- Second- and Third-year Courses -
In most departments at Cambridge, the teaching in each year builds upon what was taught in the
previous year. That is to say, second- and third-year courses assume that students already have a
given set of knowledge or tools. So, if you opt to take these courses, it is important that you
understand what you are expected to know before the course starts. In these second- and thirdyear
courses, your classmates will be used to the Cambridge style of lecturing and they will have
26
taken all of the pre-requisite material in the previous year(s), so you might be a few steps behind.
Because you are from a different system, you may have to do a little extra work to catch up and
keep up at the start. You may also find that despite people seeming to know a bit more, it may
simply be that you know the same things conceptually, but you aren't familiar with the formal
terminology.
A bit of advice: It is important to talk to past MIT students (particularly in your major), your
Cambridge peers, your Director of Studies, and your supervisors (see below) before your lectures
begin, so that you can find out exactly what material you will be expected to know. Also, ask the
Cambridge people who went to MIT for help. They know what position the MIT kids are in
because they were in similar situation. If there is material that you did not cover at MIT but you
will be expected to know for your Cambridge courses, you can ask your DoS to organize some
extra supervision for you at the start of the year to get you up to par with your Cambridge peers
(more about supervisions below). There's a chance that you may have to push for this, but it is
your right, so don't hesitate to do so. If extra supervisions are necessary, it's important that you
get them done before the school year gets into full swing. The CME office will usually be
willing to pay supervisors directly for extra supervisions if there is a need (supervisors are
normally paid for each supervision they hold). - Non-major Courses (e.g. HASS) -
At Cambridge, students working towards a certain degree will typically study only subjects in
that discipline for their entire three or four years in the University. Thus, taking classes outside
of one's major is a rarity and you will be a unique student in any non-major course that you may
opt to take at Cambridge. Therefore, your Director of Studies may be hesitant in supporting you
to take classes outside of your department, simply because he or she is not used to it. If you do
take a non-major class, you will probably be assigned another DoS specifically for that subject.
Also, as was mentioned above (in section 5.2), you might have difficulty fitting non-major
courses into your schedule because most departments tend to have all lectures in the morning. - Lectures -
Lectures are arranged by each department and take place in central lecture halls. They provide
the structure and basic content for any given course, thus offering a sound base onto which you
can add your own independent learning and studying. Lectures usually last an hour and the pace
is similar to that of most lectures at MIT. The size of the lecture will vary with the course but in
general, all the students in your year (i.e. from all the Colleges together) who are studying a
given subject, will have the same lectures. One thing that is a definite change from MIT is that
some departments (including Natural Sciences and Math) have lectures on Saturdays.
It is very important to go to lecture as courses are only lectured for 8 weeks (per term) and a lot
of material is covered in this time. If you miss many lectures, you may find yourself struggling,
with little opportunity to catch up. Furthermore, whereas courses at MIT are closely tied to
textbooks, Cambridge courses for the most part do not use textbooks; rather, the lectures are the
source for all information you need. Thus, if you miss a lecture (and do not get the notes from
someone) you will have missed something you are expected to know and you will have no other
source for it. (Unlike MIT, lectures notes are usually not posted online in Cambridge.) While
there are textbooks listed as recommended reading for most courses, the lectures aren't given
with reference to corresponding chapters in textbooks, so you're on your own to find the
pertinent information in the books.
27 - Labs -
Laboratory coursework, or "practical" classes, are an important part of many courses,
particularly in the sciences, and are organized by the department. The nature and extent of lab
work depends very much on the subject area. Lab work can range from two hours of work once
every two weeks (for some chemical engineering students) to a full 8-hour day in lab every week
(for some physics students). - Supervisions -
Supervisions are meetings between one to three students and a single supervisor, who will be
someone from your department (usually someone from your College, when possible). These
take the place of recitations or tutorials in the MIT system and are probably most comparable to
a formal version of office hours. Unlike recitations, which meet at a set time and place each
week, supervisions tend to be flexible in terms of scheduling, as they are arranged by you (or
sometimes your DoS) and your supervisor. You will probably meet with your supervisor three to
five times during the term and once before the Tripos exams. Supervisions are your best
opportunity to explore the course material in a much greater depth than lectures allow. They are
designed to clarify any points brought up in lectures, to engage in in-depth problem solving, and
to allow you to discuss those aspects of the course which interest you most. As supervisions are
course-specific, you may frequently discuss the recent problem sets assigned for that course.
If you are unhappy with your supervisions, you may be able to change your supervisor or your
supervision partner(s). Speak to your Director of Studies about the situation and he or she may
be able to make a change. You might have to find another supervisor at a different College and
give the information to your DoS, which may be a bit cumbersome, but it is possible and can be
very beneficial. Because supervisions are in such small groups, your supervision partners are
also very relevant in terms of how your supervisions are conducted. It is often the students (as
opposed to the supervisor) who dictate the pace and direction of the supervision, so having a
supervision partner who has a very different level of understanding of the material can cause
problems. If your supervision partner directs the supervision with questions that are either way
over your head or (in your eyes) very trivial, the supervision will probably be a waste of time,
which is a bad situation. Your supervisions are valuable opportunities for you to get help, so you
should make sure that they are in fact helpful. You can talk to your DoS about changing
supervision partners.
Students are usually asked to prepare for supervisions, by either submitting work (essays or
problem sets) beforehand or by preparing other work to present. Supervisions are not formally
assessed and students are encouraged to use them to explore new approaches to learning and
topics outside of the lectures. It's worth mentioning that for HASS classes (like economics)
you'll probably be submitting a 1500-word essay every two weeks, and depending on the
number of supervisions you have, you may have do even more. All students receive reports from
their supervisors, which may also be used by the College, if so required, to provide evidence to
the University of a student's diligent study. As MIT exchange students, your supervision reports
will further act as official proof of study of a given subject (as will your final exam results), and
thus they will be used to grant academic credit towards your MIT degree, from Cambridge.
Thus, it is very important that you prepare well for and work hard in your supervisions to ensure
that you receive acceptable reports. Missing supervisions, unless you have a very good reason, is
unacceptable at Cambridge. Also, problem set solutions are often not publicly available for
28
many disciplines, such as economics and mathematics. Thus, if you want to know how to do the
problems, supervision may be the only place you can get answers. - Tripos Exams and Coursework -
Possibly the most significant difference between MIT and Cambridge is the tests or
examinations. In most courses at MIT, you are continually assessed with exams throughout the
term and then with a final exam at the end of the term. At Cambridge, the only exams given
during the entire year are the Tripos exams, which are the final exams at the end of the year.
There are no exams during either of the first two terms (Michaelmas and Lent). Another
difference is the coursework. At MIT, it is typical for courses to assign a new problem set each
week, which is to be completed and handed in for grading at the end of that week. At
Cambridge, problem sets will be handed out, but usually not as frequently as once per week
(instead, there might be three to six problem sets over the eight week term) and the only
requirements for completing the work are those set by your supervisions. That is, some
supervisors will require you to hand in completed problem sets for review in supervision (as
discussed above), but not all will. Either way, unlike the norm at MIT, these problem sets will
not provide any points toward your final grade, which will instead be almost entirely based on
your Tripos exams.
These are very big differences between the two Universities. Basically, you will probably find
that the pressure is off at Cambridge. Instead of dealing with a constant flow of problem sets and
rotation of exams like at MIT, your problem sets at Cambridge will come with the neither same
frequency nor grade-impact, and there won't be regular exams for which you need to study.
However, over the course of the year at Cambridge, you will still be expected to cover and learn
material that is equivalent in volume to what you cover at MIT. This all goes to say that you will
have to take responsibility for motivating and staying on top of your studies at Cambridge
because there is not the same set of assignments and exams to motivate you.
In addition to the problem sets that you will be given in Cambridge, in some departments the
students are required to do other projects or labs. Whereas the problem sets, if not reviewed by
your supervisor, are collected by no one, these projects and lab reports will be collected for
grading. This coursework will count toward your final grade, but it might be worth only a
fraction of a single Tripos exam or well over a single exam in the case of fourth year projects
(for Course 16 students). The nature, length, frequency, and material covered in these projects
and lab reports are entirely dependent on the course and department. (You can ask MIT students
who went to Cambridge for more details, or just wait until you're in Cambridge.) - Studying over vacation -
Essentially, all that counts towards your final grade for the year at Cambridge are the Tripos
exams at the end of the year (as described above). As a result, the vacations are not meant to be
vacations so much as they are meant to be periods of independent study. It is highly advised that
each of the two five-week breaks be used to revise and solidify the material of the previous
terms. Otherwise, you will find that studying for the final exams will be very difficult.
The Cambridge system is geared towards individual learning, for which lectures and
supervisions provide only the framework of knowledge in a given course. It is expected that the
students takes it upon themselves to read books relevant to the course and engage in frequent and
extensive independent study. As such, you will find that textbooks are not required, but there are
29
usually long lists of recommended readings or pertinent resources. Your College and department
libraries tend to have the textbooks on these lists. However, department books are usually
limited in quantity and availability and College libraries have great disparity when it comes to
their selection. One way to get around the problem of not having access to the right textbooks in
your College, (if that happens) is to use the University Library. As juniors (third-years), you can
get a University Library card through your College, thus allowing you to check out books for
two weeks at a time. - A note about collaboration -
Cambridge students generally rely on supervisions to clarify their questions and concerns about
material in their courses and, as such, they do not tend to work together. This is quite different
from the MIT work etiquette and may take some getting used to. However, this does not mean
that no students work together or that they are not open to working together. In fact, while
Cambridge students may do the majority of their work independently, the will often try to check
their answers with each other. Generally speaking, the frequency and type of collaboration
changes from department to department and College to College. - Libraries -
Students generally do not buy textbooks but rather borrow them from the library. Each College
has its own library, which is usually sufficient for finding material related to your course. Your
College library will probably contain all the recommended textbooks or, if not, it can buy them if
you make a request. In addition to your College library, each department has a library where you
can find more literature related to your field (namely, more subject-specific textbooks and
relevant journals). The third and grandest resource for books is the University Library. This
library is one of three copyright libraries in the U.K; it contains every book published in the U.K.
since the 1812. However, borrowing privileges are limited to students in or beyond their third
year, so you will be eligible to get a library card, but you may have to get a letter from your
College explaining your situation. For more information, visit http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/
. - Undergraduate Research -
Undergraduate research is very uncommon at Cambridge; only recently did Cambridge start a
UROP program, and the scale of it does not compare to MIT's program. However, thanks
largely to CME, undergraduate research is now a possibility at Cambridge. If you are sure that
you want to devote some of your time to getting involved with research, the best thing to do is
talk to professors who you would like to work with. You can talk to the CME office if you have
more questions about research possibilities during your year at Cambridge. - General -
For more information about learning and teaching at Cambridge, you can read the University's
advice at http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/learning/ or you can peruse the Study Guide, by
Cambridge's Dr. Rob Wallach, made specifically for MIT students visiting Cambridge and found
at http://web.mit.edu/cmi/ue/mit-academics.html#studying.
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