Cambridge

If you haven't guessed already this post is going to be all about Cambridge, England. I went there last Sunday and it was a great experience.

The best way to describe Cambridge is as a college town, well a city that is. The school system in England is a little different than that of America. In England you finish high school around the age of 16, and from there if you wish to continue education you go on to "college". College in England is essentially our senior year in the United States. They go there to prepare for their A-Levels which is an exam they must take if they wish to attend university, which in the United States in the equivalent to college. The differences don't end there. In the US it take four years to earn your BA in England it only takes 3. If you wish to get a MA that's another two years of schooling in the US, but only one year in England. To get your doctorate in the UK it usually only takes about 3 years. So with 8 years of schooling you can be a doctor, a task that takes at least nine years in the US.

Cambridge has about 10 higher education institutions, in the city, which is the whole reason why it's a city in the first place. The top school in Cambridge is Cambridge University, which is an Ivy league college and Oxfords rival. In fact, when applying for Universities and if you want to go to Oxford or Cambridge, they make you pick. You're only allowed to apply to one or the other, not both.

If you haven't figured it out yet, during my tour of the city of Cambridge they only talked about the education system, so now I have an insane amount of knowledge of how the English system works.

My friends and I left for Cambridge at 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning, got into Cambridge around 11:00 a.m. and then went on a walking tour until noon. We had an hour lunch break, then we met back up to go to King's College Chapel.

King's College Chapel is part of King's College and was finished being built in 1535.

Outside the Chapel

Pictured to the left is part of the chapel from the outside. A fun fact about the chapel is that during WWII they were so scared of the chapel being bombed that they actually removed all the stained glass from the windows to protect it. Luckily enough the chapel was never actually bombed, but it served as a good safety measure since almost all the stained glass window in the church is the original glass. Pictured below is the main stained glass windows, that are all original. The people of England went through great lengths to protect this chapel and it shows. From the moment you step

Original stained glass in King's College Chapel.

foot inside you are surrounded by history and it's an incredible feeling. If you're ever in Cambridge, I highly recommend talking the time to go see the chapel, it's worth it.

Once we were done in the chapel we had free time until 2:45 when we had to meet up to go to the bus. My friends and I walked around the Cambridge market which was very cute. They had some really cool booths there. Unfortunately I don't really have a lot of photos from that time period, but here are some random photo's I took around the city.

Cambridge was an amazing trip, I just wish we had time to see more of it. It was also one of the last orientation activities we had. We have one more Orientation activity in April, a trip to Brighton. So until then all the trips you see are funded by yours truly.

Next weekend I'll be taking a trip to Oxford, so be on the lookout for that post, and maybe a surprise post randomly in the middle of the week, about a school, a school of rock that is.

As Always,

Talia