r/cambridge_uni

im an incoming fresher at cambridge and was wondering about the rules around having visitors stay over. my bf and i are going to do long distance so when he visits, would he be able to stay over at mine? i was able to find online explicitly that it is ok with some colleges but nothing for mine (robinson). is this a general university-wide rule or do different colleges have different policies? thanks so much

Hi there, is there any way to get access to the pre-readings i.e. library resources before the start of term? Only one is open access so I basically can’t read anything at the moment

But I’m honestly so tired and confused. I’ll be coming to Cambridge for my masters and ISTG colleges and accom are the most confusing things ever!!! Like I’m assigned to hughes hall and I got my result in may like everybody else on my course and by the time I got to filling the accom form it was full. I started out as 142 on the waitlist and it’s been like three months and I’m still at 114. I’ve got zero idea whether I’ll get it or not tho I’m 90% sure I won’t and I’m looking fr reviews on private accom but everybody is like college accom is better you’ll bond better. SUCH FOMO MAN! I LITERALLY CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS! I tried emailing other colleges but most are full and Lucy cav hasn’t replied and kings will sort in September but that’s too late for my visa stuff. Literally my only option now is private accom which is just so discouraged by everyone here???? Idk sorry if this seems like complaining but I’m so tired and confused with this situation. Can somebody please help? Should I sign the student castle lease or wait or email????? 😭😭😭😭

starting as a postgrad in oct - and will be paying fees myself.

has anyone figured out a way to earn any points / rewards on the sum? is it direct debit or a payment portal? ..

Hi everyone, I'm not a Cambridge student and I never will be, also because I live on the other side of Europe. I had a question to ask anyone who can answer because I'm very curious about the figure of Simon Baron-Cohen. Our psychology professor often speaks highly of him, and I've looked up information about him, and honestly, I've seen that he's not held in high regard.

If there is anyone who is his student or has been one, can you tell me what he is really like: how he behaves, if he is empathetic... everything because his figure is really a dilemma for me.

Does anyone have intimate knowledge about this?

Have anyone used the toolkit she and others designed through Cambridge to make education more compliant with Islamic values? (It’s linked through her Cambridge bio)

I am coming to Cambridge from the U.S. in the fall and will be living in postgraduate accommodation. As silly as this may sound, does anyone know if the laundry rooms typically have washers and dryers, or just washers? I have heard that drying machines are less common in the UK, and want to know if I need to add a drying rack to my shopping list for when I arrive.

how much is covered in a single lecture per module for example for criminal law? eg how many pages of notes would this fill?

Just wanted to say rest in peace.

Relentless and disproportionate bullying as a consequence of systemic flaws killed a man today, not his alleged lies.

Hi!

Just wondering if anyone on here is currently on the MSt Creating Writing course or has done it in the past - if so, how did you make it work? What job did you do alongside it and how did you handle having time off to do the residential parts? I did my undergrad at Cambridge so know what that workload is like - how does the workload for an MSt compare and is it difficult to hold down a full time job alongside it?

Thank you!

Hello all! I’m an American postgrad student starting at Cambridge in October. I’m curious about the local music scene in Cambridge. Are there many local/student bands? Are there any DIY venues or pubs in town or in the colleges that book local acts?
Also, I’d love any information about the vibes/culture at Cam FM, if anyone on this sub is involved with the station. Is it more of a corporate station than an indie station?
My undergrad uni had a pretty robust local music scene that centered around the campus radio station, so if there’s any scenes or communities like that at Cambridge, I’d love to get involved! Thank you in advance!

Full judgment here: https://21percent.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/3307960.2023-others-Reserved-Judgment-1.pdf

How do I survive 2 years of Cambridge if I don’t think most alcohol? Like I do drink whisky and that’s about it but I do know there’s wine that flows endlessly in formal settings. Don’t care much about casual and informal settings. What do I do?

I’m starting a funded PhD in History at Cambridge this October. I’m a slightly older student (30s) and have recently bought a flat in London, so paying for Cambridge accommodation on top of mortgage repayments just isn’t really doable on a PhD studentship.

My plan would be to go to Cambridge around 3 days a week, spending full days there for supervision, seminars, libraries, college stuff etc, and work from home in London the rest of the time. I’d also stay overnight occasionally - maybe 2/3 times a month - for evening events, dinners or particularly busy days.

Has anyone done something similar, particularly for a humanities PhD? Is three days a week in Cambridge enough to feel properly involved, or would I end up missing much by not actually living there?

And practically, is the London-Cambridge commute manageable long term, with occasional overnight stays when needed? I live in north London.

Basically, does this sound like a feasible way of doing a History PhD properly, or am I underestimating how important actually living in Cambridge is?

After a really long wait, St Edmunds college finally sent me their accommodation registration link, but turns out there are none available. I've emailed them asking whether any more would open up, but it seems unlikely. Is there a big difference in college life living outside of college? (Specifically at St Edmunds)

Recent allegations surrounding the appointment of a prominent academic at the University of Cambridge leave me with four questions:

How did we get here? Why did this go so far? If the concerns now being raised could have been identified through proper academic scrutiny, why were they not identified during the appointment process? And, ultimately, who has won and who has lost?

Regardless of how these allegations are ultimately resolved, I believe they expose a deeper problem within the University of Cambridge: performative liberalism.

By performative liberalism, I mean an institutional culture that places greater value on appearing progressive than on confronting difficult institutional realities. It is diversity as branding rather than diversity as practice.

Cambridge portrays itself as a leader in diversity and inclusion. Browse its websites, prospectuses or social media, and you see an institution that appears welcoming and diverse. Yet, in my view, that carefully curated image sits uneasily alongside the experiences described by many Black students, who continue to speak about racism, exclusion, microaggressions and a persistent feeling that they do not fully belong.

The danger of performative liberalism is not simply that it is hypocritical. Its real danger is that it changes institutional incentives.

When an institution becomes heavily invested in projecting a particular image of itself, criticism becomes inconvenient, uncomfortable questions become easier to avoid, and protecting institutional reputation can begin to compete with institutional accountability. Diversity risks becoming something to display rather than something to practise.

That brings us back to the present controversy.

Cambridge is one of the world’s leading universities. Professorial appointments are expected to involve rigorous academic scrutiny. If the concerns now being raised should reasonably have been identified during that process, then legitimate questions arise about institutional procedures and oversight. If they could not reasonably have been identified, then the University should be prepared to explain why. Either way, this should not be viewed solely as a question about one individual. It is also a question about institutional governance.

Ironically, the people most likely to bear the consequences are not university leaders or appointment committees.

They are Black students.

Many already feel they must work twice as hard as their peers simply to be viewed as equally capable. Many describe feeling that they must continually prove that they belong. If high-profile controversies contribute to greater scepticism towards Black academics more broadly, that burden will fall upon students and scholars who had no part in creating the situation.

That is why this debate matters.

The issue is not whether universities should pursue diversity. They should.

The issue is whether diversity is understood as representation alone or as a commitment to examining institutional culture with the same honesty and rigour expected of academic scholarship itself.

A university cannot claim to value critical inquiry while becoming uncomfortable with criticism directed at its own institutions.

Regardless of how the current controversy is ultimately resolved, Cambridge should use this moment to reflect on a broader question: has diversity become something to market rather than something to practise?

I am looking enrolling into the Steering Complex Projects short course, it appears however that the course material and admin are hosted by a non UK company called Emeritus..

I think the course sounds really great, but feel there is a disconnect between Cambridge itself and an offshore/call centre type education administrator - plus every time they call my pixel suggests it's a spam call, which seems like an inherent review in itself.

Has anyone done this course or similar, with any positive or negative experiences?