What Makes Oxford So Great

Caption: The University Parks

I have been at Oxford for 5 days now. My days have been packed with orientations and introductions. Along the way I have picked up lots about Oxford and their system. I found myself asking, “What makes Oxford so great?” The fact that it is the oldest and one of the most prestigious universities in the world, is great, but is the education better? These are questions I will attempt to answer in this post. Although I do not start my studies until Monday, I think I have captured enough to give a good opinion. The post will be interesting because it will give a glimpse at how extremely different their system is.

Caption: The University of Oxford Engineering


The best analogy to Oxford’s system that I can think of at the moment (keep in mind I have not had coffee in days) is similar to the federal and state government in the US. The “university level” is like the federal government with rules, regulations, sports, and facilities that the “college level” (like state government) must comply. All students are then enrolled in one of 38 “Colleges” that are all part of the “University” of Oxford. The colleges differ in many ways but all contain every subject and enroll around 400 students in each at a single time. This has a huge impact on education because it is like attending a really small university (called a college in this case). This gives individual attention to everyone. Note: The colleges all have their own small campuses and all share some university buildings.

Caption: The "University" of Oxford Library

Caption: Living quarters of the "College" of Hertford.

As if the small size was not enough, Oxford implicates the Tutorial System (this means, no classes!). I will attempt to keep this simple. Basically, four students (in many cases its less) are given a private tutor (who is a professor… with a PhD). I attend a few lectures a week given by an array of people and my personal tutor assigns Homework for these lectures (very few tests are given!). This allows me to pick and choose what I am interested in. It allows me to get a tailored education. Therefore, Oxford students have bizarre combinations of studies such as a major in history, economics, and politics (all in one). This individuality is a huge contributor to what makes Oxford so great!

The last contributor (that I will talk about, anyway), to what is known as an elite education, is Oxford’s environment and expectations. Everyone is smart here (…EVERYONE!) and this inspires a passion to do well. It is as though it is the “cool” thing to do. The academic setting is just unimaginable. Everyone studies everywhere but not because they have too but because they want too. Of course, their are exceptions to this but this is the feeling in the air. I feel as though it is my duty to Oxford (my pride) to find my passion and perform academically. With the tutorial system it makes this even simpler. Is the education better here? I think it is more individualized and this makes learning the same amount just much easier.

My first few days in London and the UK

My flight to London was not bad. Well I take that back, there are the landings that I truly hate with a passion. I stayed up the whole night before the flight in order to reduce Jet Lag and therefore I slept most the time while flying. Upon Landing I wanted to really pay attention to my first impression of the country. In one word my first impression was “professional”. This turned out to be true even as I have been here for a few days. I notice that everyone seems to dress up nicer. It maybe the fact of everyone is wearing a jacket but I really liked it. There was little (if any) hip-hop/ chain wear/ backwards hat type. Not even skater/ rock type, mostly just business casual or just below.



I must say that finding my way around at first was really hard but after I have done it for about 10 hours a day I have come to like London. I have been all over the place in all kinds of sections. Up and down random street and have actually been to only a few typical “tourist” type places (Such as the London bridge in the picture). Although there is way too many things I saw and did to write in this little detailed blog, I will mention a few.





The street art tour was just the neatest thing (see photos). I always thought graffiti and other things was just a bunch of gangs being idiots destroying property but it is so much more than that. It turns out millionaire artists write in the street and many started there. It is a pretty neat topic but I will not expand any more. I have a roommate who went with me and he is thinking of writing a blog on the topic. If he does I will comment a link.



The last thing I wanted to mention for this post was the play that I attended. It was called “We Will Rock You” and was a play about the classic rock band Queen. It was my first play (besides one-act play in high school but they said that did not count). I found, which was really neat, that although each character had a European accent each one was different from the other(must be from different parts of the UK). The play took an active concentration to figure them all out and to try and understand them all. Especially when they started calling each other a bloke (guy).