Cambridge Experience

University of Cambridge is supposed to be one of the best universities in the world. As of 2020, Cambridge is ranked the world’s third best university by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Personally, my experience at Cambridge was extraordinarily rewarding, and I have fond memories of my supervisors, colleagues, and moments of leisure by the gorgeous River Cam. The feeling of studying at the same university where Isaac Newton, Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking lived accompanied me for several months. This post is about my experience of living and studying at Cambridge.

How I got to the University of Cambridge ?

The reality is that Cambridge is hard, and for many people it is too hard. Their application system is designed to select the very best or at least the best prepared for the selection process. During my PhD studies (2016) I had the opportunity to join the Computer Science department (Computer Laboratory) at University of Cambridge as an intern for 3 months. After a couple of formal/informal interviews over mail and Skype, my supervisor at Cambridge Dr. Arjuna Sathiaseelan offered me the internship position.

The experience working with top-notch researchers at Cambridge was challenging and amazing. I was affiliated with the Networking for Development Lab (N4D) where I worked on the EU H2020 UMOBILE project. After finishing my PhD in Barcelona and Lisbon, I was looking for opportunities to move out. In that time Dr. Arjuna Sathiaseelan from Cambridge contacted and offered me a Post-Doc position to work on EU sponsored H2020 project called RIFE — Architecture for Internet for Everybody. This was how my second journey at Cambridge started.

About the university, colleges and the city

The University of Cambridge is spread throughout the city with different departments and colleges. The university is considered as a confederation of colleges, faculties and other institutions. A college is where students live, eat and socialize and where they receive small group teaching sessions, known as supervisions.

Cambridge University is comprised of 31 colleges and over 150 departments. When you are getting an admission in a department, e.g., Computer Science department, you also apply for college affiliation. Getting into colleges like King’s College, Trinity College, St. John’s College and few other very old colleges is considered as a prestigious thing.

Cambridge also has a Science Park and a Tech Park which is not a part of the university. They are considered Silicon Valley in the making. Companies like ARM, Microsoft Research, Apple, Amazon etc, have their offices in Cambridge where events happen regularly and researchers from the university are invited. There is a lot of support for entrepreneurs, helping them pitch ideas to get funds, incubate and startup.

Even pubs in the city have a lot of history. For instance, The Anchor Pub, where Pink Floyd first played, and the Eagle Pub, where Watson and Crick wrote the structure of DNA are the famous ones.

Stephen Hawking

Professor Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist, cosmologist and director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge gave a talk to students at the Cambridge Union on November 2017. Professor, who recently celebrated his 75th birthday, gave a talk titled ‘A Brief History of Mine’ and discussed his life and work. I was lucky to be part of this talk. The way how he concluded his talk was astonishing: “Let me finish by reflecting on the state of the universe. It has been a glorious time to be alive and doing research in theoretical physics. Our picture of the universe has changed in the last 50 years and I am happy to have made a small contribution I want to share my excitement and enthusiasm about this. So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder how that makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Thank you for listening”.

Computer Laboratory

While in Cambridge, I was part of Computer Laboratory also known as Department of Computer Science and Technology. It is one of the oldest Computer Science departments in the world. Remarkably, the history of the Laboratory began almost a decade before the first modern electronic computer was built. The first webcam was invented at Computer Laboratory. Many successful startups such as: Raspberry Pi, DeepMind (acquired by Google in 2014 for $500 million), Swiftkey (acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $250 million), Unikernel (acquired by Docker Inc.), etc., came out from students and researchers working in Computer Laboratory. Overall, studying and living in Cambridge has been a great experience to me on professional front.