjoyable approach to helping young people which aims to raise their aspirations and build their confidence by giving them practical motivational skills. This talk was very well received by our students, who were particularly taken with his dynamic and interactive speech.

Following this, students then received a speech from Sarah Wilson, a prolific writer, journalist and business woman whose approach to well-being encouraged people to give up sugar. She spoke a lot about her new book, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, a story about the contemporary anxiety epidemic. Both her expertise as a business woman and her ability to articulate some of the concerns of our generation, namely how to convert anxiety into something productive, were incredibly useful to all of our students. The talk encouraged everyone to think about the importance of speaking about mental health in order that the stigma associated with it is eradicated.

The afternoon was deeply informative for everyone at Clare, with even the counsellors commenting on how interesting and nuanced both talks were. With so much focus on academic success, it is often easy to neglect one’s own well-being, however both of these speakers encouraged the students to think more about the importance of remaining mindful, especially in times of great pressure.

After such an intellectual afternoon, the students had a chance to let off some steam with some free time followed by a fun game of rounders outside on the lawn. Once they had eaten dinner together, everyone finished their homework before taking part in flower crown making.