Europe Trip Part 3: Cambridge vs. Stanford

Cambridge is as different from Stanford (or the US system of education) as I can possibly imagine. Where Stanford allocates rooms based on a lottery system, Cambridge’s policy of pricing rooms differently results in the well off people living in nicer rooms. Where Stanford programs always ended off with the reminder that anybody could “approach us for financial aid” to ensure everyone could participate, I met a Cambridge student who could not go for her own May Ball because “it was too expensive”. To some extent, the notions of “aristocracy” still underlie the English nation, from the Eaton Schoolboy to the free-flow champagne at May Balls.

A typical street scene outside my room in Cambridge

In terms of academics, Cambridge’s students study only their major- a stark contrast to Stanford, where we are encouraged to study “anything under the sun”, and take an open mind to deciding what we eventually want to study. In Cambridge everyone has their own room, while in Stanford my greatest teacher was (admittedly) my room mate.

Yet, Cambridge has many things Stanford lacks. Its placement within a town ensures that it does not become a “college town”; sometimes I think in Stanford we become too immature and playful because we lack contact with the outside world beyond the Stanford bubble. Its system of tutorials and tests ensures some form of academic rigor, as compared to Stanford’s “hit and run” style of modular learning. Cambridge does not have meal plans, and students need to cook for themselves- perhaps a better preparation for life ahead.