Oxford University: Should I Apply? (II)

Following the first post on some of the the typical questions that usually act as "barriers" to Malaysians applying to some of the top universities in the world, the following actually provides some nuggets of my personal experience at Oxford University.

I'm never going to be able to write my entire pre-application, my 3-year stay, my degree programme and other experiences in just one blog post (even if it's a long one like this). Hence, the focus of my writing will be on the nature of teaching and learning that's unique to Oxford and other similar institutions - which may be attractive to many of you out there. For the other readers of the blog from these institutions (I know you are out there), please feel free to add your personal experience, either to my personal email (which I'll then "re-publish") or in the comments column below.

Quick note: My experience below may have in a large part, to do with the degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) which I have taken. So students reading other subjects, particularly the science subjects will clearly have a different "experience". :)

1. Class Size

One of the most important facets of some of the top universities around the world is the small tutorial class sizes. Whilst in the first year, the class sizes may be as large as 8-10 persons, in my subsequent years, the class sizes were often no more than 3 persons.

In fact for certain subjects which are electives, for e.g., I took "Development Economics", I had 1-to-1 tutorial sessions. The small class sizes had certain implications for students. For example, it will be very difficult to evade doing your homework readings for it'll look really stupid when you are attempting to carry out a discussion with your tutor. You will obviously receive a lot of "personal attention", wanted or otherwise. :)

In addition, the small class sizes will ensure that you will have to speak up in the class. Asian students have a tendency to be timid, quiet and fairly non-participative in the classroom. However, when the classroom is only the size of 2 students, there's really very little space to hide from the tutor. I have always been regarded as a fairly vocal student in primary and secondary schools. However, when I was at Oxford, my Economics tutor actually wrote in one of my term reports that I was too quiet and needed to participate more during tutorial discussions!

That certainly plays an important part in honing one's quick thinking skills as well as the ability to express one's thoughts in the clearest manners.

2. College vs University

One of the oft quoted unique features about Oxbridge universities is the fact that the universities are basically made up of a cluster of semi-independent colleges. A description provided by the Oxford University website is quoted here:

One of the many advantages of studying at Oxford is the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a large international University whilst living in a smaller college community. Your college will be the focus of your academic life, where you will attend weekly tutorials, for most of your time in Oxford. Your college will also provide you with accommodation and food at reasonable prices, as well as being the centre for your social life, offering entertainment, sports, music and drama facilities and events.

Colleges and Halls

• select their own undergraduate students;
• are responsible for students' tutorial teaching and welfare;
• provide accommodation, meals, common rooms, libraries, sports and social facilities and pastoral care for their students.

The University

• determines the content of the courses;
• organises lectures and seminars;
• provides a wide range of resources for teaching and learning in the form of libraries, laboratories, museums, computing facilities;
• sets and marks examinations;
• awards degrees.

I was enrolled in Keble College (picture above), which is quite large by Oxford standards with some 400 undergraduate and 150 postgraduate students. Yes, that's "large". :) Something that many students are not used to, is also the fact that most student stay for at least 2 years, in the college itself. To get to 8 am tutorials in the morning, you just need to wake up at 7.45, wash up, gulp down some breakfast, and make a 2 minute dash to the tutor's room. Yes, most of the tutors stay in the college as well :)

3. Lectures vs Tutorials

The most unique thing I find about my degree programme at Oxford, for better or worse, is the "disjoint" between lectures and tutorials. Lectures are run by the university, while tutorials are managed by the colleges. And with some 30 colleges managing tutorial schedules, you will find that most of the time, the lectures do not "jive" with the tutorial subject schedules. Hence, you might find yourself attending lectures on particular topics in the first term, but the tutorials for the same subject only begins in the third term. And of course, vice-versa.

Due to the fact that tutorials are of prime importance, lectures often take a back seat. That usually means that as the term goes by, I'll be attending less and less lectures. I won't be exaggerating to say that I probably attended an average of maybe only 2-3 hours worth of lectures a week throughout my entire course!

4. Tutorials

Tutorials are probably the most important aspect of one's academic experience at Oxford. Tutorials are scheduled to be twice a week, one for each subject which is being taken for the term. There are 3 terms a year, and 8 weeks for each term. So, every term, I'll be having 16 tutorials a term, 8 on say, "Organisational Economics" and another 8 on say, "Moral Philosophy (Ethics)".

So what's so tough about the tutorials, besides the fact that it's a tiny class? In most universities I'm aware of, tutorials are where the tutors will do some "teaching", students will be taking notes and they may be required to do some question-and-answer type homework. Over at Oxford, threre's little or no formal teaching done during tutorials.

What's typically done is that all students will have to prepare an essay on a particular topic prior to the tutorial session. The essay question and lengthy reading list would have been provided in the previous week. The first week's tutorial came as quite a shock for me because I was to prepare an essay on the "failure" of French Fourth Republic with absolutely no clue about French political history (I would have thought Charles de Gaulle was a character from Asterix!) - no prior tips, lectures, classes or preparation by the tutors. With only the reading list as a guide, we'll pilfer through the relevant books to churn out an essay in preparation for the tutorial in the following week.

Depending on the tutor, you might be required to read the essay out aloud during the tutorials and open yourself to some serious vivisection by the tutor and fellow tutorial mates during the 1-2 hour sessions. Put in some rubbish, and you are done for! The exercise is repeated twice a week, and that means a total of 16 essays every term. That's a lot of essays to write, considering that most universities only require 1-2 term essays (albeit, likely to be longer ones) handed in as "projects".

What's the ultimate effects of such a tutorial system?

• It's probably the ultimate version of anti-spoon feeding as there's actually hardly any "teaching", especially since I (and I'm pretty sure I attended more lectures than my fellow coursemates) attended only a minimal amount of lectures. Everything is to be discovered on your own through all the relevant reading materials. Tutorials are only meant more as "discussion" to ensure that you are on the right track, and to point out certain more pertinent points on a particular topic. It makes you ultimately resourceful.


• The system makes your brain work the hardest because, very often, you start from absolute zero to becoming almost exam ready for that particular topic, all within a period of one week.


• Your writing techniques and skills improves tremendously as you are required to produce top quality essays in the shortest possible time (usually just a couple of hours, because you'd have spent the rest of the prior week gathering and browsing the reading materials). It certainly helps with maintaining a blog like this while having a busy day job! And I can tell you from experience, this is one of the greatest assets to possess when writing reports, analyses, presentations and proposals.


• Your reading skills as well as the ability to sieve out key and relevant information is honed to near perfection, because some 70% (or so) of reading materials are not directly relevant (or are repetitive) and it's important to be able to tell them apart from the relevant points early. Otherwise, you'll never finish the reading list (some books on their own may take 3 weeks to complete!). You have only one week after all, not to mention that you'd still have to produce the essay.


• The active tutorial classes and the openness of debate allows one to hone your expression and debating skills, for not only you need to know what you are talking about, you will also need to know how to express it such that your tutor and course mates can understand you.

For some, such a system will be extremely stressful for practically everything is reliant on the self, and there's really a lot of reading and writing to do. On the flip side, and one of the key reasons why I really really enjoyed my time over at Oxford is that the system provided me total independence to how I want to do my work, organise my time and most importantly, the space to "think", for there's only 5-6 hours worth of official lesson time a week (average of 3 hours of lectures, and 2-3 hours of tutorials).

The system is a complete contrast to say, National University of Singapore (NUS) which I had the privilege of attending for 2 weeks before I took off to Oxford back in 1991. The time-table at NUS is almost perpectually packed where students rush from lecture halls to tutorial rooms and back to lecture halls on a daily basis. If I don't recall wrongly, there's some 24-30 hours of official lesson time a week for a Bachelor of Arts degree at NUS (and they have longer term time of 10-12 weeks).

This is not to say that the Oxford tutorial system should be adopted by all universities. Certain students perform well in the NUS-type environment, while people like me definitely feels more "liberated" with the Oxford system. I know that in NUS, students are likely to be "screaming" that a lecturer is not doing his/her job if he/she did not provide lecture notes or handouts to accompany the lectures. He or she may even be reprimanded. However, at Oxford, no lecturer worth his salt will provide handouts during a lecture for you will be expected to listen and pick out the relevant points for your own consumption.

So at the end of the day, if you have a keen interest in challenging your thinking and writing skills with a lot of self-effort, then Oxbridge universities will definitely be the place for you.

5. Extra-Curricular Activities

Contrary to popular opinion that Oxbridge is all work and no play, it has an extremely vibrant non-academic environment. You are bound to find a society or interest group among more than 400, to match your own whims and fancies. If you can't find one that matches your interest, you are encouraged to set up one yourself. Yes, there are clubs dedicated towards the resurrection of King Arthur's Camelot.

With only 5-6 hours of official lesson time a week, I thoroughly enjoyed myself with various sports from rowing for a term, representing the college in the very active university hockey league over 2+ years as well as badminton and table-tennis. I took part in clubs such as the Laissez Faire Society and of course, the obligatory functions at the Oxford Malaysia Club (OMC) and Oxford University Malaysia & Singapore Association (OUMSA). Sometimes, I actually wonder back to try to figure out how I actually found time to study!

As highlighted at the start of this post, the above are just be nuggets of my experience during my 3 eventful and thoroughly enjoyable years at Oxford University. I hope to provide readers, and in particular, hopeful students a glimpse of life at Oxford and encourage more applications from Malaysians to these universities. I'm certain that I'm not the only one who has enjoyed myself, and I would encourage fellow alumnus as well as current students there to share your perspectives of the experience at Oxford.

The next update will be on the application process. A gentle reminder that the closing date of applications will be on the 15th October, for 2006 undergraduate entry. You need not wait for my update, go check out the Oxford admission site yourself!