Colleges and Universities

While I am studying at the University of Cambridge, I'm actually split between several locations. The University is a whole that is made up of several different colleges, all of which seem to be within an hours walk of the center point. The oldest is Peterhouse, founded in 1284 - after the University itself had been established, and it was developed from the original church on the site that was dedicated to St. Peter. I believe I discussed this earlier when talking about Little St. Mary's. Today there are thirty-one different colleges and several other moving parts that make up the entirety of the University. While I belong specifically to the College of Liberal Arts at my University, it isn't quite the same thing. Each college at Cambridge provides their own mini ivory tower to keep the students ensconced in their studies. Everything you needed could be found within the walls of your college, there are chapels, dining halls, classrooms, bedrooms, and whatever passed as a bathroom that century. It wasn't until the late eighteen hundreds that the university as a whole modernized beyond such things, and in many ways it still hasn't. Many medieval practices are still maintained to this day, in a pun on my teacher's words: you can get rid of the Catholics but not the traditions. 

Today I got to visit Corpus Christi College which I pass several times a week. We seemed to have gotten special permission (although I'm fairly certain my professor is just one determined gate-crasher) to enter their chapel while it is being repaired. It is a neo-gothic chapel that had an extra part tacked on a few years later when amount of students created demand for a larger chapel. I really enjoyed getting to see this college and the chapel was lovely. I think that chapels always look just a little more put together when they were built with the religion they currently host in mind. The older chapels are lovely too but were made for Catholicism not Protestantism. 

A bad view of the chapel from the entrance, please appreciate the new neo-gothic courtyard. The dining hall is to the left and the world famous Corpus Christi Library is to the right.

In the next two photos you get to see the Old Court - the one that dates back to the Middle Ages and surprisingly enough has not had a major face-lift like most of its friends, just a few botox shots. 

Many of the original buildings had to be renovated due to increased enrollment, desire for comfort, wear, new functionality, and much more. It is so cool to see how old these buildings are and how they might have once functioned. I have wondered often enough at my school what students from two hundred years ago would have been doing on an average day, here I have to add a few hundred years. 

I'm so glad to have gotten this experience, just being here has allowed me to absorb so much, I'm so excited to learn much more in the coming month.