<p>My daughter had originally planned to study abroad at Africa U in Zimbabwe this fall; the situation there is now so dicey that she will not be going. Instead, she'll be staying at her college for her entire junior year and looking for summer (abroad or domestic) opportunities, as well as considering her options for a fall term abroad her senior year.</p>
<p>One of the programs she can apply to through her college is the Oxford Study Abroad program. I've probably done more reading about the program than she has at this point (she's working away from home this summer with little access to the internet), and I think she might find it interesting. I'm intrigued by the tutorial system, but I have little understanding of how it actually works. I'm also curious about day-to-day life at Oxford; I lived for many years in Scotland, so it's not the UK experience I'm wondering about. Rather, I'd like to hear more about student life, etc.</p>
<p>Anyone have anecdotes to share? I'm just trying to get more of a feel for what it's like to be a student at Oxford.</p>
<p>Before you get too deep into it, you might check to see if a fall-only semester at Oxford is even an option. My daughter's college will not allow fall-only at Oxford because Oxford's three-term calendar would mean only one-third of an academic year there in a fall-only program.</p>
<p>Thanks, I-dad, I did double-check. My daughter's college is also on a quarter system, so they do allow it. Fall and spring terms at Oxford correspond almost exactly with the fall/spring terms at her college, but she wants to be on her own campus for her spring, and last, term at her college.</p>
<p>I studied abroad at Oxford this past spring, although it wasn't that exact program, so my experience might be slightly different.</p>
<p>Under the tutorial system, you meet with your tutor once a week, and each week you're assigned an "essay" (a "paper" to Americans) to write. Exactly what you do during the tutorial meeting depends on the tutor. Some will have you read your paper to them; others will collect the paper a day or two in advance and read it beforehand. Either way, they will generally engage you on the subject of the paper and make you defend the claims made therein. There are no lecture classes in the way Americans are used to, although there are lectures and seminars, and sometimes tutors will ask their students to attend these. Tutorials in math and science subjects (like mine) will replace the essay with a problem sheet, and instead of defending your paper, you will probably be asked to either present some of your solutions or explain your thinking on the problems you didn't solve.</p>
<p>I can't give you a great picture of daily life there. I went on the Stanford program, in which I lived in a house with 40-odd other Stanford students, so daily life revolved around that. However, I got the sense that student life is quite a bit different from American colleges. For example, I saw very little drunken partying there. The students seemed a bit more academically focused than even Stanford students.</p>
<p>Are you familiar with Oxford's college system? And if your D goes, do you know which college she'll be in?</p>
<p>The program has ties with New College, Magdalen, Trinity and Christ Church; Oxford mades any acceptance decisions, and I believe assigns each student to a college. I'm a little vague on details...her college has an advisor specifically for this program (as opposed to some of the other study abroad programs, which fall under the responsibility of the study abroad office), so if this appeals to her, she'll have to meet with this advisor in the fall.</p>
<p>I think I'm most confused by the choice of tutorial subject. Sly, did you go in with a specific request as to what you wanted to study? Or did you have a more generic area which evolved as you met with your tutor?</p>
<p>Typically, students at Cambridge will have 4 tutors (or so) per term, one for each U.S. "course" equivalent, and I would guess it's the same in Oxford.</p>
<p>What's her subject? That will make a difference as to tutorial. D is going into her final year and I did two post grad years at Oxford - both in English. Tutorials are intense - many papers (one 8 week term D wrote 27 3,000 word essays). Tutorials are supplemented with classes - still very small by US standards, say 6 to 12 students. If she's living in College the experience will be very much the same as a 'real' Oxford student's - the Williams/Stanford etc students who live out of college are ghettoized to a certain extent which seems such a shame.</p>
<p>Samuck, my daughter is working on an individualized BA (Global Music and Cultural Relations), so it doesn't necessarily fit neatly into any "subject". The program through which she would be applying is set up so that students study a primary subject for nine tutorials, a secondary subject for five tutorials, and take a core lecture course in British culture and society. Students who apply are asked to propose their tutorial(s), and I suspect my daughter would want to do something related to women and Islam and/or music and Islam (but not having talked to her yet, this is a bit of a guess). I think this is what is causing all of my questions; since there are no course descriptions for any of the colleges, I'm guessing she would have to write these proposals as if she were proposing a research area? I have no doubt that the advisor at her college will have a better idea...</p>
<p>According to the program information, "Accepted students become affiliated members of the junior common rooms of their Oxford colleges. They live in double room housing with one or more British or other non-American student residents and may take most of their meals in their Oxford college dining hall..." So it sounds like the students get a real taste of Oxford.</p>
<p>She should probably propose exactly what she'd like to study. You'd have to talk to the people in charge of the program to find out how specific it needs to be. In my case with the Stanford program, I was asked for a general field (mathematics) that I wanted to study, and then if there was a specialty I'd prefer within that field (number theory). I was set up with a tutor who had agreed to teach me the subject. We worked out all the details beyond that when I arrived. This program might want more detail in advance, though.</p>
<p>Living in college is definitely a good thing. samuck is right about the Stanford students (and I assume Williams is similar) being a bit reclusive. Very few of us got to know many British students (fortunately, I was one of the few), just because it's much easier to socialize within our house. Those four colleges are all quite nice, by the way. Magdalen and Christ Church get overrun by tourists on weekends--for good reason.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies; I'm getting a better picture with all your help. Even though she originally didn't want to study abroad unless she could go someplace non-European, it sounds like Oxford might be a program that is worth considering. It's an extremely competitive program, so acceptance is far from a sure thing, but I hope she will give it some thought. </p>
<p>If she could tie her tutorial proposals in with her honors thesis (which is yet to be determined), it would really be helpful...and it sounds like she could do just that. I'll save all this info, and hand it over to her when she gets home at the end of the summer.</p>
<p>There aren't any "course descriptions" because, in each subject area there are "required paper" (meaning: exams) at the end of the course. (Or at least that's how it worked when I was a student there.) So the tutorials generally covered the subject areas of the required papers.</p>
<p>The university-wide lectures are such that a professor can talk about anything s/he wants. At least when I was there, they weren't mandatory (and the vast majority of students did not attend very many). That might have changed.</p>
<p>I can't imagine how you can get a really full picture of Oxford life without living in the colleges themselves. (The junior common rooms are places where folks go for a cup of tea, or to read the newspapers, and the leadership does organize various activities.) Again, maybe it has changed.</p>
<p>If I'm reading between the lines correctly, as long as a student is: a) intellectually curious; b) able to manage time well; c) comfortable working long hours in the library doing research; d) able to write well; and e) not looking for the next "drunken party"...they should be able to survive, and maybe even excel, at Oxford? Does that sound like a fair assessment? Anything else you would add in a description of an Oxford student?</p>
<p>It appears that "Junior Common Room" is now a term that applies to the room itself, but more broadly to the undergrad cohort of the college that serves as a social club, putting on parties and so forth. Every undergrad student of the college appears to be a member of the "Junior Common Room".</p>
<p>It varies from college to college, but many of the colleges do not have sufficient housing at the college for all of their students. First year and final year undergrads typically live at the college along with first year grad students. Middle year undergrads live in college owned housing in the town.</p>
<p>So the distinction to consider is whether a visiting US student lives with the British students of the college (whether this is physically at the college or in college owned "off-campus" housing) or whether they live in an American "ghetto" house.</p>
<p>The 'course descriptions' are listed by faculty (not by college) on the overall university website. So she could check the descriptions under Faculty of Music, Faculty of Oriental Studies etc to get an idea of topics of study. It sounds like she will be placed in one of those four colleges (Si is right - all four are 'top of the league') otherwise I'd suggest she look up teaching staff at each college to read about their subjects of interest to see where she might best fit in. It also sounds like she won't live in college -the onus would be on her to get involved in the life of the college, otherwise she'd definitely be missing out. As a musicain though the performance opportunities should be fantastic - my own daughter chose Oxford for its theatre scene. Oh and I should say, Mini, don't know when you were at Oxford but I did an M.Phil matriculating in 1978 and pretty much every single piece of advice I offered my daughter turned out to be completely inaccurate, totally destroying my credibility. The one bit of information that still held true was that Oxford is cold.....</p>
<p>mezzomom: Yes, that seems to me like a very good assessment.</p>
<p>About the JCR: The "Junior Common Room" refers to two different things. One is a physical room in the college, sort of like a dorm lounge, set aside for recreational use by undergrads. The other is an organization whose membership consists of all undergrads in the college. If you ever lived in a dorm that had a dorm government, I think it's sort of like that, but the JCR has more funding and more responsibility than a dorm gov.</p>
<p>As well as the Music and Oriental Studies faculties your daughter may find something which interests her in the politics section of the PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics) faculty.</p>
<p>Apart from Oxford, do the study abroad options also include the London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)? It's part of the University of London and has a very good reputation in its area of specialism. Just a thought given the Islam, women, music interface in her interests.</p>
<p>Oldspc, unfortunately no, her option is pretty much limited to Oxford.</p>
<p>I did get a phone call from my daughter last night, and I mentioned the possibility of Oxford. The program had been on her radar, so we talked a bit about the application requirements. When I mentioned the possibility of linking her tutorials at Oxford with her honors thesis, there was a long pause, followed by, "Mom...I'm probably going to do my thesis on the cross-cultural and world music influences on the development of hip-hop..." Yeah, so maybe Oxford wouldn't help so much with that! But she immediately remarked that if she went to Oxford for a term, she'd love to study more on the English choral tradition as her secondary tutorial. For her primary tutorial, she's apparently considering topics related to transnational feminisms or the women/Islam area. </p>
<p>I should know by now to never assume I know what's going on in my daughter's head!</p>