The Cambridge-MIT Exchange

The Cambridge-MIT Exchange Heres the long-awaited guest blog entry on the Cambridge-MIT Exchange (CME)! For background on the program, check out the CME website. CME is MITs flagship junior year abroad program, allowing MIT students to matriculate as a full student for a year at Cambridge University in Cambridge, England. Read on for Amandas experience A Year at Cambridge A guest blog by Amanda Frye, MIT 06 Spending a year at Cambridge has been an incredibly wonderful experience, although there have been a few difficult moments. I remember a few years ago, when I was a freshman at MIT, I thought, I would never do a program like that. I would hate to leave MIT for a year. There are things that I have missed about MIT. Ive missed friends, social opportunities, the Shakespeare Ensemble that I did many theatrical productions with. However, I know now that next year I will be just as homesick for the friends Ive made here and the team that Ive rowed with for our college crew. Seeing another academic system, one where much more emphasis is placed on long-term retention of learning, has been a good experience. I think in some ways Ive been able to develop a healthier lifestyle here at Cambridge, one where I go to bed early and wake early to go out on the river and row. My friends here constrain their work to 9-5 Monday through Friday, and they use the evenings and the weekends to go out to pubs or formal halls (formal dinners where students and professors dress up in evening clothes and have a three course meal). In general, being at an academic institution with over 800 years of tradition gives you a different sort of feeling. I hope that I will be able to use some of these experiences next year when I return to MIT to make my time there more productive. Of course, you are all trying to decide whether you should come to MIT or not. I would say that the Cambridge-MIT exchange is a great reason to go to MIT, whether or not you plan on studying abroad your junior year (and of course I would encourage any of you to study abroad your junior year!). Having classmates, and friends, that came from Cambridge University was a really neat experience my sophomore year, and I think that I was more likely to meet foreign students at MIT than at other colleges. The reason? The exchange program is really excellent because it integrates the foreign student (either from Cambridge or MIT) completely into their new university. From what Ive seen, this is an unique experience on an exchange programs. Many American universities send students on exchange for only a semester, which would never really give you a good feeling for what Cambridge, where everything is organized on a year-long schedule, is like. I know other exchange students who were placed in housing completely made up of exchange students, isolating them from meeting British students. The MIT program put me in a college just like any other Cambridge student, and the majority of my friends here are British. Finally, we have had amazing support from MIT and from Cambridge, with staff at both institutions asked to make sure we are happy and doing well. Even if you dont go to MIT or go on the exchange program, do try to get over to England sometime! Ive really enjoyed going to London, even just for the day, to see amazing theater, eat at really nice restaurants, visit tourist sites like the London Eye, St. Pauls Cathedral, and Samuel Johnsons house, and do some shopping in some of the numerous markets. In Cambridge there are lots of fun things to do as well, like punting down the Cam (the river here), seeing the Kings College Choir sing, and visiting the various colleges, trying to find the areas used in the Harry Potter film. If you do come, though, just make sure not to wear anything referring to Oxford theres a bit of a rivalry here! Formal Hall with Myself and a Friend Tourists, and Students, Punting outside of Kings College Kings College Gate, a landmark in Cambridge The view out of my window (the Eagle pub)