作者在Cambridge取得一等成绩的哲学硕士（MPhil）后，文凭最具体的一次用途，是在Paris租屋时作为审核材料，为了租到市区约9 m²的阁楼合租「女仆房」而提交近似求职等级的文件。促使她动笔的契机，是编辑转来一则「Cambridge硕士回国面试小学英语网课教师落选」的报导，期待她以同类感受回应。写作时，她刚结束在UNESCO为期6个月的无薪实习，因预算压力搬入租金更低的华人区以降低冬季取暖焦虑；她曾供稿的独立国际新闻社已停运，连法国资深记者同事也陷于失业。她将此概括为学历内卷与「过度教育」下，知识兑换面包的汇率极低，名校学位往往只剩履历上一行被HR快速略过的字。

她回顾在Sciences Po与Cambridge如何学会「表演」成精英：社交场合喝香槟、把健谈当作技能、以实习竞赛堆叠经历；而在Cambridge，这种表演甚至被传统内化。她曾住在市中心学院宿舍，24小时泡图书馆，在1对1或1对2辅导中谈德国哲学与法国电影，周末以低于一顿饭的成本去London看戏剧；拉丁语仪式、草坪与长袍构成数百年文化资本的符号，带来短暂的归属感。但她强调，家庭的经济资本与社会资本仍无声绘制内部阶层地图：有人坦然申请经济援助、承认不会滑雪；也有人负担不起辩论社会员、12月Cambridge与Oxford合办的Varsity欧洲滑雪行程与May Ball动辄数百英镑的票价；同时总有人住在周租近似她月租的宿舍、到处搭计程车、只喝特定品牌瓶装水，甚至一生未上过班也不必担心「实习经历」。她借用Bourdieu的观点指出，教育体系常是文化资本再生产的关键场域，文化荣光能调和并掩盖「区隔」，却不会消失。

她把落差放进制度比较：英国毕业生常可进入与所学不相干的职位，高薪行业更看重名校头衔而非可直接上手的专业；法国市场则高度重视专业背景与职位匹配。她描述不少一年制硕士生自嘲在读「panic master」，因本科毕业后无所适从而以再延一年换取缓冲；她靠全额奖学金读二硕，延后求职，并将「不必马上去求职」界定为可被意识到的特权。作为移民，她同时面对工签门槛与「外国人税」等成本，限制了职业选择。她在Cambridge教育系修读研究型哲学硕士「Knowledge, Power and Politics」，所在地Homerton远离老城中心；英国硕士学制仅1年，通常10月初开学、次年7月初交论文，学期仅约2个月，必须同时上课、研究、写作并靠兼职负担生活费；冬夜约下午3–4点天黑，她在等公车时感到批判理论既无法支付房租也无法驱散不确定。结尾处她把「被教育改变的命运」重定义为更高精度的自我诊断与更朴素的目标：自给自足并持续享有文化生活，在收缩的时代保留定义自身生活的可能。

After earning a first-class philosophy MPhil from Cambridge, the author found the diploma had one concrete use: passing Paris rental screening, where she submitted job-like documents to qualify for a roughly 9 m² attic “maid’s room” in the city. She began writing after an editor forwarded a report about a Cambridge master’s graduate being rejected for an online primary-school English teaching job, expecting a shared perspective. At the time, she had just finished a six-month unpaid internship at UNESCO and moved into a lower-rent Chinese neighborhood to keep winter heating from becoming a constant anxiety; the independent international outlet she had contributed to had shut down, and even senior French journalist colleagues were struggling amid unemployment. She frames the moment as credential inflation and “over-education,” where the exchange rate between knowledge and bread is poor and elite degrees often shrink to a single line that HR scans past.

She recounts learning to perform “elite” status at Sciences Po and Cambridge: champagne in social settings, practiced fluency in small talk, and internships treated as a competitive sport; at Cambridge, the performance is embedded as tradition. She once lived in a centrally located college dorm, used the library around the clock, discussed German philosophy and French cinema in 1:1 or 1:2 supervisions, and spent weekends seeing London theatre for less than the price of a meal; Latin rituals, lawns, and gowns functioned as symbols of centuries of cultural capital, producing a brief sense of belonging. Yet she argues that family economic and social capital still draw an internal class map: some openly request financial aid and admit they cannot ski; others cannot afford debate society membership, the December Cambridge–Oxford Varsity Europe ski trip, or May Ball tickets that can cost hundreds of pounds; meanwhile, a subset lives in rooms whose weekly rent matches her monthly rent, takes taxis everywhere, drinks only certain bottled water, and has never needed to work or worry about “internship experience.” Citing Bourdieu, she treats education as a key site for the reproduction of cultural capital, where cultural prestige can soften and conceal distinctions without removing them.

She places the gap in institutional terms: in the UK, graduates often enter roles unrelated to their degrees, and large firms prioritize elite brand signals over direct workplace applicability; in France, hiring strongly emphasizes fit between specialization and position. Many one-year master’s students joke that they are enrolled in a “panic master,” extending school because they feel unready for work; with a full scholarship for a second master’s, she postponed job entry and names the ability to “not have to job-hunt immediately” as a recognizable privilege. As an immigrant, she also faces constraints from work visas and employer costs such as a “foreigner tax,” narrowing occupational freedom. Her Cambridge education-faculty research MPhil, “Knowledge, Power and Politics,” sits at Homerton away from the old center; the UK’s one-year structure typically starts in early October and demands a thesis by early July, with terms of about two months, forcing classes, research, writing, and paid part-time work to coexist. In winter, darkness arrives around 3–4 p.m., and she feels critical theory cannot pay rent or dispel uncertainty; she ends by redefining “education changing fate” as higher-resolution self-diagnosis and a modest target—self-support while sustaining cultural life—so that, in a contracting era, she can still define her own life.