01/10/2026
NEW ON CLEVER MAGAZINE
What happens when a student who is used to finding the right answer enters an academic environment where the teacher says: “I don’t know. You tell me.”
At Fitzwilliam College in the University of Cambridge, Clever Magazine founder Kristina Lebedeva went inside the FitzEd Summer School Programme, speaking with Dr Peter Bolgar, Dr Ashraf Zarkan and Dr Alex Carter — and with three students, Anna, Saieesha and Yasmina, experiencing the same programme from very different educational backgrounds.
The result is a story about what happens somewhere between being good at school and becoming a university thinker: uncertainty, independence, supervisions, research, intellectual discomfort, AI — and learning what to do when nobody simply gives you the answer.
One student left more certain about medicine. Another remained equally committed, but with a far clearer understanding of the stamina and independence it would demand. A third left less certain about medicine and newly curious about physics and biomedical engineering.
That, perhaps, is part of the point.
As Dr Carter puts it, the hope is that students leave Cambridge not in awe, but in wonder.
Read the full feature via the link in bio.
Photography: Julia Novikova
