Besides living in a different country, perhaps the biggest change for my studies this year is the system of education at Oxford.
At Hamilton, there are two semesters in the year, and each semester I have maybe four or five classes, with each class being held two or three times a week. I’d be given an assignment for each class in the week, and all these assignments, plus tests and the final exam, would add up to my full grade.
At Oxford, there are three terms in the year, and each is exactly eight weeks. Each week you have what are called tutorials for a specific subject with your tutor, and these sessions are usually either one-on-one or with another student (so you have to be on top of your work 24/7 – there’s no hiding in the back of the classroom!). You write essays for each tutorial, but often these do not count in your grade. Many of the tutorial subjects at Oxford only, only, count the final exam as your lone grade for the year!
Meetings with tutors are far more spread out than classes in the American system – one tutorial might meet every week, another every two weeks – it depends. These tutorials are basically discussions with your tutor about the material, and you’ll probably read that week’s essay aloud to them for their feedback and questions. Your tutor doesn’t really “teach” you the material – you go to university lectures (which are technically open to anyone) and do all your own research in libraries for that.
Here is an example: Let’s say one week I’ve written about a particular group of composers, and my tutor notices I’m especially interested in one of them. He/she might pose a new essay question for the coming week based on that composer, and might suggest a list of books that would be relevant to research this question. I would then find those books at the libraries in the city, read what I think would help the most, and write the essay. The research and study here is very independent, both in style and in the interest of the student – the tutors are very open to suggestions of what a student might want to talk about that week or write an essay on. This differs greatly from the US in that each class might have 20-40 students, and the professor has a prepared path that covers a wider but more general scope of the subject material. If you have a particular interest, you are able to talk about it with the professor in office hours on the side. The UK in general has their students specializing earlier on, and what is so unique about this education system at Oxford is that essentially every student has an entirely different schedule.
I have four tutorials this term: Composition, Techniques of Composition, Sacred Polyphony, and Film Music. Two of them take place at my college, St Anne’s College, but Composition is at nearby Keble College, and Sacred Polyphony is at St Hilda’s, which is across the city. This week Sacred Polyphony is starting up and meeting several times before the term ends, and my assignment right now has to do with a composer named Josquin. What I have done for this assignment is I’ve picked up the books my tutor recommended, found articles online, and went to a lecture on Friday about this very topic.
With such a different style of education, it will be interesting returning to Hamilton for my senior year. As I expected, the workload is getting quite heavy, so I’m sure I’ll be ready to go back by this summer!
