Cambridge sits on the River Cam and is the place we would choose
if we had to live in England – and could afford it! To say Cambridge is a college town is
like saying Dom Perignon is a bubbly wine.
Think of the illustrious graduates from Harvard, the oldest university in America. Then consider that Cambridge had been graduating students for three and a half centuries before Harvard was founded! Now consider that Oxford is older still!
Cambridge University is the 7th oldest university in
the world. It’s a collection of
colleges; Kings College, Christ College, Queens College, Clare College, St.
James College – you get the idea – and the town is jammed with the kinds of
businesses, namely pubs, that have attracted college students since the early
1300s. And what a list of students
it has been; from Isaac Newton to Charles Darwin to Stephen Hawking.
Oxford is the second oldest university in
the entire world. In fact, Cambridge was
founded by Oxford students who left when there was a dispute between the
university and the townspeople. The combined list of graduates from Oxford's 40 colleges covers many of the great
names in science, religion, philosophy and letters and includes 26 prime
ministers and 12 saints!
Getting a university education in England is much different than
in the United States. Rowing, not football or basketball, seems to be the sport of choice, at least at Oxford and Cambridge. Students come equally from "public" schools - which we would call private schools - and government schools (actually public schools.) Students enroll in one "college" but may take courses in other colleges in the university. They attend for three eight-week terms a year and attend weekly tutorials, a small group of students with a professor.
One
similarity with college in the US is that the experience is wasted on the young. Connie and I half decided that when we tire of traveling the world we will settle down in a university town and
enroll. Talk about old dogs and new tricks.
