• Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge

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Fitzwilliam College
Established: 1869
University: University of Cambridge
Address: Storey's Way, Cambridge CB3 0DG
Telephone: +44 1223 332000
Website: http://www.fitz.cam.ac.uk/index.jsp
Student Union/JCR website: http://www.fitzjcr.org/
Admittance: Undergraduates and postgraduates


Contents

Student Statistics

  • Total Undergraduates in 2007-8 = 496 (304 men + 192 women)
  • Total Undergraduates in 2006-7 = 502 (300 men + 202 women)
  • Students admitted to their current course in Oct 07: 157 (100 men + 57 women)
  • Students admitted to their current course in Oct 06: 166 (102 men + 64 women)

Source: The Reporter Special Issue: Student Numbers 07-08

Fitzwilliam Application Statistics See College applications and admissions statistics

Fitzwilliam Application Statistics per subject See Appplication Statistics

The proportion of state school to private school backgrounds at Fitzwilliam is approxiamtely 60:40 (58% of acceptances in 2007 and 62% in 2006 were from state school students (source)).

Location

Fitzwilliam is considered to be one of the 'far away' colleges. However this is 'far away' to Cambridge standards. In fact, everything is within easy reach on bike. In fact, for some subjects such as maths, it's one of the nearest colleges to your faculty, and it's probably about the same distance from the Sidgwick site as most of the town colleges.

  • Next door to New Hall and up the road from Churchill.
  • 0.43 miles (about a 10 minute walk) to the Maths Faculty (Centre for Mathematical Sciences) on Wilberforce Road.
  • 0.79 miles to the West Cambridge Site (with the Cavendish Physics Laboratory and the Computer Laboratory)
  • 1.14 miles (about a 20 minute walk) to the Sidgwick site (where most of the arts departments are)
  • 1.01 miles north west from Market Square (the town centre)
  • 1.25 miles to the Downing site (Arch and Anth, Psychology, Biochemistry) and the New Museums Site
  • 2.10 miles from the Chemistry department on Lensfield Road
  • 2.05 miles (about a 45 minute walk) from the railway station.

(All distances measured on gmaps pedometer)

Bus stops: The Uni 4 stops on Madingley Road every 20 minutes. This goes past the Sidgwick Site on West Road, through Silver Street and Trumpington Road in the city centre to Addenbrookes Hospital. There is also a bus stop on Huntingdon Road where you can catch busses to the bus station on Drummer Street in the city centre.

College Map

Accommodation

Fitz has 408 rooms on the main college site and 167 rooms in college-owned houses. College gives accomodation to all the undergraduates meaning that you avoid the higher prices of renting privately.

First years are housed on the main site. In terms of size, first years' rooms at Fitz are at the lower end of Cambridge's room standards. They are clean and warm though (the heating system has recently been repaired). There are some en-suite rooms which are allocated by a ballot - you have to say whether you want to be entered into the ballot (i.e. if you're willing to pay the extra should you win) and then 50 names are selected out of it and given the en-suites. Apart from this, rooms are allocated to first years at random so you will be surrounded by people doing all sorts of different subjects. Most of the first year accomodation is in Tree Court which is good because everbody really gets to know one another. Blocks A, B, C, E (en-suite), F and a little bit of P are for freshers only. Most rooms have wash basins and all rooms have a telephone point and internet access. Guys get all the ground floor rooms, and the top two floors are mixed. All rooms have access to a small shared kitchen (gyp rooms) for self-catering (though most students use the Buttery for meals). You'll only find out what room you've been given when you arrive on the first Saturday.

tbh, our first year's rooms are at the lower end of Cambridge's room standards. They're not bad, but they're (mostly) rather small.

Second and third years are allocated rooms by ballot. The rooms are generally bigger (and a lot nicer, since those who live in College live in the newer Courts (e.g. Gatehouse Court, Wilson Court (image), New Court)) than the first year rooms. About half of second years live in college houses but most third years live on the college site.

There's space to put stuff under the admittedly low quality beds. Some of the rooms have a chest of draws and a wardrobe, some just have a wardrobe. Cleaners do the toilet, showers, baths and kitchen, so you don't need things to clean them. You don't need to buy/bring toilet roll either.

Laundry

There's an iron in the laundry room you can use : ) You buy tokens for the washers and dryers separately; usually in a 1:3 ratio ; ) I use a maiden though (not that anyone seems to know what one of these is.. An airer/dryer thingy), which saves some pennies. Laundry tokens are £1.25 (I think lol; I buy them at the buttery on my card!), and drying tokens 30p.

Meals

When you arrive at college, you'll be given a CamCard which has a certain amount of money (£250 maybe) to spent in the Buttery (for normal meals and for buying formal hall tickets).

Buttery: Buttery breakfast is the best thing in the world ! If you're going to row, which you SHOULD, then it is so so good. But you will rarely find anyone other than rowers in there and a few with post cindies hangovers who've slept through their 9 o'clocks (like me). They do cooked breakfast, cereals and you serve yourself toast (breakfast wise) but you can also pick up snacks and sandwiches there. I find it starts a bit too late for eating before 9am lectures though.

Formal Hall: You go to as many formals as you want. There are special formals throughout the year (themed/subject formals) and standard formals that people organise going to for their birthday or whatever. You buy a ticket a few days in advance and just turn up, you can also buy tickets for friends at other colleges ... but you have to buy tickets using your college card. In first and second term, I went to one probably every week.

You wear a gown to formal hall, but you can get away with just a shirt for most formals really, yup.

Social Spaces

If you want to invite people for meals, you can use the Stretton Room which has a bigger kitchen than the ones in the corridors. Otherwise, there's the Society Room where you can relax with a newspaper or check your email and the JMA with pool table, table football and sky TV. In summer you'll be able to take full advantage of the beautiful gardens (and all the squirrels) which not that many people out of college know about. Fitz is off the tourist route so it's a very peaceful college where students can go about their activities undisturbed.

Library and Computing

The college library comprises the main libray and a law library. They're currently building a massive new Library and IT Centre. This will have 3 floors and 60,000 books as well as wired and wireless IT network connections.

There are undergraduate and graduate computing rooms plus computers in the Cyber Cafe and Societies Room. College rooms have broadband internet. The college charges students £35 a term for this plus £0.20 per GB for all traffic between the student's computer and computers outside the Cambridge Network. There are Student Computer Officers who you can contact if you run into any computing problems.

A student says: We don't get an 'allowance' at Fitz, but we do get an automated warning when we get to 1GB in 24 hours as a 'reminder', and get charged extra on our bills for anything in addition to that. To all intents and purposes bandwidth at Fitz is unlimited, but it can get costly.

Another student says: To clarify, there is no 'free' 1GB. It is 20p per GB no discussion (recent reduction, so above comment is somewhat out of date in terms of cost) and if you reach 1GB in 24 hours you get a reminder. It doesn't really mean anything (other than letting you know) and I've seen one person with a reminder for every single day of term with no action taken against them.

Academic Performance

Fitzwilliam's ranking in the Tompkins Table (which ranks 29 colleges by their Tripos exam results): 21st (2008), 14th (2007), 19th (2006), 13th (2005), 15th (2004), 20th (2003), 20th (2002), 13th (2001), 21st (2000).

Welfare

There are plenty of people on hand if you have a problem or want a chat.

  • The JMA Welfare Officer
  • Your tutor (all students are assigned a tutor, a member of the academic staff, who is responsible for their welfare)
  • Your Director of Studies (if the problem is academic)
  • The College Chaplain
  • The College Nurse
  • A peer supporter (a student trained in peer support)
  • University services such as the University Counselling Service or Linkline.

Atmosphere

It's very new, looks a bit like a multistory carpark, but has lovely gardens. It has a bit of a high school feel to it because of the way it looks but it is very friendly. Also feels a bit like it's in the countryside, or a small town. The people have a reputation for being fun loving and friendly.

Facilities

  • Porters' Lodge (image)
  • Buttery (canteen) and Hall (image 1, image 2)
  • NEW College Library with approximately 40,000 books (image 1image 2) opened in 2010.
  • College Bar/Cafe (new) - 4 draught taps (usally 1 cider, 2 lagers, and 1 bitter), WiFi, serves coffee &snacks (e.g. paninis) during the day.
  • 'Cyber Cafe' with 5 computers, chocolate-machine and photocopier
  • A JMA (for undergraduates) with Sky TV, Pool Table, Table Football, will be ready for 2009-2010.
  • MCR (for graduates) with kitchen, a large patio, cable television, newspapers and magazines, hi-fi equipment, boardgames and a barbecue.
  • Undergraduate Computer room with 12 PCs, 1 Mac, laser printer and scanner.
  • Graduate Computer room with 6 PCs and 1 Mac and laser printer.
  • Societies Room with Sky Sports TV, and board games.
  • 3 music practice rooms (2 with upright pianos and one a harpsichord and a harmonium)
  • 1 groups music practice room with an upright piano and an electric piano
  • 1 band room with drum kit
  • Auditorium (250 seats) for plays and public concerts with a Steinway model B grand piano which can be used by advanced pianists (more information) (image)
  • College Chapel with a Bechstein grand piano and organ which can be used by advanced musicians (image1, image 2, image 3)
  • Laundry
  • Multi-gym (recently refurbished) with:
    • erg
    • bike
    • coss-trainer
    • treadmill
    • some dumbells (only up to 25kg)
    • an assortment of resistance machines - chest press, rower, leg press, shoulder press etc.
  • 3 Squash Courts
  • 1 Badminton court
  • Dark Room
  • Playing Fields and Tennis Courts near the college site (image 1,image 2)
  • Gardens (image 1, image 2, Image 3, image 4, image 5, image 6)
  • Bike racks (image)
  • New boathouse by the river with
    • 8 ergs
    • bench
    • squat rack
    • table for bent over row
    • loads of weights.

Sports

If anyone's into hockey, the hockey club is awesome at fitz, very social and plus we do pretty well! Girls hockey won a tournament against oxford and Durham and other Cambridge colleges. that was in Dublin. we have a great mens 1st team for rowing. Football and cricket we're quite good at too. There's 1 badminton court at fitz.

Fitzt was declared the 7th sportiest Cambridge College in Michealmas 2009 by The Tab. See The Tab article: The College Cup revealed

FitzTheatre

Past Productions:

  • Fri 27th - Sun 29th Nov 2009, The Critic by Richard Brindsley Sheridan, Fitzwilliam Auditorium
  • Mon 15th Jun 2009, Matinees 2pm, Tue 16th - Wed 17th Jun 2009, The History Boys by Alan Bennet, The Grove Lawn, Fitzwilliam College
  • Sat 14th - Mon 16th Mar 2009, Richard III by William Shakespeare, Fitzwilliam Auditorium
  • Thu 28th Feb - Sat 1st Mar 2008, Sweet Charity by Neil Simon, Fitzwilliam Auditorium
  • Thu 2nd - Sat 18th Aug 2007, Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, Ctoo, Edinburgh
  • Tue 7th - Sat 11th Mar 2006, Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, Fitzwilliam Auditorium
  • Thu 10th - Sat 12th Mar 2005, Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber (FitzTheatre & Fitzwilliam Music Society), Fitzwilliam Autitorium.

Student-eye view

Look up Fitzwilliam in the CUSU Alternative Prospectus

A link to a video made by a student at Fitz about his time here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150174300458439

Links

Retrieved from "http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Fitzwilliam_College,_Cambridge"

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