Planning On Making A Trip To Cambridge, England? Things You Should Know!

Most people assume that when they’re going to make a trip to England, the entire country will be the same. That’s not true. You’re visiting an entire country, just as you would be if you were planning to visit the US. You would never expect New York and Montana to be the same, would you?

Anyway, that brings me to my trip to England. Stupidly, I actually thought the entire country would be like London, and I turned out to be wrong. In my defense, it was my first time in England, and I was wracked with nerves because I was going there for college interviews. I had gotten an interview at the London School of Economics and Cambridge University, two schools that many people would kill to attend. Because I was so swept up in preparing for those interviews, I forgot to actually research the country itself.

London School of Economics was in London, and I knew a little bit about London. It was metropolitan and wonderful, and exactly what you’d expect London to be. However, I was not expecting Cambridge. Why? Because it was so, so different from London. It was wonderful in its own way, but I wasn’t really expecting a quiet town when I pictured Cambridge. I was expecting something akin to a university town in the US, which is raucous and noisy, even if it’s small.

Well, Cambridge turned out to be wonderful in other ways. Initially, I was taken aback by exactly how quiet it was. Part of the town could pass for a sleepy suburb in the US, but then you start to see the culture and history steeped in the town. Cambridge is an institution in England, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is incredibly cultural, and the school itself is a massive monument to higher education.

Anyway, I did end up screwing up my interviews, but that was more because of my own nerves than anything else. My first interview was a focus on the subject I was planning to study, which went well. The second interview, they asked me about my thoughts on Cambridge. Turned out, they didn’t like being called quiet. Who knew?

So I saw a beautiful city steeped with culture, but I lost my chance at attending Cambridge because I was young and stupid. Heck, maybe it wasn’t what I said. Maybe they just didn’t like me. Either way, I learned my lesson and also learned about Cambridge in the process.