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“Caius has exceeded my expectations so much; I couldn’t have picked a better college,” says Lex Hoffmann (Education MPhil 2023).

“I haven’t felt this safe and seen in a long time. That’s been very nice.”

The sense of community at ������, particularly the postgraduate community, is what Lex attributes to these feelings of belonging.

It is a sensation Lex felt on her first visit to Caius, during a summer school aged 16. While the summer school was based at another Cambridge college, one of the student workers was a Caius student and showed Lex the Old Courts site, including the Library. That prompted a Cambridge application.

Lex, who is originally from Luxembourg, instead went to the University of York to read English and Politics, before applying for a Master’s at Cambridge in .

“The course was something I couldn’t do anywhere else and I could focus on research that was very important to me,” Lex says.

The reason the expectations formed half a dozen summers ago have been exceeded are simple.

“It’s really easy to make friends here, which I didn’t expect,” Lex adds.

“We all live on Harvey Road and as a community, with the regular dinners. For shaping the community has been really important.

“It’s been so nice and helpful to have the MCR community. We’re lucky to have so many events. There’s always something going on. Every week there’s something to do.”

As MCR Secretary, Lex has met many members of the postgraduate community, both in a representative role, but also socially, with parties at Harvey Road and the traditional Thursday Port Nights at Old Courts, which initially baffled her.

She says: “Being from Luxembourg I had no idea what Port Night was. I had to ask! It sounds very traditional, which isn’t a bad thing, so I thought I’d try it. It’s on Thursday evening after formal, but you don’t have to go to formal to go to Port Night.

“Everyone just gets to de-stress and feel normal, talk about their week, talk about what’s going on. It’s really good to catch up with people you see around. There’s always people doing really interesting research. The port helps with the atmosphere! It also means it’s easy to go out afterwards, to enjoy one night out a week and not think about your research.”

Lex’s research is on “the impact of sexual violence against male and transgender victims and the impact it has on the admissions process, so their academic attainment, and how they can be supported to make higher education more accessible to them”.

Lex adds: “Talking about invisible victims and perceived perpetrators does not diminish or change the conversation of female victimhood, it just also means we’re talking about male victimhood and trans victimhood.

“There is a lot more stigma around male victims and trans victims which makes them much less likely to access the help there is.”