Frequently Asked Questions
What are the COVID-19 protocols?
In order to keep you and our teaching staff safe, here are the modalities that we will be enforcing during the Course:
Self test each morning (provided) – for family members as well (not provided)
One interpreter per booth
Masks in the conference room(s) when not actively speaking (provided)
Booths disinfected every evening
Wipes in the booths, for interpreters to disinfect before and after their shift (provided)
Hand cleanser in room (provided)
Bring your own earphones to plug into the consoles, if you don’t wish to use those provided by Brahler.
If a student (or teacher) is sick:
Stay in your room if staying at the hotel! Room service available if you stay in the hotel.
May attend the Course on Zoom, listen to speeches and practice on your own, attend extracurricular classes on Zoom, LSS also on Zoom. No refunds.
You may check out of the hotel freely – there is no forced quarantine outside the hotel, or in fact, anywhere in the UK...
Who should come?
Experience shows that those who derive the most benefit from the Course include:
- Interpreters having worked for a number of years, who would like to benefit from objective criticism with a view to updating and honing their skills
- Interpreters who wish to practice and perfect new language combinations, including adding a language or transforming a C language into a B
- Interpreters who teach or translate and who, due to time constraints, find themselves increasingly unable to maintain their own skills
- Working interpreters who have had little formal training, and desire objective, in-depth, professional advice and feedback
- Young interpreters who have limited working experience since graduation, but who obtained exceptional results in interpreting school final examinations.
NB: The Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course is not an interpreting school, and students are expected to be capable of working at a professional level.
Is there a deadline for applying?
There is no deadline; however, as the student:teacher ratio is never more than 2.5:1, the spaces fill up rather quickly. We have 27 places for students, and the number of working languages depends on demand, with a quota per language. It is highly recommended that, if you are interested, you apply as soon as possible.
If I am unable to attend for the entire two weeks, may I come for only one?
This is not an option, as the CCIC methodology is based on a two-week layout and teaching progression.
If the Course Directors receive no payment, why do they come?
Some (though not all) of the reasons the Course Directors come to teach on the CCIC include: giving something back to the profession in which they have thrived; helping other interpreters to become better in all facets of their careers; helping to ensure that the profession is served and represented to the highest possible ethical standards by well-trained practitioners; and sharing their love and esteem for interpreting as an art-form. All of us have thought on many occasions throughout our careers, “wait a minute – my teachers never told me about that!” This is one way of spreading the word.
There are, of course, many other reasons, but you would have to ask each member of the teaching staff individually.
If the Course Directors are volunteers, what do tuition payments finance?
The Course is not profit making. Course directors are volunteers, but are not asked to go out-of-pocket to come and teach.
Course fees cover the costs of each teacher’s expenses while on the Course; remote interpreting platform licenses; all extracurricular classes; teaching materials; and special activities.
If any tuition fees are not expended on Course requirements, they are refunded equally to all private students after the accounts for the Course are paid in full.
Is there any form of financial assistance available?
Unfortunately, as the Course is not a profit-making initiative, and has no commercial links of any sort, we are unable to do anything to help those for whom the tuition fees are simply too high -- much to our regret.
Some students have been sent by their employers (ECOWAS, the European Parliament, the George Marshall Center, the IMF, the Islamic Development Bank, NATO, the OPCW, the UIC, the UN Vienna). Some students may receive reimbursements from their employers. The full cost of the Course is a tax write-off for US taxpayers, and may be for taxpayers from other countries as well. Some countries, through programs targeted at freelance professionals, have provided reimbursement in past years for a portion of the fees.
What is the hotel venue?
Hilton Cambridge City Centre
Downing St,
Cambridge CB2 3DT, U.K.
Telephone: +44 (0) 1223 464 491
E-mail: stnhc_hotel@hilton.com
Website: http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/united-kingdom/hilton-cambridge-city-centre-STNHCHI/index.html
Which airport should I fly into?
If you arrive by air from outside England, then Stansted Airport is the closest (± 1 hour by coach), followed by Luton and Gatwick. Heathrow is further away (± 2 ½ hour coach ride).
A taxi from Stansted airport to Cambridge will cost about £70 one way. We have found this website for information on how to get from the various airports: www.nationalexpress.com, which gives information on all their bus services from Heathrow, Stansted, Gatwick, and Luton airports (with many departures daily). National Express allows you to buy your ticket in advance, and online.
Also, there is www.nationalrail.co.uk for the national rail service if you are already in England and wish to take the train from London or other cities.
If you arrive by train, we suggest you take a taxi to the hotel. This should not take more than about 10 minutes total, and the cost is not high, approximately £10. If you have little luggage, it is approximately a 20-minute walk. If you arrive by coach, you are left off at Parker’s Piece, a green not too far from the Hilton, which is near the corner of Downing Street and St Andrew’s Street. http://www.nationalexpress.com/help-and-advice/coach-stations/stops.aspx?stop=Cambridge
Why should I stay at the hotel?
The hotel is the Course venue, so it will be easiest for you to stay there, as the days are always acknowledged to be much longer and more exhausting than they may at first appear. It is also a lot of fun staying with your colleagues somewhere so close to the city centre.
The package that we have is the best in the city for this type of venue, though there is other accommodation in the city that will save you approximately half of the accommodation cost. If you need help in finding alternative accommodations, please see the questions below, or else call the Cambridge Tourist Information Centre (Tel: +(44)1223 464 732).
May I invite a family member or friend to stay with me at the hotel?
Course participants may invite someone to stay in their room, for a charge of £10 per night for B&B. If the hotel has special deals for that time period that you satisfy, the lesser of the two charges will apply. If the guest wishes to have lunch or one of the formal opening or closing dinners with the Course, they may do so for an extra charge. The guest will only be allowed in the Course instruction room on an exceptional basis.
What does the Hotel provide in the rooms?
- Free Wi-Fi
- Sky satellite HD TV (sports, entertainment, and free-view channels)
- Air conditioning
- Generously sized double beds
- Modern en-suite bathroom
- Desk and work space area
- Tea & coffee making facilities
- Iron & ironing board
You may request wake-up calls from the front desk, so there is no need to bring an alarm clock.
Please keep in mind that this is a hotel in the center of the city.
Our group rate at the Hilton is £148.00 per night, inclusive of bed, breakfast and VAT, a highly competitive rate for a hotel of this category in the City of Cambridge. This is a group rate, which is held for us until 45 days before the Course. However, we do not have a block of rooms held for us – so if you choose to book your room closer to mid-June and the hotel is fully booked up, then you will have to find accommodation elsewhere.
We will either give you a website link or an email contact through which you may book your own room. Your credit card will guarantee the booking, though you will only be charged for the room at the end of your stay. If you must cancel your room, then the hotel cancellation policy will apply: free cancellation until 30 days prior to the beginning of the Course, and 100% payment after that. In this case, your card will be charged immediately.
What is an example of other housing options students have used and have been satisfied with?
We have a block of rooms reserved for us at the College, and any unbooked rooms will be released as of June 30th. The College is popular, so make any reservations early.
Room details include:
- Double and twin rooms with private bathrooms - £89.00 per night inclusive of bed, breakfast and VAT. Many of these rooms are in number 4 staircase, the newest building in Christ's. Rooms are very large with full size bathrooms, ideal for students who want to relax after a hard day on the Course. These rooms face onto Kings Street which is a busy road and so can be a little noisy in the evenings, but the large rooms and bathrooms make up for this. Some of the double rooms face into College (in Second Court) and have private bathrooms which are either within the room or next to the bedroom across the corridor. 15 rooms on hold.
- Bookings for these rooms should be made directly with our personal contact at the College, Jo Chase, with whom the CCIC has worked for many years in another capacity. Her contact details are:
Email: jc885@christs.cam.ac.uk or reservations@christs.cam.ac.uk
Telephone: +44(0)1223 334926
Is there any way of attending the Course if my language is not a Course working language, or if I lack conference interpreting experience?
If your language combination is not covered by the Course working languages (English, French, German, Italian, Russian or Spanish), or if your professional profile reveals insufficient experience to allow for fully-fledged student status, we can accept what we term "student-observers" or, in American English, "course auditors". We are able to accommodate two per week.
This would involve your coming to the Cambridge Conference Interpretation Course and participating in all the extracurricular activities (mainly morning and evening, as shown on the Course website). You would also be present, though not in the booth, during the main sessions. In this way, you could take advantage of all the general/strategic teacher commentary, and language-group feedback, which represents over half of the total critical feedback.
You could also be present during the language-group breakout sessions. Here, if your working language is covered (and by arrangement with the relevant teacher/s), you could participate fully, and on some occasions avail yourself of a booth.
In addition, you would obviously receive all Course documentation, in exactly the same way as ‘full-fledged’ students.
This option would cost approximately half the normal fees, i.e. £50 per working day. We usually accept observers for one week only.
If this option appears attractive to you, we ask that you complete the enrolment form, requesting this option, and forward it to us, at which time we will be able to make a more informed decision.
What information is held under data protection laws such as GDPR?
When you contact us to ask about enrolling, or to find out about the Course, we take your name, email address, language combination if obvious, and where in the process you are (date you wrote, did we reply, did you send an enrolment form, were you put on the waiting list, etc.).
If you enroll, we keep the enrolment form electronically, whether or not you attend the Course in that year, in case you are eligible for another year. The information is not entered anywhere else.
If you enroll and we accept you for a particular year, we keep the enrolment form organized by year, and we create a mailing list for all students and teachers from that year. We also create an email list for use before and during the class, and keep that list in our email account for group emails for the next year (holiday greetings, announcements about refunds, etc.). After this time, the email group still exists, though it is used very infrequently. We may also add your email address to a list of others in your general geographical area, for reunion dinners, etc.
After the year’s Course is over, some photos will be posted on our website, but they will be anonymous; if you see one you would prefer we not use, please let us know and we will remove it. Also, we will ask if we may use quotes from your feedback forms in the comments section of the website.
