Welcome

From Greg West-Walker a member of U3A St Heliers

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In August I attended the Lifelong Learning summer school at Girton College, University of Cambridge. It is a two week residential course although you can enrol for one week only.

Participants must live and eat at the College, although we were taken out around Cambridge often. The programme is definitely aimed at the sort of people who attend U3A.

There are four subject options each week - different in the second from the first week. You indicate two subject preferences for each week when enrolling although the way the timetable was arranged, when we got there we could add a third (which I did). In the first week I did ‘1000 years of the British Monarchy’, ‘British Government’, and ‘Introduction to Architectural History’. In the second week I picked ‘European Politics’, ‘Scientists of Cambridge’, and ‘Art History through Cambridge Collections’. ‘The English Novel’ and ‘Cambridge Poets’ were also options. All are overview in nature in the time available, but our lecturers and the course quality was outstanding.

A full description of the options is on the website for the summer school at www.girton.cam.ac.uk/ global-programmes/lifelong-learning/programme-outline (or just search ‘Girton lifelong learning’).

In the weekday mornings we had lectures from 8.45am to 12.30 on these topics. In the afternoons we had field trips related to the architecture or art history topics, accompanied by our lecturers, or other visits to Cambridge sites e.g. Kings College Chapel and other colleges generally, the Wren and Pepys Libraries, Cambridge Museums, etc. We were also kept busy in the evenings, by pub nights, a summer Shakespeare night, punting, talks of general interest at the college such as on the history of the college and of women’s education at Cambridge (degrees not awarded until 1948…!), and a ‘formal hall’ dinner each week - jacket for men recommended! And a quiz night - the only test of any sort! On the weekend in between we went as a group to the National Gallery in

London and cathedral in Ely. There was very little free time over the two weeks, and when there was many of us could be found in the student laundry doing our washing!

Living in student residential quarters at the college was better than I was anticipating. Most of us were in a modern dormitory wing, in single rooms which actually quite spacious and had an ensuite bathroom.

We ate in the traditional dining hall and the food was quite good, and there was also a student cafe. All meals at the college were included in the enrolment fee.

There were about 35 of us on the 2024 course. Most were from the US. There were a couple of Brits, a few Australians, and surprisingly four Kiwis. The age range of attendees was from about 50 to just under 90 (another Kiwi from Auckland), with most in the 65-75 range I would say. I got to spend time with some really nice people from all over the US in particular, and we were in general superbly looked after by the programme director, our outstanding lecturers, and our three student assistants tasked with wrangling our group over the two weeks! Before enrolling I was a little apprehensive about whether I would last the two weeks and the live-in student life, but I really enjoyed every aspect of the experience!