![[.:: wanderlust Julia ::.]](http://bp2.blogger.com/__Dm0qUHGV0A/SD32NKsLbZI/AAAAAAAAABI/7_9i_IOorA0/S1600-R/wanderlust.jpg)
First and foremost, the whole hype was all "oh Cambridge is awesome there's no required work that's due, or any midterms exams. You can focus on learning the material at your own pace!"
Students later admit, the weekly supervision papers should be attempted for your own learning benefit, "but just doing a few questions or showing some work is enough."
I've attended a few supervisions and now I see that it's all BS. I have a pset for a class every two weeks (four classes => two psets a week) that are super long and difficult - and it's not okay if you don't do them. The supervisor says "Do questions blah blah blah." I have to turn in my work a day ahead of time, and the supervisor goes over our graded work for one hour, just me and another person. I *could* not do any work, since there are no numerical grades per se, but then my supervisor would be like, WTF is wrong with you, if I answer no to "Did you attempt question X?" repeatedly. Plus two out of my four supervisors are my Directors of Studies, basically academic advisors. Yea, I am not willing to put up with the weekly- and subsequently year-long awkwardness with them.
Students also told me Brits go to bed really early here; as an exchange student, bed time was around 11pm. Ummmm I also don't know whereth they were hanging out, because all my Cambridge friends here go to sleep around 1-4am, definitely comprable to my MIT sleep schedule. Well I guess I'm lucky I don't have 8am lectures, mine are 10-12pm or 11-1pm everyday.
Caius food is not as bad as everyone warned. I would say the average Caius food is the same as another college's, maybe Trinity and St. John's are slightly better. Or maybe it's because I can't tell what is good English food or not, it's all the same meh to me..
Will add more as I remember/notice/decide to write.
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5 comments:
King's food is yummy!
As for bedtimes, I think it's the group of ppl you hang out with (primarily freshers); everyone I live around considers midnight "horribly late" and are generally in bed by 11...except on the weekends.
And work = blahhhhhhhhh! It never ends =[
What an interesting blog. I came across it while searching for MIT/Cambridge.
I was wondering how the marking scheme in Cambridge compares to MIT. Was it tough to get A's?
Mark
To Mark: are you asking if it's hard to get As at MIT? Depends on the class. Most classes are graded on a curve i.e. students in relation to each other, so that's a double edged sword. You only have to do around 2 standard deviations higher than the average person to get an A. Sometimes that's easy for you in a particular subject, sometimes very hard. Maybe you'll also find a professor who decides to give 60% of the class an A. shrugs, so the variation is a lot more than Cambridge. Basically, I can finish an MIT class decently without learning anything, but that's def not true at Cambridge when it comes to my math tripos. heh.
Julia thanks so much for your response. Very interesting.
Was the grading scheme similar for Cambridge? What was the proportion of A's on your course?
Are you not from Cambridge? Else you would know that Cambridge has no grades whatsoever, as a mathmo it's all depend on the Tripos, the final examination covering all lectured math courses at the end of the school year. The final grades are also not A, B, C etc but a First, 2:1, 2:2, Third, etc. absolutely no comparison basically, tis why MIT students dont have letter grades when spending a year abroad in Cambridge, we just get "credit" with P for Pass for equivalent or general elective classes.
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