When Nabil Bashir (English/Foundation Year 2025) enrolled at university, he quickly realised he had made a mistake. 

The Computer Science course at the University of Edinburgh was not what he wanted to do, so he made the difficult decision to stop and, after dropping out, to return to the high school where he had been Head Boy, seeking assistance with a new application.

He applied for the University of Cambridge Foundation Year programme, a course for students who have been prevented from realising their full potential due to educational disadvantage or disruption, which Nabil had.

At Edinburgh, Nabil’s Computer Science course was accompanied by electives in Maths and Spanish. His main degree subject was the aspect he liked least. 

“I just knew I wasn’t happy doing the course and even if I had wanted to switch I'd have had to reapply, because Computer Science was too unrelated,” says Nabil, who is from near Glasgow.

Through a TikTok video by a current student at Gonville & Caius College he learned of the Foundation Year, which provides a challenging academic curriculum in arts, humanities and social sciences. He yearned to read English, but the breadth of the course provides options.

“My interests in English have led me into other things,” he adds. “Primarily I’m interested in English, but the option to try out social anthropology is a great thing to have.”

His early decision to leave Edinburgh did not unduly affect his funding from the Scottish government, while the Foundation Year has the regular UCAS deadline in January – not the October deadline associated with Cambridge and Oxford applications – giving him time to get his application together, alongside working at McDonald’s. 

Nabil selected his college online, and chose Caius, visiting only after his application at the offer-holders open day.

Now he is at Caius and Cambridge, Nabil fields the questions about stereotypes from his friends at home. Some, like the Hogwarts-style formals are true, others are not.

“Coming here has changed my perspective,” adds Nabil, who did attend a residential at Oxford while at high school. “People are normal, but they're just very, very talented in a specific thing, or they're very, very interested in something.”

Although having the physical attributes, the early starts associated with rowing did not appeal. He is considering playing college football with Caius, and is enjoying being part of the University’s Scottish society and has attended Irish Society events.

Reflecting on his journey since his ‘false start’ at Edinburgh, Nabil says: “Things just work out, I guess.”