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	Queens' College
	Established:
	University:	University of Cambridge
	Address:
	Telephone:
	Website:	www.queens.cam.ac.uk
	Student Union/JCR website:
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Contents 1 Location 2 Accommodation 3 Social Spaces 4 Library and Computing 5 Welfare 6 Atmosphere 7 Facilities 8 Student-eye view

Location

Tucked out of the way of the busy King's Parade (the street which at some point is shared by many of the colleges) but still very central, Queens' used to be famous for producing Engineers. The Mathematical Bridge connects the older part of the college, closer to the town centre and informally referred to as 'The Dark Side', to its newer buildings. The Porters' Lodge is on Silver Street, though there are two other entrances on Queens' Lane.

Accommodation

The Queens' room ballot is random and has no relation to Tripos results.**

In Cripps you share a kitchen between 6-8 people, and it has four electric hobs and two fridges. You might be lucky and find a microwave that a previous occupant has left, or else you could each put a fiver in and buy one for your kitchen. There's plenty of storage space in the kitchen, I think in Cripps you get a lockable cupboard per person. Anything you can't fit in there you can keep in your room.

Dokett you get a kitchen between four normally, unless you're on a Peculiar floor and have to share the kitchen below (it's the joy of Dokett that there -are- peculiar floors, much better than the modern buildings which are so uniform). There are two hobs and a fridge in that, and normally a couple of big old wooden cupboards which aren't lockable. So possibly a little less cupboard space, though with only four of you there it's easier to just leave stuff around.

One of the advantages of Queens' is that you have the option (and nearly everybody takes it) of living on the main site for three years of your undergraduate course. This isn't the case at quite a few other colleges, which can send you out to accommodation blocks away from town in your second and third years. A great advantage of this is that it means that Qeens' has a very strong sense of community and integration through all three years, and one of the reasons why it is a very social college.

• • Languages students on their year abroad are placed in the pool with the year below them. Second years are sorted first and given the chance to choose their third-year rooms, then first years have the pick of the rest. (The first-year ballot is slightly more technical, being effected by sharing preferences, but remains essentially random.) Freshers' rooms are assigned from what is left according to vague preferences listed on some form or other. The nicest rooms in Old Court and Walnut Tree Court are always taken by lucky third years, the rest of whom tend to occupy the Erasmus building or nicer Dockett and Friar's rooms; most people share sets in Fisher for their second year, and the first years end up in Cripps, or the worse rooms of Dockett and Friar's.

Social Spaces

Library and Computing

Queens' boasts that it has the only free laser printer in Cambridge. I don't believe this is true, but the printer itself is very useful.

The library, housed in the old chapel, is a wonderful place to work. English and MML collections are particualrly strong. Three or four dead fellows are still buried in the crypt. The alarm goes off all the time though, and the clock strikes for five minutes solid at 5.35pm on Sundays, which makes the whole building shake as well as being extremely loud.

Welfare

Atmosphere

Considering its size Queens' does have an amazingly close community. OK, it's nothing compared to the (frankly quite scary) close-knitness that places like Corpus achieve, but in a way I'm quite glad of that. There's always a person who you want to get to know better, and enough people that you can avoid the people you don't want to know.

Facilities

Student-eye view