<p>Hi, I am a grad student at Oxford and was an undergrad at Cambridge.</p>
<p>To be honest, to a foreigner both places are probably much the same! Both are small, old cities full of colleges and people riding bikes.</p>
<p>Oxford as a city is twice as big as Cambridge. However, as a student you will probably never leave the centre anyway so it doesn’t matter that much. Oxford is busier and more crowded. It also has more nightlife and is livelier. Cambridge has more open space. Oxford officially has the most polluted air in Britain and the centre is traffic hell. Cambridge has the backs (parks behind the colleges going down to the river.) in the centre giving it a more spacious feel. </p>
<p>Laughing at Oxford being described as ‘huge’. Population is about 200,000. There is a whole part of Oxford which students never see where the ‘real’ people live. Oxford has quite a lot of manufacturing, especially of cars. It’s the home of mini.</p>
<p>I think for me Cambridge has the edge over Oxford on the city. But that’s because I’m from a small town and like it’s small town feel. If you are from a big city you will almost certainly prefer Oxford. Oxford also has better links to London too. 24 hour bus service.</p>
<p>The college of Cambridge are far more spread out than the colleges of Oxford. Oxford doesn’t have any real outliers but Cambridge has two, Girton and Homerton, which are really far away from the rest. However, in Cambridge most students can live in college owened accommodation for the entire duration of their course. At Oxford most students have to live in privately rented (and hence insanely expensive) accommodation for at least one year. Only about 4 of the richest colleges can house all their students now.</p>
<p>Historically Oxford is famous for arts and Cambridge for sciences. But year-on-year there is very little difference. All that means is that over 800 years Oxford has produced more famous artists and Cambridge has produced more famous scientists. But that is a VERY long period of time! I’m a scientist and I don’t find Oxford inferior to Cambridge.</p>