<p>I was just recently accepted into the Oxford Visiting Student Program at St. Catherine's College for the 2010-2011 academic year. I was wondering if anyone else has studied at Oxford and what they thought of it. Any information at all is helpful!</p>
<p>My daughter is studying at Pembroke College for the year. She has had a very good experience. The tutorial program has been challenging - lots of research and writing each week. She has not traveled as much as other friends doing study abroad programs where the classes are much easier. She finally is doing some extensive travel now as she is on break between terms. She has made good friends with other American visiting students but not many British as only the freshman are housed at the college. She loves the University and city and has been able to travel to London a bit. She doesn’t love the food served at Hall. She calls it “beige food”. Not a lot of appetizing vegetables! The year has really gone by quickly though she won’t be home until mid or end of June. I think she is very, very happy she chose a full year program.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that the tutorial program is pretty intense. How did she work out the credits/grade transfers back to her home institution since Oxford doesn’t give credits for their classes? I’m supposed to be meeting with advisors soon and am wondering what other Oxford visiting students have done.</p>
<p>My son was a visiting student at Oxford last year. Prior to his departure, he reviewed the tutorials he was interested in with his advisor. At that time, the school was able to determine that all the credits were transferable. However, the grades from Oxford did not figure into his overall GPA. The courses are listed on his transcript and his current school will send along a “grade translation” sheet from Oxford if any recipients really want to know how he did at Oxford.</p>
<p>Okay, so dumb question. I can’t find ANYWHERE a list of the number of courses taken per term. Oxford wants to know what courses I want to take and I don’t think they understand that I don’t know how many are standard per term. (Ex: In US college I take about 4-5 classes per semester). Anyone know the official number?</p>
<p>I believe the standard course load is one primary tutorial (meets weekly) and one secondary tutorial (meets every other week) per term.</p>
<p>This was what they e-mailed me: “You are selecting two subjects. The primary tutorial will be 8 tutorials and the secondary 4 tutorials.” They are kind of vague. I told them I was interested in Politics as my primary and History as my secondary. Not sure what else they need exactly. They simply gave me this massive “subject directory” list and told me to pick stuff…</p>
<p>The information you received is correct; the primary tutorial is 8 sessions and the secondary is 4 sessions. It is up to you to review that subject directory list and put together your program of study. From that list, select a politics tutorial and a history tutorial. You will be able to change tutorials each term.</p>
<p>Is there some place that you know of where I can view the syllabi of courses offered?</p>
<p>My son’s school here had big binders filled with the syllabi in their study abroad office. Would your school have something like that? If not, here’s a link to the academic administration at St. Catz. I suggest you contact the visiting student administrator.</p>
<p>[Academic</a> Administration | <a href=“http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk%5B/url%5D”>www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk](<a href=“http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/content/academic-administration]Academic”>http://www.stcatz.ox.ac.uk/content/academic-administration)</a></p>
<p>You might also want consider taking a secondary tutorial over two terms so it adds up to 8 sessions in all. That is what Oxford undergrads will generally do. It is also what tutors will tend to plan around to ensure proper coverage of the subject, which may be relevant if you are picking out of the subject directory. BTW in Oxford-speak each session is a tutorial, or “tute”, while the full 8-tutorial series is a course or a paper as it will generally feed into one paper at Finals.</p>
<p>Is there anything that I should do to prep for Oxford? I’m a little terrified that I’m going to be in over my head…</p>
<p>My D just finished her tutorials for her term at Oxford last week. She did work hard, but also had plenty of time for fun. She felt she learned so much from her tutors. I think what she found stressful was that she really had to be prepared and ready to discuss the material in depth with the tutor. Be prepared also to write rather lengthy papers each week…but I think what’s expected varies from tutor to tutor. My D had also worried it would be over her head, but she ended up doing extremely well.</p>
<p>Also, the way it worked for my D with course selection was they asked what primary and secondary subjects she wanted to study. Then, a week or two before she left to go there, her tutors sent her emails asking specifically what she wanted to cover with some suggestions of their own. I think they went back and forth a few times until they decided on what would be covered in her tutorials. At her first meeting with one of her tutors, he sort of grilled her regarding her basic foundation of the subject she would be studying which was a bit daunting to her. But apparently he was satisfied with her core knowledge and after that initial session, she said it was fantastic studying with him.</p>
<p>As my primary tutorial is “Politics” and my secondary is “History,” how many lectures would I pick then? Do I pick 1 lecture category or 8 different ones?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/pubs/lectures/politics.pdf[/url]”>http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/pubs/lectures/politics.pdf</a></p>