The Collegiate System

The Collegiate System explained

On a punt tour of Cambridge, one of the most important things to understand about the university is also one of the most unusual, comparative to most educational establishments. The Tour of The Backs features 7 Colleges and 9 Bridges, all part of Cambridge University, but none of them actually owned by the university. This is where the system of Colleges comes in, otherwise known as The Collegiate System.

How this affects the students

The Collegiate system is an infrastructure based on a central university (The University of Cambridge) with independently governed Colleges, each of which is a member of the university. As there are only three universities of this nature in The United Kingdom it is an unusual way of structuring the administration and teaching. Most Universities in the U.K. are campus universities, where the university is responsible for administration, teaching, and housing of students. At Cambridge University, the colleges are known as residential colleges, meaning Cambridge University is responsible for central admin and the majority of teaching, the colleges act as residences for their students and also deliver some teaching, mostly in the form of on one-to-one or two-to-one meetings known as Supervisions. This is why, if you come to Cambridge, you shouldn’t just go looking for “The University”; there are 31 colleges which form it and many many more buildings for teaching and research besides!

How the Collegiate system effects the City map

With its old medieval streets which wind and snake their way past gothic buildings, Cambridge can be a difficult town to navigate successfully and make sense of if it is your first visit. The 31 Colleges which form the University sprawl across the city with miles in between some of them. Fortunately, the greatest concentration of Colleges can be found in the Centre on The College Backs of The River Cam and you can take a punt past the most famous sights in Cambridge to have a guide deliver you the information you need to make sense of this intriguing city. Before or after lunch it’s an excellent way of finding out what goes where in The Collegiate System of Cambridge University.