What school do you associate with Yale? Harvard, of course. The same goes with Penn State and Pit, Berkeley/Stanford, etc. Perhaps one of the most prominent college rivals is the one between Oxford and Cambridge.
Foundations
Cambridge can be described as the accomplished child of Oxford, with Oxford being the proud parent yet covertly jealous that its child is somehow better than them. Unlike many early universities, the town of Cambridge existed before the university came into existence. The bridge over the river Cam (after which the university is named) has existed since at least year 875 and has been a major center for trade since the 11th century.
Cambridge and surrounding area housed many religious institutions, which therefore brought an influx of clergymen into town. You could describe best Cambridge as a thriving English town. However, in 1209, violent outbreaks in Oxford prompted scholars to flee to Cambridge to escape religious persecution. At first, scholars lived in simple lodging in town. In times, houses were converted into hostels and headmasters overlooked student activity. Essentially, dormitories were established with the headmaster acting as residence life coordinator. Because more scholars started flooding into Cambridge, an organization was started to arrange courses of study for students that were taught by its appointed faculty. Unfortunately, college-aged students tend to be rowdy and cause public disturbances, prompting tense relations between scholars and the townspeople. To reciprocate this annoyance, townspeople began to charge outrageous amounts of money for room and food.
King Henry III, unsatisfied with the activities going on, “took the scholars under his protection as early as 1231 and arranged for them to be sheltered from exploitation by their landlords” (1). His conditional, however, was that only those enrolled “under the tuition of a recognised master” could stay in Cambridge (1).
Yeah, Science *****!
Scientists and scientific scholars at Cambridge have debunked more myths than any other academic institution in the word. They’re like professional Mythbusters!
In the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton discovered the laws of motion, gravity, and oh, also calculus. People in this time period strongly believed that God had a supreme presence in the universe. It was thought that God was in charge of keeping the planets in place. Playing on the safe side, Newton proposed that God built the universe, but it was not necessary for God to interfere with it. This created a sort of paradigm shift of people’s opinion of God’s role in the universe. Still, Newton’s treacherous views on the role of God earned him a special “dispensation from Charles II to be a dissenter” (2). Francis Bacon came up with the scientific method whilst at Cambridge. You know, that thing that they teach students at the beginning of every single science course because the students can’t remember it for longer than a year. During the Age of Enlightenment, scientific progress flourished, but people in charge stayed adamant in their dispensation of all dissenters of the Church. Thus, many discoveries were made by men elsewhere. Charles Babbage came up with the idea for the computer. Although, arguably, it was Ada Lovelace who proposed the full potential of the computer. In the field of chemistry, James Clerk Maxwell came up with many concepts in electromagnetism and JJ Thomson discovered the electron. And finally, how could I forget about Charles Darwin, whose famous theory of “survival of the fittest” is used in the modern sense to help explain why people die in dumb ways (*cue “Dumb Ways to Die”).
In the Modern Era
Cambridge completed ⅓ of the Human Genome Project, just saying… The Human Genome Project was done to map out the entire DNA sequence in humans. Watson and Crick discovered the double helix of DNA, but arguably, again, I’d credit Rosalind Franklin with that discovery as she took the first X-ray diffraction images of DNA. Alan Turing, one of my greatest influences, was prolific in the fields of mathematics, computer science, and artificial intelligence. Using the work of Turing, Maurice Wilkes went on to built the world’s first official computer. Theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking and your favorite documentary presenter, Sir David Attenborough are the two final people that I will mention in this section, but I could go on forever!
Final thoughts
Out of all the universities that I have discussed thus far, Cambridge has been my favorite. Only the best and the brightest can succeed there, so it is imperative that students work hard not to avoid being rewarded the “wooden spoon” (3). I’ll leave a bit from “A bit of Fry and Laurie” here to close this blog. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (yes, Dr. House) met whilst at Cambridge and both went on to become great actors.
Sources:
- http://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/history/early-records
- http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/unauthorised.html
This is so interesting. Wow it really makes you realize how rich European history is relative to American. Our oldest schools are 300 years and theirs can be twice that. I also understand the rivalry statement. Schools are grouped in that way like all brands are. I am still curious as to why you want to research other schools? Where you not satisfied during the application process?
Hi Ezra,
The reason why I chose to write my blog about other schools is to highlight the experience of students elsewhere and give a perspective of all of the breakthroughs and talents that have come out of institutions of higher learning. Of course, I am comfortable here at Penn State, but sometimes it’s important to note that there’s a whole other world out there. During the application process, I didn’t apply to as many schools as my classmates, and although I sort of regret not applying to more schools, I was very set on attending Schreyer (if I did get in, and thankfully, I did). I try to balance out my blogs with a mix of competitive/non-competitive schools. A lot of students make sacrifices to attend less-selective schools even though they qualify for more selective schools that are too expensive. In the end, college education is the same all-around. This is to say that the education that you receive at college is mostly the same everywhere, but it’s my goal to write about what makes colleges unique from each other.
Josephine