Why is it difficult to locate Cambridge University?

"Where is the university?" is the question many visitors to Cambridge ask. But no one could point at any direction because there is no campus. The university consists of 31 self-governing colleges. It has lecture halls, libraries, laboratories, museums and offices throughout the city. Individual colleges choose their own students who have to meet their minimum entrance requirements set by the university. And the students usually live and study in their colleges but they are taught in very full groups. Lectures and laboratories and practical work are organized by the university and held in university buildings. There are over ten thousand undergraduates and three thousand five hundred post-graduates. About 40% of them are women and some 8% from overseas. As well as teaching, research is of major importance. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, more than sixty university members have won Nobel prizes. The university has a huge number of buildings for teaching and research. It has more than 60 specialist subject libraries as well as the university library, which as the copy-right library, is entitled to a copy of every book published in Britain. Examinations are held and degrees are awarded by the university. It allowed women to take the university exams in the 1881, but it was not until 1941 that they were awarded degrees.