#getting about

*At the moment, the area around the train station is being dug up, so that means it takes longer and it's pretty dangerous as well, because there are impatient drivers, cyclists and pedestrians everywhere, trying to get to the same place in a rammed, tight space with temporary lights.

One way - you can check it on Google maps, which estimates the journey to be about 40 mins for me! (Also there are various different buildings for different arts departments, but most of them are located at the Sidgwick site!)

Hi! So everything in Cambridge is technically walkable depending on your enthusiasm (i.e. I will happily put aside an hour for a journey in order to walk somewhere but not everybody is like me lol) - but I would say Homerton and Girton are probably the 2 colleges where it would be a pain not to use bikes or buses, because walking every day will eat up a lot of your time. It’s probably a 45 minute walk from Homerton to Sidgwick (where the arts departments are). I think the bus doesn’t go directly between them any more. BUT I wouldn’t let it put you off if you feel drawn to Homerton, because it’s still a lovely college and relatively speaking Cambridge is a small place and quite easy to get around. It also encourages productivity because you’re more likely to go spend a full day in the library rather than hopping back and forth, once you come into the department for a lecture. It’s definitely not a problem socially speaking, I have friends from Hom!

For sure! St John’s is about a ten-fifteen minute walk from Sidgwick and really close to Sainsbury’s, you’ll be fine without a bike.

I don’t know about left out exactly... poor in time and money, quite possibly. I’m sure there are people at Girton who don’t cycle but it’s either £2 for a bus ticket or 45 minutes to an hour’s walk from the centre of town. I think if you love the college though, you can probably make it work. Is it a question of not knowing how? It’s possible to learn even as an adult, my friend actually did a day’s course at a centre near Cambridge last year. And there’s cycle paths all the way up the road so you shouldn’t have to fend off too much traffic. 

Anyway, yes - don’t stress too much, you’ll be okay! It does take a few days to get to know your way around, but everybody is in the same boat and most of Cambridge is not too hard to navigate. And although obviously it’s important to try to be timely, sometimes turning up 5 minutes late happens unavoidably and if you explain you got lost your supervisor probably won’t be annoyed!

WEAR A HELMET PRECIOUS FOLLOWER, people come off their bikes fairly often and your brain deserves protection!!! (That is to say, a lot of students don’t bother, but it makes me nervous :/)