King’s College Chapel double turret

The University is made up of over thirty colleges located in the city centre and its environs. Lending its name to the city, the River Cam runs through the centre of Cambridge. Many of the earlier colleges were built alongside its waterways, and hence that part of Cambridge is often referred to as the “Backs.” Scholars live, dine, and have classes at the oldest and most beautiful colleges and associate colleges such as Queens’, St Catherine’s, Peterhouse, Clare, Sidney Sussex, Newnham and Westminster. Scholars will attend classes in these historic structures, not in parlours or on lawns as in other programmes, allowing them to experience the unique and privileged world of academic life that began in the 13th century, when the first colleges of the University were established. The medieval streets and college quadrangles of ancient stone buildings create an atmosphere for this academic vacation experience. Such famous Cambridge men as Newton, Darwin, J.J. Thomson, Rutherford, Crick, Watson, Hawking, Harvard, Cromwell, and Gandhi, plus many members of the royal family (including Princes Charles, Andrew and Edward) and many who became America’s Pilgrim Fathers experienced life at one of these ancient colleges. No other program at either Oxford or Cambridge offers scholars this extensive supplemental cultural enrichment experience. Scholars live in private rooms within Cambridge College dorms.

“Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge!!! Caughlin’s going to Cambridge!!
We are very excited to share the great news with you and thank you for all of your support, interest and good wishes!! She’s been accepted unconditionally to study economics at Gonville and Caius College!”
—SHAWNA BUTLER Hawk’s Creek, New Zealand

Bill Gates visited the University and committed $85 million to it for Microsoft Corporation’s first overseas research venture. The chief technologist of the software giant, Dr. Nathan Myhrvold, spent a post-doctoral year at Cambridge studying cosmology and quantum field theory under Stephen Hawking. Said Hawking of the new initiative, “I am very pleased that my connection has helped to promote a major new project that will link the University of Cambridge and Microsoft in the next century.” Cambridge has always attracted the best scientific minds in the world, and will continue to do so in this millennium.