This is a good example of why fit matters so much:
(source: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/4/transfer-students/)
I have to ask: what do they do at Harvard if it’s not reading books and writing essays? Is she saying the pace/volume of work at Oxford is higher?
Class discussions/seminars. Sometimes case studies. Continuous assessment so homework/problem sets, quizzes, projects, presentations, short papers, midterms as well as finals. Lectures tend to be more mandatory and sometimes more interactive. TA sessions where students ask questions.
It’s a different type of work/studying. The pace/volume at Oxford is high, but it’s much more independent study (at the undergrad level).
I can’t find it now but St. Andrews had an information page for students looking to study abroad in the US. It had warnings about more assessments, more but shorter writing assignments, much more class time and much less independent study.
Note that while this is true for many subjects at UK universities, science students will still spend many hours in the lab and have lab reports due. There’s no way to become a chemist without doing chemistry.
@twoinanddone, to build on @PurpleTitan’s useful post, a Humanities student can write (and defend in a tutorial) an average of 3 research papers every 2 weeks. It starts with a many-page long reading list and a topic (or list of topics) given at the end of a tutorial, and finishes with the paper (called an essay) due back to the tutor before the next tutorial (so the tutor has time to review it)- as little as 4 days. Although there are lectures, there aren’t many, and they are actual lectures, not classes. It is much more solitary and independent work than is typical at a US college. And yes, the pace of work / work load is genuinely more intense than any place else (besides The Other Place of course!), not least because the terms are short (9 weeks).
I think that the tutorial seems sort of cool and maybe even kindly? the idea of you and a classmate or two and a Don having an intellectual hour discussing some of the finer points of X. It can be that (and I do know students who have actually been offered sherry at a tutorial), but a lot of weeks it seems to be closer to an oral exam based on the topic of your essay. That’s why I posted the link- to give prospective US students a different perspective (from somebody who clearly did well in the system, but still wanted something different).
@collegemom3717 I’m familiar with the UK system (I was at Cambridge for undergrad and PhD). I was surprised about the complaints because of how much I hear about US students “drinking from the firehose” at elite schools here. But it’s probably more related to the lack of handholding and higher focus on independent (often solitary in my experience) study in the UK. And I agree tutorials (our “supervisions” conveys a better sense of it) are anything but kindly if you didn’t do a good job on the assignments.
lol- apologies @Twoin18!
When my Oxford kid sits down with her HS friends at tippy-tops and compares notes the consensus is that her work load is more intense overall and definitely both more solitary and more independent. Because she loveslovesloves her subject, this is happy for her (have an IM of her sitting on the floor of her room happily ensconced inside a knee-high circle of books that she is using for the essay du jour- but that circles back to the importance of fit.
@Twoin18, it seems like her complaint was with the style of teaching/learning, not the pace.
At elites in the US, the pace is also high, but students don’t spend the vast bulk of their academic time doing independent study/research and writing. As I mentioned before, comparatively more seminars, classes, group projects, individual projects, problem sets, short essays, and studying for quizzes/tests/midterms coming in a few days.
At Oxbridge, your marks may come down to 4 exams at the end of the year. I went to a school on a quarter system and science and math classes tended to have two midterms a quarter. All would have finals (some humanities/SS/other classes would require a paper/project to be turned in). With 4 classes in each of 3 quarters, that could potentially be 30+ major exams in a school year (and there would still be papers, labs, class discussion, projects, problem sets, and maybe presentations, etc.)
My math & comp sci son has a relatively comparable experience to his US peers. Multiple lectures each week, problem sets that are reviewed in tutorials and practical programming exercises. He said over the holidays that he didn’t know how the humanities students could live with the constant churn of reading, essays and tutorial defense. Definitely not his cuppa.
^ One thing too is that the American undergrad academic experience is more varied because pretty much all students take classes in different subjects with their different styles of teaching/learning. Almost no Oxbridge students would be taking at the same time a science class with lab work, a CS class with programming projects, a small humanities seminar with class discussion figuring in to the grade, some class with a group project and presentation being the biggest part of the grade, and a business class based off of teaching via the case method (while an American student could).
Good point, @PurpleTitan - that was a deciding factor for my lot when choosing which system they wanted. For example, my physics kid wanted to still be able to take some humanities classes, so chose the US system (and is missing the mental break those classes gave her now that she is in grad school!).
Here’s a set of sobering statistics. I can’t imagine stats like this at an Ivy school. I’m glad my son’s not an Oriental Studies student.
http://cherwell.org/2018/02/09/higher-suspension-rates-for-state-students-revealed/
@HazeGrey: Well, the only way to “switch majors” at Oxbridge is to drop out and start a new course.
I’m positive a far greater percentage of students at Ivies switch majors than the percentages listed for Oxford.
Suspension (or rustication, in Oxford-ese) has a multitude of sources. It can be imposed (academic suspension- rare), it can be circumstantial (if you will miss too much school from illness- and at Oxford that doesn’t take much), and it can be choice (some student roles, such as President of the Oxford Union, require you to rusticate; every Trinity Term some Finalists get cold feet at facing finals and rusticate). A particular quirk of rustication is that you can only rusticate in 1 year intervals, so when my daughter needed to rusticate in early Hilary term for medical treatment she could only return at the start of the following Hilary term- so the absolute numbers are higher than they would be in a US college (where you can just come back the following term).
I think the point the Cherwell was making was more about the disproportionate numbers rusticating between students from ‘public’ and ‘independent’ schools- twice as many, when they make up only a bit more than 1/2 of the student population. This is part of a continuing conversation about getting more students from more backgrounds access to Oxbridge.
Williams College offers a taste of both systems. Then, consider getting a masters degree at Cambridge when settled on a specific subject.
So do a few other schools that offer tutorials:
Sarah Lawrence, William Jewell’s Oxbridge Honors program, Ohio U’s Honors Tutorial College, and NCF.
Those also tend to be easier to get in to than Williams.
Forgot about Ohio University.
Sarah Lawrence is expensive, quite small & in need of every tuition dollar that it can get.
Also, if one can gain entry into Oxford, then Williams College should be within reach.
“Also, if one can gain entry into Oxford, then Williams College should be within reach.”
But twice the cost (assuming you are full pay, since there’s no financial aid for Oxford)!
More like 10% more, not 100% (assuming full pay). COA @Williams is ~$66k/pa and Oxford for an international is ~$50K
Well that’s 32% more. But its 4 years vs 3 at Oxford for most people, so that makes it 76% more, and 100% wasn’t far off when the exchange rate was around $1.25.