06/07/2026
Students lead on Refugee Week at Wolfson
His journey to Wolfson, where he’s currently in the final year of his Tripos in Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS), was by no means conventional, but is also illustrative of how there’s a route, and a place, for everyone. Especially someone like Lewis, who hit the ground running when he arrived at Wolfson and never looked back.
“I initially didn’t think I was going to come to university,” he says. “When I was eighteen, I was in the process of applying to the Royal Military Academy. Then I realised that the army wasn’t going anywhere, and I hadn’t done a lot with my life, so I thought I’d maybe get a bit of life experience first. I wanted to travel the world and to try and make a difference, and do something that felt fulfilling.”
Lewis grew up in Newton Aycliff, a town in County Durham. He’d worked in his local fish and chips shop since his early teens and, after deciding to put the army on hold and see a bit of the world first, used the money he’d saved from the shop to go traveling.
“I backpacked around New Zealand by myself and ended up working in a hostel in Christchurch. Then Covid hit and I was suddenly managing the hostel, as the two permanent members of staff couldn’t with the Covid restrictions.”
After New Zealand, Lewis came home and worked for himself, before landing a job with the Home Office.
“And then I just realised I wanted a degree, I wanted to go to university. I did a course with the Institute of Continuing Education [at Cambridge] in International Relations where I really liked my lecturer, and then I looked at university more generally and came across the idea of being a mature student, and I saw that certain universities offered Foundation Years.”
The University of Cambridge’s Foundation Year in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences is a free, full-time course designed to prepare students who have experienced educational disadvantages to study at Cambridge. Lewis applied in the programme’s pilot year, passing the requisite two interviews and admissions test after meeting the initial qualifications.
“I did the Foundation Year because I wanted to come to Cambridge, and it was a great opportunity. Maybe because I’d come here a bit older, and I’d worked – I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew what I wanted the next stage of my life to be. I wanted to come to Cambridge, I wanted to do well for myself.”
While progression isn’t guaranteed for students on the Foundation Year, many go on to complete a degree at Cambridge. Lewis, who knew what he wanted to study from the get-go, says that the Foundation Year was integral in setting him up with the skills and the motivation to move into a full-time undergraduate degree.
“I think the Foundation Year did for me what it said on the tin. You’re not supposed to get on your degree and be better than everyone else, you’re supposed to be on the same level. And the programme introduced me to how Cambridge worked, and the supervision system. I really took supervisions in my stride. It’s scary at first, sounding your ideas against someone who knows so much, but it built my confidence – to say something and give it a try. I went to loads of Formal Halls and I found myself being able to talk to anyone. After that first year I felt like I could talk to someone who knew a lot because I felt like I was valid. I can walk into a room and never feel ashamed and not say something.”
In 2024, over 300 candidates applied to the Foundation Year programme, with an acceptance rate of only 14%. But Lewis is the first to urge potential applicants not to be put off by the statistics.
“I think just give it a go,” he says. “You read admission rates on the website and, yes, those numbers are scary but those numbers are people – those people are real. Why can’t one of them be you?”
Applicants to the Foundation Year programme can choose from one of thirteen Cambridge Colleges, including from the three mature Colleges of Wolfson, St Edmund’s, and Hughes Hall.
“I always knew when I was applying that I was going to apply to a mature College,” says Lewis. “My philosophy was that I’ll be around people with a similar age group and it’s just easier to get on with people of a similar age, and people with some life experiences. A lot of my friends at home were moving into jobs, and getting married, and I’d never done anything traditionally, and I wanted to meet people who also weren’t on the traditional path.”
And how did Lewis find himself at Wolfson?
“Wolfson was my first choice! I fell for the international and cosmopolitan element of Wolfson. I loved how open it sounded. Back when I was traveling, I loved meeting people from different places. I had heard from people who’d said that the staff at Wolfson were a lot more open to what students wanted, and I always found that the staff here treat me like an equal. And when I came here it felt like such a community – a fun sense of community, more like home than home. It felt like how it used to be when I was working in the hostel, and I came to love the College because of that.”
In the first year of his undergraduate degree in HSPS, following the Foundation Year, Lewis threw himself into College life, running for and then standing as both President of the Wolfson College Student Association (WCSA) and Vice President of the May Ball Committee.
As his time at Wolfson draws to an inevitable close, Lewis says he’s thankful for the choices that led to him being here, now, with all the myriad of experience behind him, and all the life ahead.
“I feel grateful to the College in a way – yes, I got in on my own merits, and you don’t owe an institution, but I think more than anything it has been very transformative and I’ve met so many great people, and I’ve made so many great memories. I’ve attached a lot of sentimentality to this experience, and the opportunities it’s given me. A lot of things that I did came down to skills I didn’t know I had. I owe Wolfson a lot for that.”
