Everyone’s path to Cambridge is different and, as a stepping stone to study, the Foundation Year programme is giving outstanding students a chance they might not have expected.

In 1937, The Night Climbers of Cambridge lifted the lid on a secret world of shadows. While not recommended, some say it is still going strong today.

Freedom of speech, an unseen archive, and the happy ending effect.

Douglas Adams came up to St John’s in 1971. Seven years later, the first episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy aired. As his archive goes on display at St John’s, CAM asks Adams’s Cambridge friends and collaborators about his comic genius.

Josie Rourke (New Hall, Murray Edwards 1995) and fourth-year Modern and Medieval Languages student Annabel van Daalen discuss crockery, cutlery and culture shock.

What is it really like to apply to Cambridge in 2018? Adeline Wee, Daniel Oluboyede and Esmee Wright talk form-filling, interviews and determination

The first Student’s Guide to the University was written in 1863. Outrage, high jinks (and the sharing of the odd bit of useful information) has continued ever since

New books, old books and little-known books: CAM presents the definitive summer reading list