Vandint

Sussex notes
2002-09-14 19:50:23 (UTC)

Cambridge

Today was a day trip over to Cambridge. We had a guided
tour of the city by this really nice grand-mother tour
guide. Unfortunately, someone was having a wedding and
someone else was having a conference so a couple of the
college areas were reserved and blocked off. Then we piled
into these punts (flat bottomed long boats pushed by a
pole) for a water-side type tour, which was a lot of fun.
When we first started hearing a few of the same facts (it's
not that huge a town, so two tours of it could be overkill)
we all kinda groaned, but the difference between this grand-
mother and this college student was so different that it
was WELL worth it. Plus it was really cool being in a punt
on the Cam (the name of the river; Cam bridge - get it?).
(The grand-mother was very nice, entertaining, funny, and
even cool, but still, she wasn't telling us stuff like how
the best way to get out of paying the HUGE entry fee to St
John's May Dance was to park a punt by that tree and climb
up and such).

Cambridge was a very cool, but I'm not sure I could ever go
there. You just got the feeling that the old-boys network
and elitism was like a million times worse than at any Ivy
League. Like this gorgeous cathedral, absolutely huge, was
built solely for the 70 member's of the college of one of
the Kings. These members of this college were also made
exempt from taking any exams until sometime in this
century, and since exams are the only way you're graded, it
meant that people in that college could just come, never go
to a single class or anything, just hang out living the
high life, and get a diploma from one of the most
prestigious univerisites in the world. One can also buy a
Master's degree from Cambridge if you get a BA from there
without doing any more work. It's also INCREDIBLY steeped
in tradition (all the porters (kinda like RA's combined
with head groundskeeper combined with dean) wear robes and
no one except Fellows of a college can walk on any grass
(and then only on the grass of their college) and the
like). Prince Henry went there and had a whole floor of
Trinity College to himself. The buildings are all
incredibly beautiful tho, and some were so old (1200's).
There are 31 colleges there. Essentially a college at
either Oxford or Cambridge is essentially a
dorm/fraternity/sorority in the states - all classes are
done elsewhere and are run by the university itself.
However, you are assigned a tutor through your college (all
classes are optional, and essentially all yout work is a
final exam at the end of your time there, so your tutor is
QUITE key).




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