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It’s been quite a whirlwind first week. My flight left Dulles around 6:30 PM last Monday night and landed at Heathrow around 6:30 in the morning London time. Naturally, I did not manage to get any sleep since we arrived in London at what would’ve been about bedtime back home. The first day is always brutal, but I have managed to get quite good at adapting to the new time zone within a day or so after previous trips to Europe. Our first few days in London involved a little bit of information from the IES staff but also included more touristy excursions to some of London’s landmarks. The scaffolding on Elizabeth Tower, which contains Big Ben, was a disappointment, however, though not the end of the world since I have been to London twice before.

On Thursday, two other students and I took the train to Oxford to begin our direct enrollment experience at St. Catherine’s College. St. Catherine’s College is one of the more than forty colleges that make up the University of Oxford, which has been the site of teaching since at least 1096. I visited Oxford a few summers ago with my parents and fell in love with the city. I knew then that I wanted to apply here for study abroad.

Oxford (and Cambridge) operate on a very different system than U.S. and other U.K. universities. The academic calendar is broken up into three terms—Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity—comprised of eight weeks. Instead of classes, students take tutorials in their course of study. A tutorial consists of either weekly or biweekly hour-long meetings with a faculty member at one of the colleges at the University. Students are assigned a list of readings by their tutor which should be read before the next tutorial session and must complete an essay of about 2000 words. At the tutorial session, students must explain their essay and then defend the arguments they made within against the tutor’s criticism. Generally, students take one primary tutorial (meeting eight times) and one secondary (meeting four times). Lectures are provided by Oxford throughout the term but are not usually required. In these ways, the academic system at Oxford and Cambridge is much more independent than in the U.S. and requires students to learn how to defend the beliefs they develop from their readings rather than just memorizing and regurgitating a glut of information on an exam.

As for exams, there are none. Sort of. Matriculated students are required to complete “collections” at the beginning of each term. Collections are meant to judge progress towards a degree and ensure students are on track for graduation, but they do not necessarily count. Then at the end of a student’s three years at the University, he or she will complete a grueling examination process that determines the level of degree they receive upon graduation. Thankfully, I won’t have to worry about that since I am only a visiting student.

My first week in the U.K. has already flown by. I cannot wait to see what surprises and unforgettable experiences I will have in the next five months.