Ask a Cambridge student when something happened and they may not give you a month. They will say it was in Michaelmas, or Lent, or Easter. The University’s year has three terms, and their names are part of learning the city’s language.
Michaelmas brings red leaves and new arrivals. Lent brings frost on the courts and the long middle of the year. Easter brings blossom, exams and, at last, the summer. The names recur in college notices, in diaries and in the stories people tell about their student years.
What does Full Term mean?
There is a subtlety. The University defines Full Term as the eight weeks within each term when undergraduate teaching takes place. So term and Full Term have different start and end dates, a small distinction with practical consequences for anyone reading a Cambridge calendar for the first time.
Three term names can become a way of remembering a whole chapter of life.
More than an undergraduate rhythm
Postgraduate work carries on all year, and the city never really stops between terms. But for an alumnus, the three names still carry a particular sequence of memories: a beginning, a return, and the approach of another summer.
Sources & further reading
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