Cambridge is just the famous stone’s throw away from Boston, more precisely simply on the opposite side of the Charles River, which separates the two places.
Cambridge is world-famous for its two educational institutes, two of the most prestigious in the world: Harvard College, founded in 1636, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
On average, 28,000 students from 100 countries around the world are located here, making the city of 96,000 inhabitants a multicultural melting pot.
Cambridge, the city with the European character, is divided into many neighborhoods, each with its own flair, its typical restaurants, shops and cafes.
From Boston, you can either cross one of the bridges or you take public transportation on MBTA’s Red Line.
If you take the Green Line (to Lechmere) instead, then it is worth visiting the Lechmere Canal Park and for shopping enthusiasts a visit to the Cambridge Side Galleria, which can offer more than 100 shops and restaurants, is a recommendation.
Self-guided tour of Old Cambridge:
Old Cambridge refers to several blocks at Harvard Square.
A map of historic Cambridge can be obtained at the information booth at Harvard Square for a few dollars. Afterwards you can walk the interesting streets and historic buildings.
These included Waterhouse House (1753) and Christ Church (1761), which were once opposite Cambridge Common, the place where George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775.
Washington once had its headquarters on Brattle Street during the siege of Boston, and the street is historically very interesting. Here you will also find the well-known Longfellow House (see also under Harvard Square).
Related article: Boston, Massachusetts, USA — Overview for travelers
Map Cambridge
Harvard Square
is one of the liveliest areas of the city.
Shops ranging from chic to streetwear, restaurants and cafés, of which more than 100 can be found here, as well as bookshops.
During the day and also in the evening you can relax here wonderfully, watch the street artists and enjoy a coffee.
Especially in the evening the live clubs come to life, and you can freely choose whether blues, jazz, folk or whatever would be the right thing to do.
Brattle Street
A look back into the past that shows what the spacious mansions, the mansions, looked like at the time.
The Longfellow House is a listed building: it is now the Longfellow National Historic Site.
The name comes from the 19th century poet of the same name and the house also went down as the headquarters of General Washington during the Siege of Boston.
Museum of Natural History
Consisting of 4 individual museums: Peabody Museum of Archeology end Ethnology; Geological and Mineralogical Museum; Botanical Museum; Museum of Comparative Zoology;
The most famous of the exhibitions shown is the ‘Glass Flowers Exhibition’ at the Botanical Museum, which contains about 3,000 replicas of flowers and plants and documents the art of glassblowing between 1887 and 1936.
Other museums
The Fogg Art Museum (32 Quincy Street) displays European and American classics. The Busch-Reisinger Museum (32 Quincy St) displays art from Central and Northern Europe and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (485 Broadway) shows pieces of Oriental, Islamic and early, ancient art. Together, the museums have more than 150,000 pieces, including some world-renowned collections
Harvard University
1350 Massachusetts Avenue
Every day, guided tours are conducted from the Harvard University Information Center (at Holyoke Center). The buildings reflect different architectural periods.
In 1636, the oldest university in the USA was founded by Puritans who had fled England. Harvard is made up of a college that offers high school graduates a four-year undergraduate degree and various schools where college graduates can study subjects such as law, medicine, architecture, and economics.
It’s said that 97% of the students complete their exams.
Six US presidents have visited Harvard, including John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Rutherford B. Hayes and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and more than 30 Nobel Laureates.
For more than 17,000 students, more than 3,000 teachers are available at Harvard. That puts some pressure – to perform well – on both sides, but it allows also individual “care”.
Not only the students are under scrutiny at Harvard, but also the professors, who also undergo a ‘test’. At the beginning of each semester, they are presented to the students, so to speak, for testing. In the so-called course shopping, the students listen to the lectures here and there. What does not meet their requirements or is uninteresting is punished with disregard in the form of absenteeism. At the end of the semester, the professors are graded by means of a questionnaire, the results are published.
The students have close contact with the professors. Each residential complex is headed by a so-called master, who personally takes care of his/her protégés.
The fundamental principle at Harvard is the idea of achievement.
For only 2,000 applicants, a study place is available after comprehensive evaluation. Once you have taken the first hurdle, the (deep) grip into the wallet follows.
Tuition 2022 is roughly 57k including fees and Room & Board approx. 20k. Personal expenses are estimated by Harvard at a 3.5k price tag. Plus, there might be travel expenses and a required health insurance (ca. 4k) on top of that.
Expect about 80k+ per year plus personal living costs.
Every year seems to get 5% more expensive and, of course, living expenses go up as well.
Check out the Harvard website which provides a detailed insight into costs and also possible financial aid which can help to bring down the costs tremendously: How Aid Works | Harvard
The university is impressive: With more than 3.2 million volumes of books available to students, the library is the largest university library in the world. Furthermore, Harvard has its own theater, a church and the campus has 15 museums with originals by Monet, van Gogh, Gaugin.
Anyone who attended and completed Harvard successfully is well equipped for the future career.
Web: Harvard University
Here’s a helpful tool for Calculating Tuition costs for many universities in the United States: Welcome to the MyinTuition College Cost Calculator!
