University of Cambridge (reviews)

What I mostly liked about this university are the different communities you can be part of – on one hand there is the college community, on the other – your department and there is a huge variety of societies and clubs you can become part of. What I would recommend is more contact from the personal tutor and in general increasing the emphasis on promoting well-being of the students.

I studied at Cambridge at graduate level and would entirely recommend it.

The lectures, in my course, were organized on a weekly basis, with different lecturers each time. While this type of organization gave us a wide understanding of our subject from different perspectives, the knowledge transmitted has a tendency to remain only surface-level, which would be my only criticism.

Cambridge, however, gives you the occasion to work under leading experts (who are, themselves, fascinating people and extremely accessible and helpful). Research papers and dissertations will be where you get a chance to truly gain a deep understanding of your areas of interest within a subject (in what will seem, in hindsight, a surprisingly short amount of time), and make the entire experience (and occasional crazed all-nighters) worth it.

I would definitely recommend the University of Cambridge. Especially because of the last week of term, which is wonderful. May Week is just really a highlight of the academic year. 10/10 would recommend.

The type of life in Cambridge can really depend on what College you live in, but also what friends you choose to hang out with and what societies you choose to be part of. My experience has so far been very positive: the town is SO lovely, the people are bright and mostly very outgoing; the nightlife can be very enjoyable. Overall, the type of environment is very cosy, as you get to see familiar faces all around town; nonetheless, the town and community are big enough to make new experiences and meet new people every day.

You get prestige，but end up not as employable as other universities. Term time too short so the course contents are rushed through and usually leave students confused and had to spent too much time trying to figure it out by ourselves (unless you are a genius, which is that they assume you to be but it’s not the case for at least half of the people)

Teaching quality is excellent – one on one supervisions with the leaders in the field. Wide variety of lectures & papers offered, as well as significant reign to do own research in third year dissertation. Amazing resources especially libraries – each faculty has a library and any student can go and study in it. The University Library Is one of the only libraries in the UK that legally gets a copy of every book published in the UK so always has books you need. College system makes playing sport casually really easy and fun, and is great for fostering tight friendship groups. City itself is beaut and easy to navigate (can walk pretty much anywhere you need to go).

Considering its enormous reputation, I would have to advise most people against going there. They try to cram as much as possible into as short a time as possible with little regard to student health. It is also much more expensive than most other universities given the high cost of college accommodation and Cambridge’s astronomical living expenses. In terms of teaching it is extremely mixed, most professors are incredibly intelligent and devoted to their subject but many are unable to teach and students are often left to fend for themselves (throughout my entire dissertation process I met with my supervisor once for half an hour). The name still does hold sway and so if that is what you care about then I would recommend it, but make sure you look past the name and be aware of what you are getting yourself into.

After I completed a degree with the Open University I was so interested in my last course on family and local history that I applied for the above diploma. It was a very interesting course and I had great fun going to different archives and being able to get involved first-hand with original documents. The dissertation for the diploma was based on the fishing villages of Leigh on Sea, Essex, Paglesham, Essex and Lowestoft, Suffolk. The course was for one year so was quite intense as I also had a full-time job. It was really good though as it was my first real experience of being part of a university with lots of students and lectures that I could attend if I wished to. The tutor for the diploma also became my supervisor for my Masters degree at Cambridge and we were able to build a good relationship.

I completed a part-time Master of Studies in Local and Regional History. It was a very interesting course and I loved being able to use the university library and the college libraries as well as other collections such as at the British Library. It was only a small group of people – about 20. We attended Homerton College once a week during the first year during which time we had to complete and pass essays in related subjects. In the second year we had a tutor that we met regularly. My thesis was on the Old Poor Law in Terling, Paglesham and March, Essex from 1780 to 1834.

It was quite a hard course for me to do as I had another full-time job working in London. I had to ask for extra time to complete the course which was agreed – I was the only course member to have a full-time job as well as completing the course. I enjoyed my time on the course but I would have liked to have been able to do the course full-time so that I could make full use of the Cambridge facilities. At times I felt quite isolated from other university students – we never really met many apart from at some dinners as we were part-time and didn’t go to their lectures.

This is a great uni, the variety of course and the people you meet is incredible. The networking is fantastic, yes they are still involved with age old traditions but there are many opportunities and many brilliant minds around to inspire you.