What is Cambridge Like?

What is it like to study computer science at the University of Cambridge?

• I am a 2nd year student at MIT, and I am considering a study abroad program - the Cambridge-MIT Exchange - which provides me the opportunity to spend my entire 3rd year in Cambridge (of course, admissions is competitive). What is it like to study Computer Science in Cambridge? Is it more focused on programming or theory? And if anyone has experience with both, how does it compare to American universities?

• Answer:

  Just like most of the world's top Universities, Cambridge is a very academic environment, and the Computer Science course is no exception to this. The course itself is a science course, which means it focusses very heavily on the underpinnings of all Science - mathematics. Unlike many other courses, it is not a place which attempts to cram programming languages - how such courses can be considered "Computer Science" is beyond me. As has explained, the coverage is exceptionally broad - many topics are covered in a lot of detail, which means you are very unlikely to understand all the topics to the level of detail you would like when considering the numerous pressures on your time. The full terms, the time during which teaching takes place, are only 8 weeks long.Many CS courses in the UK and elsewhere focus very heavily on teaching as many programming languages as possible and use this in their marketing and promotional material in an attempt to attract and excite potential applicants. The Cambridge course actively pushed back against this stereotype. Programming languages are taught to some extent - it would be hard to consider an undergraduate CS course which did not cover programming - but they are normally introduced as an example of a more general subject. For example, the first year Object Oriented Programming course uses Java as an exemplar of an OOP language, but it is not a course in Java itself. The concepts are taught in a fashion which is a more general study of OOP, allowing it to be applied to just about any OOP-style language. Similarly, Standard ML is introduced as the first lecture series for all CS undergraduates, but on a more general "Foundations of Computer Science" course, which covers the functional programming paradigm, a little bit on algorithms, simple data structures and so forth. There is a bit of condescension here: the courses teach the underlying principles in a very generic manner, with the application to a specific example of an OOP, functional, declarative etc programming language being merely an exercise in learning the language's syntax.The teaching in the Computer Laboratory is second-to-none. It can come as a bit of a surprise, and a sudden realisation, that the people teaching you and who provide small group supervisions to cover the topics in greater detail are the worldwide leaders in their fields, many of whom have written the recommended textbooks for similar courses across the UK and the World. This is to be expected of any top University, and MIT will be no exception to this rule.When it comes to the place itself, Cambridge is very different to most other UK universities and indeed most US locations too. The Cambridge collegiate system is one of three examples of its kind in the UK (the others being Oxford and, to some extent, Durham). At Cambridge, all students are members of one of the 31 colleges, which are independent entities (legally and financially) from the central University. It surprises many people that there is no central "campus" at Cambridge, and it would be strange to use that term to refer to a College or department's buildings or grounds - probably the most it would do is demonstrate a person's lack of understanding of the place! Nevertheless, the best way I have heard of describing the organisation is the phrase "the city is the campus", referring to the fact that departments and Colleges are spread all over the city and can spring up in strange archways or along side passages in places you would least expect. It can be quite a surreal experience for many people for a while. The colleges are the primary place of residence for their students and are normally able to provide accommodation for students for all three years of an undergraduate course. In addition, the Colleges are responsible for providing the support structures to aid students, such as tutors, Directors of Studies (colloquially known as "DoSes") and the unique-to-Oxbridge supervision system for small groups of one or two students to meet with specialists in a particular field to discuss the topics covered by the course. On the CS tripos, these seem to be covered by PhD students rather than University Lecturers or post-doc researchers, but that doesn't impact the teaching a great deal. Colleges are steeped in varying degrees of history and tradition, especially the older ones (500+ years old - the oldest College was founded in the 1200s). They are the unit of competition within the University - rivalry typically takes place between Colleges in sport and academic performance. I prefer the smaller nature, and the fact a College has fewer than 1000 students in most cases leads to a more homely and welcoming environment in which to work.By tradition, degrees at Cambridge - even those which are science-based - typically lead to a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree being conferred, rather than a Bachelor of Science (http://B.Sc.) degree, which would be the norm at other UK universities. It is also possible for holders of Cambridge (and Oxford) B.A. degrees to obtain an M.A. by application a period of time after graduation; this requires no further work and is again a long-standing tradition. I cannot comment on how the awarding of the degree works on the Cambridge-MIT programme, but I do know students visiting MIT for a year from the Cambridge Computer Laboratory have to complete a fourth year of study in Cambridge on their return to obtain their Cambridge degree.On the whole, Cambridge can be a challenging place to get used to, but it is ultimately a very enjoyable and a very challenging environment within which to work. The facilities are excellent, especially for Computer Science, which has its own dedicated laboratory known as the William Gates Building. It is an enjoyable and very varied course which exposes you to many aspects of technology and indeed many different people and different styles of teaching. I would highly recommend it. Some staff and students of the Computer Lab have produced an excellent video, which provides a great overview: