Undergraduate Tripos Information for Students

Tripos Course Information

Current undergraduate students in the Faculty of Philosophy will find information about their degree programmes on the dedicated Moodle pages. 

Access to materials will be granted automatically to current philosophy students. If you are from an alternate department please contact the Faculty Office for access.

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Faculty Office Contacts - For general administrative or timetable queries, and day to day help and support.        

• Please email us philundergrad@phil.cam.ac.uk or visit us in room 313 (3rd floor of the RFB).

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Student Handbook

• The Student Handbook contains useful information about studying philosophy in Cambridge. 

Structure of the Tripos

• Aims and Objectives of the Tripos. 
• Syllabus - The Guide to Courses gives an outline summary of the entire Philosophy Tripos. This details the structure of your course and assessment options. 

Lectures and Teaching 

• The Lecture List outlines all the philosophy lectures for the coming year, in a downloadable PDF. The University Timetable allows you to construct your own online timetable. 

• University teaching – lectures, seminars, discussion groups and logic classes - will happen in person. Lecturers will be informing you if they will be recording any part of lectures. This is NOT completed as standard. See the Policy and Guidance on Recording Lectures for more information.

• If you have special educational needs and your Student Support Document (SSD) recommends that you be permitted to record, then you have a right to a recording that is appropriate for your needs (for instance, some lecturers may by default make audio recordings. The University Disability Resource Centre and the Faculty Office should make this known to your instructors, but you should also always feel free to raise any requirements you may have directly with the instructor of a course or to ask your DoS to do so. Please note, that all recordings remain subject to University rules. Information on support offered to students is available on the DRC’s website: Disability Services

Reading Lists

• Reading lists, discussion group readings, and handouts for your lectures may be located on the relevant Moodle course page or the academics website. Online, Word and PDF versions of the Faculty reading lists can also be accessed via the Faculty website (University Account, formerly Raven, login required). 

• Every “Paper” (i.e. module) has a specially dedicated course page on Moodle (e.g. “Part IA Paper 1 - Metaphysics”). All students at Part IA (i.e. first years) will be automatically enrolled on the Moodle pages for their Papers. All students at Parts IB and II (i.e. second and third years) must “self-enrol” for their Papers; each of these students will be eligible to enrol on the Moodle pages for any of the Papers for their year group. If you’re still deciding which Papers to take, then enrol on all the relevant Moodle pages, to begin with; you can unenroll later. Enrolling for your courses also allows instructors to message you with important course updates through the Moodle messaging function.

Assessment

• For details about assessment including past papers, examiners' reports, sample answers and more, please see the page on Undergraduate Exams.

Feedback on student work

• Supervisions  The principal source of feedback on undergraduates’ work come in the form of verbal discussion of the submitted essays in supervisions and the supervisor’s written comments on that work.  Note that this alone is vastly more feedback than students in other universities, with the exception of Oxford, will receive.
• CamCORS reports and DoS meetings  In addition, students receive written reports from their supervisors on their progress through supervisions, and verbal feedback from their Directors of Studies.
• Revision supervisions  Normally, in addition to four supervisions per paper in Michaelmas and/or Lent Terms, undergraduates may expect an additional supervision in Easter Term to aid with revision.  A student should discuss the format of this revision supervision with their supervisor, and should feel free to suggest (if they so wish) that this takes the form of feedback on a timed practice paper sat by the student.  (Directors of Studies are free to vary this pattern. Supervisions for borrowed papers may also follow a different pattern.)
• College progress tests/collections/mock exams  Many colleges provide practice exams in the form of College progress tests, collections, or mock exams.  Undergraduates can expect to get feedback on these tests that will be helpful in preparing for Tripos exams.  Students should discuss this with their Director of Studies.
• Why no feedback on Tripos exams?  The Faculty of Philosophy does not provide feedback on the Tripos exams sat in Easter Term, dissertations, or extended essays.  The principal reason for this is that the volume of exams and coursework and the limited time available to mark these means that it is impractical to provide substantial feedback of a kind that could be useful to the student.  Furthermore, we believe that feedback on an exam sat in one year is of very limited value in helping students prepare for exams that they will sit, often on very different topics, a year later, after a year’s further intellectual development.  In preparing for the next Tripos exams, feedback from progress tests and practice papers marked by supervisors, as well as standard feedback in supervisions, will be of much greater value to the student.

College Supervisions

• A Guide to College Supervisions 
• Writing Skill Guidance

Student Representation and Feedback

• Student Representation & Student-Staff Committee
• Student Feedback Questionnaires

Student Support Links 

The following links may be useful in helping you navigate your studies within the Philosophy Tripos. 

• Student Welfare
• Wellbeing
• The University Counselling Service
• The Student Advice Centre
• The Disability Resource Centre
• Equality and diversity
• Harassment and sexual misconduct
• How to make a complaint about teaching and examining

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Can I take part in teaching for a course, even if I’m not sitting the exam for that Paper?

The short answer is ‘yes’, you can be added to the Moodle page for that course, and access course materials and lecture recordings in that way. You may in addition be able to attend lectures in-person. We ask that you hold off from attending in-person teaching for courses you are not actually taking until the instructor has had the chance to see that there is physical space for you to do so, and you have received permission from them.

The Casimir Lewy Library

Please see the Philosophy LibGuide for further information about the spaces, services, collections and support on offer from your Faculty Library and the wider Cambridge University Libraries & Archives network.

Please don't hesitate to contact the the Library team if you have any questions or need any help at all accessing the things you need for your learning and research and they will be very happy to help. 

For a summary of what other Cambridge University Libraries have to offer, see Library Essentials LibGuide.