Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜.

Hi Lulu. hi everyone.

Last time we were talking about Oxford from the Oxbridge combo. So today let's talk about Cambridge, 牛建里的剑桥.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think a lot of people in China, their first association with Cambridge is 徐志摩，is再别康桥.

I've actually been to the memorial in Cambridge.

So 康桥就是Cambridge, but it's just like a different translation. Now Oxford and Cambridge, Cambridge is later, right? It was founded later.

Yeah, Cambridge is relatively new, because it was founded in 1209.

Relatively new.

Well, relatively.

So Cambridge is quite similar to Oxford. There is no campus and the colleges are spread throughout the city, so it's made up of about 31 colleges with over 150 different institutions all within the university.

So like Oxford which is located in Oxford city, Cambridge, it's also its own city.

Cambridge is a city, and just like Oxford, it's got lots of people who live there. There's lots of it's actually quite a lot of service industries in Cambridge.

So lovely city as well.

It's a beautiful city. I would say Cambridge is slightly quieter than Oxford. Oxford is still quite close to central London. Cambridge is a little bit further out and there's a lot more countryside around Cambridge.

And how far is it from London?

There's about 2.5 hours.

So it's a bit more out there.

It is a little bit more out there, yeah.

And I remember we were talking about most of your Prime Ministers graduated from Oxford. So, I remember you mentioning that Oxford is more humanities and Cambridge focuses a little bit more on science.

Yeah, it's not as clear cut as that, but Cambridge does have a really strong scientific background. So for example, the Cavendish laboratory is one of the most famous in the world, in particular, for physics and biology, so it's really famous, even though it's quite new, it's 19th century, but this is where the electron, the neutron and DNA were discovered.

Impressive. But having said that, it's not all science because I know that there is something theatrical going on in Cambridge.

Yes, you have the really famous amateur theatrical club, footlights.

I don't know. Hugh Laurie?

Yes, Hugh Laurie, John Oliver, Douglas Adams. So for those of you who have listened to our literature album, we've talked about Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this is where they all started.

对, 我们的名著专辑专门才讲过他的一本书。

Yeah, talking about books though, Cambridge has some amazing libraries. There are over 100 libraries in Cambridge and the main one is actually what we call a legal deposit library.

What is a legal deposit library?

So under British law, every book that is published in the UK and Ireland, Cambridge University library can request a copy of it for free.

Oh, so it's more like almost like an archive for record keeping.

Yeah, Oxford has the same thing as well. But every book that is published in the UK generally goes to Cambridge University library. So that's about 100,000 books every single year.

So that's like heaven for bookworms.

I love the bookshops in Cambridge.

Imagine being a student going to Cambridge...

Oh, God, amazing.

Yeah, you’ll never want to graduate.

And I don’t think some people have ever even left.

And as with Oxford, there are also a lot of traditions. All these peculiar traditions associated was Cambridge.

Oh, yes, so one of my favorites is what happens at the end of the exams. Students hold what they call suicide Sunday.

It's not really suicide.

No, no, but what it is, it's an event where they have a race on the river, but it's not an ordinary boat race because all of the boats are made from cardboard boxes.

It’s like whoever sinks the fastest.

You have to think that people are doing this while they've probably had a few drinks before they start getting into these boats.

So the idea is that they need to try to complete this race, but it normally ends in a completely a mess. But it does seem to be a lot around drinking in Cambridge.

One of the other most well-known traditions is pennying. So what you do is if someone puts a penny in your drink, you have to down that drink.

There's generally a lot of drinking with any university town.

Yeah, pretty much. But because going to university is also a bit scary, we've all been in that situation, your first time at university. So that's why in Cambridge and to a certain extent in Oxford as well, you have what they call college parents.

OK.

Now college parent is someone who's in their second year.

Oh, it's kind of like学长学姐.

But they call them college parents, so they also have college families and in some cases, they have college weddings with a college husband and a college wife.

Ok, that's an interesting mentoring program.

Yeah.

But whenever we talk about traditions between these top universities, especially like Oxbridge, there's the rivalry.

Oh, yes.

You see this in some of the dual top universities, in a lot of countries. Oxbridge rivalries quite famous.

There's always that type of rivalry, so you have Oxford versus Cambridge. You have my old university UCL versus King's College, but in Oxford and Cambridge, the rivalry is a lot more traditional.

So for example, they have an annual boat race in the center of London, and they also have rugby matches as well, which of huge events.

They're usually like sports related.

They are sports related, yeah.

That kind of like friendly enemy, I think.

Pretty much, pretty much.

So last time we talked about the famous alumni, the people who graduated from Oxford, what about some famous alumni from Cambridge?

I would say when we talked about Oxford, the alumni were about Prime Ministers, but Cambridge, alumni and faculty are, as we know, pretty much known for science. They have won a total of 121 Nobel prizes.

WOW!!

So that's the most of any university in the entire world.

Yeah, that I’ve heard. 就是诺奖最多的. That's impressive. And some very, very famous scientists like Isaac Newton, Alan Turing, 牛顿，图灵都是 Cambridge 毕业。

Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin, John Maynard Keynes, the economist, also David Attenborough.

Oh, 你们的国宝 David Attenborough.

Who we discussed about in the previous episode. They all went to Cambridge.

就是讲纪录片老爷子Attenborough, and also we mentioned 徐志摩.

Yeah. Now before we wrap up this episode, what these two episodes about Oxbridge, I do want to probe a little bit deeper into the whole elitism that we talked about last time. 上回我们说到精英主义这种. So what's British people's perception of Oxbridge now? Is it still seen as quintessentially just for the elite class?

I would say that impression still remains. There are obviously more people from more ordinary backgrounds who are getting into Oxford and Cambridge. And Oxford and Cambridge to their credit, are actually doing a lot more to promote this type of kind of more egalitarian emission system, but it still remains.

But I'm just a bit confused, is it because they charge more intuition or what stopping ordinary people, working class kids from going into these universities?

I would say a lot of is from themselves.

So for example, in the last episode, we talked about my Oxford interview. Now I come from a very ordinary background. I went to a state school, my family's working class, but I still applied for Oxford, but I just never thought I would actually get in. And I think that is one of the issues that people just feel like why should I bother cause I'm not gonna get in.

So it's more like you think it's elite, so you don't even think of yourself as someone who belonged to that club to that old boy network sort of thing.

And also the Oxford and Cambridge emission system, it is quite unique. And I would say that people that do go to public schools or people from a slightly more privileged background, they are...I would say better prepared.

这里我要稍微提一下, 因为安澜在这里说, public school, state school跟美国的那种或者别的国家系统是不一样的, 我们之前讲过一次英国的教育系统, 英国的public school就是最顶级的私校就叫公学, 像什么伊顿、哈罗那个是public school, 然后 private school就是私立学校, 各种各样的私立学校, 这些都是要很多钱的, 然后再往下, 按安澜来说普通人去的state school就是公立学校.

Yeah, so it's more like public school and private school, they will have probably more classes that are geared towards the Oxbridge admission exam.

That's right.

I see. I see. So I mean education equality is a topic in pretty much every country in the world, it's always something that people strive to achieve.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Okay. And on that note, we're gonna wrap up these two episodes about the top universities in the UK maybe in the future, we can talk about some other top universities in the UK including your old uni, UCL.

I would say be a lot of stories around me drinking, but I'm more than happy to talk about UCL at some time or another.

All right. So if you are currently studying in Cambridge or if that's your target school, or if you have anything interesting to share or to ask, leave us a comment in the comment section, we'll see you next time.

Bye.

Bye.