letters to Part III

Write.   Do the essay.   Why? Part III needs to be a year of transformation, you start as a student, you need to end up as an (inexperienced) researcher. Part of the training undertaken in the year therefore really ought to include some attempt at learning to do research. In allowing you to do an essay in lieu of an exam the Faculty has done its best to provide this opportunity and encourage you to take it. You get credits equivalent to a 24 hour course. Generally speaking it is a safe option - people generally score well on essays relative to their performance in other course. You get a chance to interact with a member of staff on an individual basis - rare in Part III. It’s not actually all that much like being someone’s PhD supervisee, but it’s closer than listening to lectures and it's an opportunity for conversation. Particularly if you take advantage of giving a talk on your essay in the Lent Term Seminar Series, you are given a reasonable framework guiding you th...

Why?   At some point in life (unless you are seriously unlucky) you are going to stop being a student. Hard though it may be at this point in Part III to imagine it, there is an end to sitting in lectures, taking notes, doing examples sheets and dreading exams. Whatever else is going to come After, you will almost certainly need to explain matters to colleagues. It’s worth learning how to do that now, when your job/promotion/the future of the universe does not depend on it. It is an excellent beginning to the holidays, I beg your pardon, I mean the revision period between Michaelmas and Lent term. (I see that even Part III handbook is now explicit in repudiating any idea that that period might be devoted to carousing with friends and family or watching telly through half closed eyes after too much Christmas pudding.) Preparing a talk is a splendid way of revising. Listening to all the other talks is much better than nothing or even trying to study on your own (who is going to...