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Learning to Succeed at Cambridge & Beyond - with Kam Taj

Tom Vaughan, Cambridge Programme Officer at PA, breaks down everything you must know from the Cambridge Blueprint session with Kam Taj!

The Man and the Message

Kam Taj and his coaching organisation Exam Success Academy exemplify the mission – and the paradox – that sits right at the heart of Project Access; through all our mentorship, guidance and group support, there is a central thread of individuality and independence that defines all that we do – as we work to emphasise that there is no right or wrong path. After all, there is only your path.

Kam Taj, with all his charisma, candour and moving vulnerability embodies striking, sometimes life-affirming, duality, so that while his experience is undeniably his own, it can resonate – and most importantly can help – every single one of us in the Cambridge sphere and beyond. Paying forward his struggles and the resultant personal growth, Kam says:

“This is what I wish I had but wasn’t offered… what I wish I knew.”

He established the personal touch right from the off in an exchange with the audience that organically led into a discussion of Kam’s journey from a grammar school to Churchill College, Cambridge, and then onwards to consultancy and, most recently, nine years dedicating himself to coaching students in his (or rather in our) position. The frank authenticity of Kam is rare, arresting, vital and powerful as he chronologically breaks down his Cambridge experience.

A first-year plagued by Imposters’ Syndrome and the negative habits that it engendered, chiefly the indignant assertion that he would rather fail not trying than try his best and find out it is not good enough – all of which culminated in the wake-up call of Results’ Day.

A second year in which his avoidance mechanism of sport took him no closer to academic fulfilment, and hurt in more ways than one. “I cried hard”, explains Kam, referencing his second-year Results’ Day, immediately after describing the agonising process that something as simple as putting on his socks had become for his overworked body and the breakdown in his relationship. And Kam allows us in even further, to a third-year moment which led him to a “very dark place”.

“I needed to drop out.”

Instead, he asked for help and learned to “fall in love with [everything] again. His message is refreshing and provocative, challenging Cambridge to ‘kick him out’ if they do not find him good enough because he is going to do Cambridge ‘on his terms’. Taking us back to his third-year moment, he said:

“I am going to reclaim my relationship with Cambridge.”

The tone of this initial exchange defines that of his wider ethos; to not shy away from the rough that underlies the smooth. While engaging with the student audience, Kam asks ‘what is exciting them’ in the same breath as ‘what they find worrying’, – typical of a decidedly holistic approach. This is most evident in his Rules of Eight, bringing together the academic, mental, physical and social aspects to set out a pathway to success.

“Where better to learn than Cambridge”, he asks, playing off the apparent obliquity of the tongue-in-cheek statement to explode the preconceptions around learning and success in the historic institution, where the abstract nouns sit ambiguously somewhere between Results’ Day and life.

“It is OK not to get it right.”

The Eight Principles - for a successful life

Optimise Study

  • Time Management

  • Tools and Techniques

  • Mind Management

  • On-the-day Performance

Optimise Lifestyle

  • Physical Activity

  • Nutrition and Hydration

  • Sleep

  • Support Groups

The Eight Challenges - you might encounter at Cambridge

The Bubble

The tendency is to get lost in the Cambridge world and forget that the outer world exists.

Amplification

Everything at Cambridge is done to 11, exaggerating the best and worst in yourself.

HIIT (High-Intensity Intellectual Training)

An eight-week term means you are learning at a pace you have never experienced before.

Getting Shot Down

Nobody gets everything right all the time, and supervisors will certainly tell you when you’re not – but that is what they (and you) are at Cambridge for.

Small Fish in a Big Pond

Everyone has been performing above average in their respective schools, and suddenly you find yourself in a university full of extraordinary people like you.

Imposter Syndrome

That niggling sensation that someone, somewhere, has made a mistake, and you shouldn’t be at Cambridge after all.

Self-doubt and FOMO

There are a range of incredible people at Cambridge, who will all be doing incredible things. Along the way, you may well feel that you should be doing what they’re doing: what everyone’s doing, impossible though it may be.

Isolation

It is natural to feel lonely at some points during your first year (and beyond) at university, as friendships shift, form and change.

The Eight Opportunities

With a healthy dose of curiosity and bravery, this is what overcoming the ‘Eight Challenges’ can bring you!

Full Immersion

Fall in love with the city, its nature, and history and be grateful to live amongst such beauty – separate from any academic concerns.

Personal Growth

If every part of yourself is amplified, you quite quickly get to know yourself and grow as a result.

Unlocking a Better Brain

Like a gym HIIT session, slowly your brain will become hench, or in other words able to do new, exciting things.

See Feedback as a Gift

Opportunities to improve are always positive.

Healthier Sense of Self-Esteem

You will learn to validate yourself.

Never Feel like an Imposter Again

Every day that you stay at Cambridge, you prove to yourself that you deserve to be there.

Become an Experimenter

Try things for your own enjoyment - “You do you.”

Loving Your Own Company and JOMO

Get to know yourself, grow comfortable and confident with your own decisions, and enjoy avoiding the things that you know are just not right for where you are right now.

“The Cambridge Dance”

Kam offered a wealth of practical information, delivering it with such hope and flexibility. His overall message is to move toward self-fulfilment through perpetual curiosity – asking yourself “What do I resonate with right now?”. As we go step-by-step through the years of a Cambridge pathway, the focus is never far from personal growth and the satisfaction that doing justice to yourself brings.

Year One is about discovery and adaptation, Year Two is about rhythm (joining the “Cambridge dance”), and Year Three is about performance. It should be noted that by this point we are well-acquainted with the notion that ‘performance’ is always in the eye of the beholder, or rather that good results are at most a happy by-product of a better frame of mind.

Cambridge University offers an opportunity for success completely unbeholden to the number they print on the paper at the end: “What a chance!”

Image credits: Pexels

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