Cambridge-MIT CME preparation notes

I’ve given out a lot of advice and answers about preparing for MIT CME, so I thought I would amass my emails and post it in case anyone else finds it useful. I didn’t try to retype out all the information about Cam, the colleges, formal halls, etc. -- this is just for packing (advice mostly for girls haha ^^), and financial preparations basically ~

Weather

- Cam is colder for a longer period of time than Boston, but it never gets as heavy snow

- In June May Ball, it's still too cold at night outside to just wear an evening dress, even with a guy’s jacket I'm still so cold. so basically don’t bring too many summer clothes at all, I don't think I ever got to really walk around in tank top + shorts. In June, I can wear dresses around the day, but evening, the temperature drop is bigger than Boston so I need a sweater.

Dresses

- 1 or 2 long dresses for May Ball (depending on how many you plan to go to) and ~6 semi-formal dresses should be sufficient

- There’s at least one Chinese association formal ball that you can wear a qipao to if you want

Jackets

- Having a winter overcoat is nice -- the wool type, long or short, with double buttons or something -because 1) it's pretty and people will be seeing you wear it a lot 2) it's the norm for Brits to wear -- you won’t see people walking around in big puffy jackets, or Northfaces, etc.

- That said, one wool coat is all you really need, unless you want to change styles like me haha: one short, one long, one black, one white/light. one rainy day jacket. one sweater type jacket can wear under a thinner outercoat. one casual whatever jacket I don’t care about.

- If you're gonna go skiing/snowboarding or other sports, remember gear for that.

Shoes

- Most of the streets are cobblestone type so don’t walk around in stiletto heels haha.

- Flats are good, I usually always wore those, although with too thin/flat shoe bottoms, you can really feel the stones on the street.

- Obviously more comfy sneakers, converse-types, etc are all fine too

- Boots are super super popular because they’re warm, comfy, and trendy looking. All the girls I know ended up buying several pairs of boots at Cam, both high and ankle length ones. Boots with heels are also easy to walk in if you want height. You will end up wearing boots for a good period of the time.

Clothes other

- Layering is good because indoors can get really hot with heaters (and also really dry!). Maybe like a short sleeve, a thinner jacket/sweater, and an outside overcoat + scarf. Depends on how much you like the cold, not me =(

- Scarves for both guys and girls -- I bought my Cambridge college one!

- Warm leggings/tights for dresses and boots

- Also have shoes you don’t mind walking in the rain with, and at least one umbrella, you’ll be using it a lot more often that at MIT

- Stuff for going out clubbing wear

Luggage

- I didn’t ship anything to UK, but I brought on the allocated 2 suitcases of 50lbs each plus my carry-on.

- Virgin Atlantic at Logan Airport, when we went, was super stringent and weighed all the carry-ons, limit was like 13lbs so people had to reshuffle stuff last minute. My carry-on was like 30lbs haha so thank god my friend only had one suitcase and check mine in for me. But many times I’ve flown without my carry-on being weighed, so I don’t know =/

- Coming back to US, a lot of people shipped stuff, or had visiting family/friends bring back stuff for them. If you visit US on holiday, bring back as much as possible. I don’t know what other people used, but I basically looked around online at air costs and called for prices. I think I used Heathrow's baggage services actually, for like ~$250 I shipped a check-in size maybe 30lb suitcase to Singapore. I brought everything else back on the airplane with me.

- Some airlines have student excess weight allowance for if you’re going to college or graduating and going home -- both of which we fall under. We have "matriculation" letters and you can also get a "completed studies, will not be returning next year" etc letter. I got my allowance through Singapore Airlines, +5-10lbs, but some American airlines do it too. It's not well known, you might need to call and ask, and at check in time, have the college letters as proof.

Banks

- If you have Bank of America debit, withdrawal from Barclays in UK is free, as well as other banks in the Global Alliance Program, look it up. The exchange rate is quite good. You need to call/visit Bank of America before you go to make a note on your account that you will be abroad in XYZ countries so that you can gain access and they don't freeze your account on questions of identify theft or charge you for withdrawal fees. Make sure you tell them several times….

- I had a US HSBC account (it's free) so that i can open a UK one for free (normally not free), but you can also open a Lloyds one for free with no min.

- Capital One is the only credit card that I researched back then (~1.5 years ago) that did not have international usage fees, saving you ~1-2%.

Paying Bills

- If your college allows you to use debit or credit cards directly, great.

- Else, for debit with BoA, you can just withdraw GBP from Barclays ATM and pay your college in GBP cash. There's a daily limit of ~US$750 so be careful not to exceed that in GBP withdrawal.

- If something in your college needs a cheque payment and you don't have a UK account, just get a friend who does to write one for you and pay him

Cell Phones

- People text a lot in UK because calling is free for incoming, but very expensive for outgoing (prepaid pay as you go plans)

- If your cell phone is unlocked, any pre-paid SIM will work

- I used Orange, I think it's the cheapest, with a bonus plan like top up 10gbp and you get 500 free text or something like that

- A lot of people use Vodaphone too, they have plans like Stop the Clock where you pay only for first three minutes and free for next 57 minutes of a call

- O2 is best for calling international, but you should be using Skype for that anyway

- If you call often and you get a bank account early, you can sign 6-month contracts that are pretty good deals, including free Skype phone, etc. Look around the phone shops.

- If there’s a few people you always call, everyone should get a Vodafone family plan

Things to sign up for

- Student Rail card for UK rail, esp Cam-London
- National Coach card for bus travel, esp Cam-Heathrow
- studentbeans.co.uk for Cam restaurant offers

:-)

A weekend back at MIT

sometimes felt like I never left. Two dinners and two lunches every day, it was a compact version of my senior year social life. Taking my favourites and cramming them into a tiny box 40 hours big. Hanging out in the same places with the same people, I could fleetingly forget I no longer belonged. Theta. Next House. PBE. #1 Bus. Harvard Bridge. Kendall. Central. Shaw's. Newbury. Roads. But there were key ingredients missing that provided hard reality checks. No Burton 5. No La Verde's. No Saferide. No 5th floor Reading Room. No Athena clusters. No Infinite. And no certain other people.

food

heh I used to be too lazy to walk to Sainsbury's from SHB, and we'll complain how that Sainsbury's earns more profit than any others in the area... now see how far away Shaw's is and how even more jacked up its prices are....

I want my 30p crackers and £1.50 bad wine

A difference

Walking through Killian Court, staring at the dome, gives me a sense of awe...  Wow, I am at MIT, this place of legends.

But then I remember the other Cambridge: dining in Trinity Hall, climbing St. John's tower, studying in Caius Library... An immense sense of grandeur, this place of incomparable history.  

Cambridge vs MIT retrospection

Goodbyes are never what we picture them to be ~
regardless, farewell Cambridge <3

[-- Academic (Maths) --]

Maths at Cambridge Uni: all the first years take the same 8 lectures; second years pick from ~6 lectures per term and focus on some for the final exam; the final exam (Tripos) contain questions from every lecture offered (16) but you can only answer a limited number of questions, so you obviously only focus on lecture you have studied. The Tripos and the grading/ranking system is confusing at hell.

Math at MIT: how many math courses are offered per term, ~70? There are natural course progressions, but students choose their own classes and math track they want. Plus we have to take other non-math classes. Obviously extremely different from maths at Cambridge.

Cambridge is very impressive in theoretical maths, the track is more focused and rigorous than MIT. However, Cambridge's definition of "applied maths" seems to equal "physics." My classes: Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Special Relativity, Fluid Dynamics... And I hate physics, therefore I did not like maths at Cambridge very much this year. My favorite was Optimization, but I sorely missed the 18.300 series. Plus I started missing my course 6 programming and algorithms too! wow >.< style="font-weight: bold;">[-- Social --]

UK Legal drinking age of 18 means you quickly get used to having alcoholic drinks around, no big deal. Hang outs are at college or local pubs; there are very few common areas like MIT. Each college has a room or bar area with pool table/etc., the amount of play things dependent on the college. (Caius wasn't that great..) Contrast to MIT where each dorm floor if not suite/hall has a common space with TV, Xbox, Wii, Playstation, etc. plus the dorm itself has movie and game collection for rental at least. The lounges are next to your room, so they're good to just eat, do your work there, and talk to other people walking by. Socialize without drinking *nods*

Cambridge going out = local clubs on weekdays (Brit Cheese music, ew..), college bar/bops on weekends to avoid the townies
MIT going out = fraternity parties on weekends, Boston clubs/bars for the 21+ people

Bottom line: Cambridge legal drinking = good, MIT free alcohol & good music at frat parties + common lounges = better


[-- Technology & etc. --]

This one is easy: Cambridge colleges have bandwidth limits (Caius is 5gb a week!) (with ridiculously high fees for excess!), almost no wireless at all, and printing fees. Plus have we are issued three different passwords for various university systems, wtf?

Bottom line: All free at MIT: damn fast wireless, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited Athena printing and paper-taking. We at MIT have it sooooooo good.

[-- And so.. --]

One extremely redeeming quality of Cambridge? the students. Almost 30% international (altho most studied A-levels in UK, not a fresh-off-the-boat type of international, ya know? :P), compared to 10% at MIT. Just more diverse, different sorts of people, and in greater quantities, than you'ld find at MIT or an American university.

Friends make any place better. *hugs*

All in all, I'm glad to go back to MIT for one more year, kinda missing Boston now. Spending one year abroad was perfect. I think, for me at least, if I liked Cambridge maths more, I would really love staying here.

<3>

Things they told me at MIT about Cambridge that are not true

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.