[Eggs and Ham]

(Original post by SebCross)


I realise that I'm a naughty boy posting this here, since I'm not and never have been a Cambridge student - though plan to be in the future, if my cards fall right - but could someone 'in the know' indicate which colleges have staff with specialisms in Russian history? I'm thinking in terms of someone who wants to progress from his current studies (at Oxford)...

At Oxford? I thought you were doing an English degree at UEA?

[harr]

(Original post by alex_hk90)
That's really not the fault of the universities though, but of the people who think in that way (that anecdotes and unverified information should carry more weight than official sources of information, where those official sources have no clear incentive to mislead). Again, it would be a good time for those people to learn to think in a more intelligent way.

Even if it were possible not to be influenced by others, people don't have time to give full consideration to every option.

If everyone you know looks on Cambridge as a place full of weirdos (a common mistake: it's actually spelled "mathmos"), you're not likely to give it much consideration. If you're brought up to believe that attending Cambridge is something to which to aspire, you might give it more thought. It's not unintelligent to narrow your options based upon what you hear from others.

I'm not convinced that official sources -- even those with no clear incentive to mislead (which are rare enough*) -- are capable of giving an unbiased view either.

*+rep for anyone who can give an example.

[Zoedotdot]

Hello world - I'm back I was on holiday but now I have returned.

(Original post by Melz0r)
x

Glad to see you back again too! And very happy that you started enjoying the YA more The toast girl story makes me sad - I don't know your year group that well but I do have a decent idea of who it could be. But anyway, you should be thrilled and delighted that you're going back to Cambridge because fourth year is absolutely fantastic - academically, socially, general happinessly. It was far far far and away my favourite year at Cambridge, despite probably being the most work. The YA gives you a whole new perspective on it all!

(Original post by SebCross)
The History faculty.

It would be shortsighted to entirely discount the Slavonic Studies department within the MML faculty. They run a very good Russian Studies MPhil, with plenty of historians in the department. I know of at least one PhD student within MML Russian who doesn't actually speak Russian so it's certainly not a prerequisite.

It all depends on a variety of factors as to which faculty you plump for, as there are historians in both. Primarily, which period you're interested in - the pre-eminent scholar on Early Rus is in the MML faculty, for example. I know for certain that there are people specialising in almost every period within the Slavonic Studies department in MML, but in all honesty I don't know for History. They're more likely to be within MML because they're the ones who run the MPhil, but the only way to find out is to trawl through the History faculty staff list. I just don't think that at this point you should limit yourself to a specific faculty because, certainly at postgrad, the actual places where subjects sit are far less relevant than what is actually being offered and you could get an excellent qualification in Russian history from the MML faculty because it is, by nature of encompassing both language and all of cultural studies, exceptionally multi-disciplinary. If you let me know what time period you're interested in I can recommend some people/books to look at!

[Melz0r]

(Original post by Zoedotdot)
Hello world - I'm back I was on holiday but now I have returned.

Yay!

Glad to see you back again too! And very happy that you started enjoying the YA more The toast girl story makes me sad - I don't know your year group that well but I do have a decent idea of who it could be.

Yeah, if you think you know them, you probably do...

But anyway, you should be thrilled and delighted that you're going back to Cambridge because fourth year is absolutely fantastic - academically, socially, general happinessly. It was far far far and away my favourite year at Cambridge, despite probably being the most work. The YA gives you a whole new perspective on it all!

I am unashamedly excited about fourth year. It'll be so wonderful to be at a university that knows what it's doing! I'm going entirely medieval this year - medieval OD, Occitan and borrowed Chaucer, which is exciting but also slightly scary. Remind me what's going on with you? I think I've been away for developments...!

[SebCross]

(Original post by Eggs and Ham)
At Oxford? I thought you were doing an English degree at UEA?

That was many many moons ago, buddy - September 2009 - March 2010. I've had numerous experienced doing different Literature-based courses at various UK universities that haven't quite worked out for me for various reasons. I'm grateful to be back in my home-town concentrating on a discipline which I find interesting in the complete and holistic sense (as opposed to English Literature, where I loathed having to study literary theory). The fact that the course is part-time is also an advantage given the emotional issues I've had to start tackling as a result of struggling socially at some different universities. I've said on various sub-forums of T.S.R. that I'd love to have done my undergraduate studies at Cambridge, because I love the city to pieces, more so than Oxford in all honesty, but I applied for a place for English and didn't get in, so I doubted my ability to impress the History Faculty tutors given I'd not focused exclusively on History as a subject area since the end of my A-levels.

How're things going for you, man? I remember having some interesting debates with you about various things on T.S.R. last year.

[SebCross]

(Original post by Zoedotdot)
Hello world - I'm back I was on holiday but now I have returned.



Glad to see you back again too! And very happy that you started enjoying the YA more The toast girl story makes me sad - I don't know your year group that well but I do have a decent idea of who it could be. But anyway, you should be thrilled and delighted that you're going back to Cambridge because fourth year is absolutely fantastic - academically, socially, general happinessly. It was far far far and away my favourite year at Cambridge, despite probably being the most work. The YA gives you a whole new perspective on it all!

It would be shortsighted to entirely discount the Slavonic Studies department within the MML faculty. They run a very good Russian Studies MPhil, with plenty of historians in the department. I know of at least one PhD student within MML Russian who doesn't actually speak Russian so it's certainly not a prerequisite.

It all depends on a variety of factors as to which faculty you plump for, as there are historians in both. Primarily, which period you're interested in - the pre-eminent scholar on Early Rus is in the MML faculty, for example. I know for certain that there are people specialising in almost every period within the Slavonic Studies department in MML, but in all honesty I don't know for History. They're more likely to be within MML because they're the ones who run the MPhil, but the only way to find out is to trawl through the History faculty staff list. I just don't think that at this point you should limit yourself to a specific faculty because, certainly at postgrad, the actual places where subjects sit are far less relevant than what is actually being offered and you could get an excellent qualification in Russian history from the MML faculty because it is, by nature of encompassing both language and all of cultural studies, exceptionally multi-disciplinary. If you let me know what time period you're interested in I can recommend some people/books to look at!

@Zoedotdotdot: Thanks for your input here. I shall definitely do some research into the M.M.L. faculty and everything there. I would naturally welcome any recommendations you could make regarding books, though things are a tad premature in terms of my planning for Ph.D study given that I'm only making a little headway into my undergraduate studies here at Oxford now. I'm very thankful for your advice, though, as ever; I'm glad that you're relishing your time at Cambridge. It's such a fabulous city and the university, naturally, is without equal anywhere in the world; Oxford and Harvard have radically different 'feels' to them compared with Cambridge, in my view. Maybe that's just me though...

Thanks again

[Doughnuts!!]

(Original post by lp386)
One word: Guttenplan.

Although, that said, I've seen geeky, and geeky is a geologist so evangelical about his subject that we referred to him as a geologian. (I don't think anyone can compete with Catz NatScis on geekiness, but I'm prepared to be proved wrong. Some kind of geek rap battle?)

That Winnie the Pooh joke was simply awful...

(Original post by Melz0r)
Mainly addressed to Alex: I'm not going to argue with you directly, so feel free to dismiss this as an irrelevant personal point, but I've been wanting to make it as I've watched this discussion develop.

The example that's been passed around, of someone in a rural school with no big Oxbridge tradition, where family members or peers aren't informed about Oxbridge and even have negative attitudes about it, is basically me. I've already described my anti-Oxbridge Cam dropout head of sixth, I had a close family member who thought I shouldn't go because they thought I'd have no fun and thought I was just doing it to prove something, I had teachers who completely failed to understand it was necessary for me to get As. You get the idea. Not super-deprived, not super-great. I was really confused by the massive profusion of information online, and because I didn't understand the extent to which colleges are autonomous, I was confused by the Emma website because its fonts and background were completely different to the Cambridge website. Which seems absurd now, of course! But anyway. In the end I managed to, as you say, 'think logically', make a good application, choose a college, convert my sceptical family member, get in, and do well. But I don't look back on that and think how much more I deserve to get in than someone who didn't manage that, I don't think that I deserve a place more than someone whose difficulties were bigger and whose effort was correspondingly larger and who had to get past deeper scepticism and an even more apathetic and ill-informed school. I think about people who didn't get in or don't apply because of this kind of thing and I don't think, 'Gosh, didn't I do better than them at teaching myself to think logically', I think 'there but for the grace of God* go I'. Which is why I'll never be able to agree with you that 'people just need to get on with it', and I'll never agree that it's that simple.

I don't know what to do about it, exactly - I think Cambridge already do a brilliant job and I strongly disagree, for example, with things like lowering offers - but I think the issue of changing ingrained attitudes needs to be taken more seriously than 'tell them to stop thinking so illogically'.

*or luck, or something else

PRSOM

[lp386]

(Original post by Doughnuts!!)
That Winnie the Pooh joke was simply awful...

That's what I was aiming for, so all's good. (I have another particularly filthy one, but I'll save that for another occasion.)

[gethsemane342]

(Original post by Melz0r)
Mainly addressed to Alex: I'm not going to argue with you directly, so feel free to dismiss this as an irrelevant personal point, but I've been wanting to make it as I've watched this discussion develop.

The example that's been passed around, of someone in a rural school with no big Oxbridge tradition, where family members or peers aren't informed about Oxbridge and even have negative attitudes about it, is basically me. I've already described my anti-Oxbridge Cam dropout head of sixth, I had a close family member who thought I shouldn't go because they thought I'd have no fun and thought I was just doing it to prove something, I had teachers who completely failed to understand it was necessary for me to get As. You get the idea. Not super-deprived, not super-great. I was really confused by the massive profusion of information online, and because I didn't understand the extent to which colleges are autonomous, I was confused by the Emma website because its fonts and background were completely different to the Cambridge website. Which seems absurd now, of course! But anyway. In the end I managed to, as you say, 'think logically', make a good application, choose a college, convert my sceptical family member, get in, and do well. But I don't look back on that and think how much more I deserve to get in than someone who didn't manage that, I don't think that I deserve a place more than someone whose difficulties were bigger and whose effort was correspondingly larger and who had to get past deeper scepticism and an even more apathetic and ill-informed school. I think about people who didn't get in or don't apply because of this kind of thing and I don't think, 'Gosh, didn't I do better than them at teaching myself to think logically', I think 'there but for the grace of God* go I'. Which is why I'll never be able to agree with you that 'people just need to get on with it', and I'll never agree that it's that simple.

I don't know what to do about it, exactly - I think Cambridge already do a brilliant job and I strongly disagree, for example, with things like lowering offers - but I think the issue of changing ingrained attitudes needs to be taken more seriously than 'tell them to stop thinking so illogically'.

*or luck, or something else

I agree with this. My school was incredibly ill-informed. I was very lucky in that my parents encouraged me to consider Cambridge (I probably wouldn't have if my mother hadn't suggested it to me), my school encouraged me to try and also that people in my year were impressed that I was going to try and were really supportive of it.

But although the information *is* out there, I wasn't sure where exactly. I asked about my grades on TSR and was completely ignored. I saw people with UMS of 95%+. In fact, I was lucky that my school was uninformed because they told me the average of 90% across 3 A2s was probably something special to Churchill College and suggested I just apply to a different college (I obviously learnt later was a uni-wide average and, true enough, I had the lowest A2 marks of the Christ's lawyers). But all I knew were stereotypes (hence why I didn't apply to Peterhouse or John's) and vague bits of information here and there. The only Cambridge reps I'd seen were actually pretty posh. I went on the Cambridge Law Conference and was surrounded by private schooled people, which while not a bad thing in itself, reinforced stereotype in my mind.

A lot of people I know didn't apply to Oxbridge because they thought they wouldn't fit in, they'd need to pay a lot of money or that they weren't smart enough. If they saw the information, they might think differently. But *getting* them to consider looking for the information is a different ballpark entirely. They knew other places they'd be happy and assumed things about Oxbridge entirely because they'd been given no reason to think otherwise (Oxbridge access to Wales consists of Churchill College giving one talk in which they scare the hell out of everyone and an extremely posh man tells us he was a Tonypandy boy and has learnt to network with very rich people. We weren't sure if they were trying to convince us to apply or trying to put us off. I've never heard of Oxford even talking to schools in Wales)

[Slumpy]

(Original post by gethsemane342)
But all I knew were stereotypes (hence why I didn't apply to Peterhouse or John's) and vague bits of information here and there.


I've never heard of Oxford even talking to schools in Wales)

For most colleges, all I really know still are stereotypes (and maybe what their sports facilities/teams are like).

In Scotland it's much the same I think none of that bothered me though because I was just pretty confident about the whole thing!

[ukdragon37]

(Original post by Slumpy)
For most colleges, all I really know still are stereotypes (and maybe what their sports facilities/teams are like).

In Scotland it's much the same I think none of that bothered me though because I was just pretty confident about the whole thing!

My school basically didn't know anything helpful about how to approach an Oxbridge application. However crucially they were at least aware of Oxbridge being a possibility and every year they would inform pupils of the deadline and encouraged us to apply (although very very few actually do). Once I've done my own research and found out what the application would entail they were very happy to give me all the support and references I wanted. So overall the experience I got from my school was positive, especially considering it was an inner-city comprehensive!

[lp386]

(Original post by gethsemane342)
I agree with this. My school was incredibly ill-informed. I was very lucky in that my parents encouraged me to consider Cambridge (I probably wouldn't have if my mother hadn't suggested it to me), my school encouraged me to try and also that people in my year were impressed that I was going to try and were really supportive of it.

But although the information *is* out there, I wasn't sure where exactly. I asked about my grades on TSR and was completely ignored. I saw people with UMS of 95%+. In fact, I was lucky that my school was uninformed because they told me the average of 90% across 3 A2s was probably something special to Churchill College and suggested I just apply to a different college (I obviously learnt later was a uni-wide average and, true enough, I had the lowest A2 marks of the Christ's lawyers). But all I knew were stereotypes (hence why I didn't apply to Peterhouse or John's) and vague bits of information here and there. The only Cambridge reps I'd seen were actually pretty posh. I went on the Cambridge Law Conference and was surrounded by private schooled people, which while not a bad thing in itself, reinforced stereotype in my mind.

A lot of people I know didn't apply to Oxbridge because they thought they wouldn't fit in, they'd need to pay a lot of money or that they weren't smart enough. If they saw the information, they might think differently. But *getting* them to consider looking for the information is a different ballpark entirely. They knew other places they'd be happy and assumed things about Oxbridge entirely because they'd been given no reason to think otherwise (Oxbridge access to Wales consists of Churchill College giving one talk in which they scare the hell out of everyone and an extremely posh man tells us he was a Tonypandy boy and has learnt to network with very rich people. We weren't sure if they were trying to convince us to apply or trying to put us off. I've never heard of Oxford even talking to schools in Wales)

PRSOM, and thank you. I was tremendously lucky to have a half-decent school (arguably the best in the area, but still low enough on GCSE scores to get a flag on my application), with a member of staff who would go over personal statements, give practice interviews, and write half-decent references, ex-students who came back to talk to us about the university, friends who tolerated me yapping on about politics and economics all the time and were unfazed when they walked into the library in the morning and saw me verbally tearing apart the newspaper, plus teachers who were happy to indulge my occasional tangents in class (as well as my falling asleep on one occasion when my economics teacher was probably trying to explain the difference between fiscal and monetary policy for the twelve billionth time) and my wanting to talk and think about things that must have seemed a bit odd. And my parents for giving me enough academic self-confidence, and not subscribing to the rumours, such that an Oxbridge application seemed like a natural progression and not a huge gamble (even if they did try to push me into applying for maths over the course of about fifteen years!)

Without all these things, I wouldn't be here. And it's just so dependent on individual circumstances - the information may well be out there, but you have to think highly enough of yourself to look for it, get someone on here with enough know-how to not shatter your confidence if you have a couple of dropped grades, and have your school not eff up the process.

As for Oxbridge access to Wales - I think we do do badly for anywhere that isn't either urban or near Cambridge, as other people have said. I seem to recall reading that the same number of students got in from Scotland as got in from Richmond-upon-Thames in the year I applied, and there's no way that should be the case. How we fix all this I don't know - I worry that it's all much too ingrained for us to do anything more than chip away at it over a couple of decades.

[Slumpy]

(Original post by ukdragon37)
My school basically didn't know anything helpful about how to approach an Oxbridge application. However crucially they were at least aware of Oxbridge being a possibility and every year they would inform pupils of the deadline and encouraged us to apply (although very very few actually do). Once I've done my own research and found out what the application would entail they were very happy to give me all the support and references I wanted. So overall the experience I got from my school was positive, especially considering it was an inner-city comprehensive!

Yeah, I was a touch unfair. I think there was one talk from some Oxbridge people in Dundee (which obviously anybody who was suggested went to, since it was a day off school), and my school knew the dates and stuff. Did mean we still had to sit through weeks of Soc Ed about personal statements and stuff when our applications were already in though¬¬
We did have a chap from the year before talk to a couple of us (but since he'd not actually been, he couldn't tell us much!), so not bad. Also an inner-'city' comp

[Slumpy]

(Original post by lp386)
As for Oxbridge access to Wales - I think we do do badly for anywhere that isn't either urban or near Cambridge, as other people have said. I seem to recall reading that the same number of students got in from Scotland as got in from Richmond-upon-Thames in the year I applied, and there's no way that should be the case. How we fix all this I don't know - I worry that it's all much too ingrained for us to do anything more than chip away at it over a couple of decades.

The Scotland thing-we had 250 odd in my last year of school, and less than 10 applied to any uni in England (most of those to Oxbridge/Imperial). I'm not sure people are as bothered by it in Scotland (to be fair, Edinburgh/Glasgow/St A/others are pretty good, and free).

[Melz0r]

(Original post by gethsemane342)
Oxbridge access to Wales consists of Churchill College giving one talk in which they scare the hell out of everyone and an extremely posh man tells us he was a Tonypandy boy and has learnt to network with very rich people. We weren't sure if they were trying to convince us to apply or trying to put us off. I've never heard of Oxford even talking to schools in Wales

That sounds terrible, if hilarious.

We were so lucky on our access trip to Cumbria because our college access officer last year was Cumbrian himself, so the kids just instantly empathised with him (he also happened to be a brilliant public speaker and general all-round great guy, so that helped too). It was weird because the kids all automatically assumed I was posh by virtue of being southern...

[ukdragon37]

(Original post by Slumpy)
The Scotland thing-we had 250 odd in my last year of school, and less than 10 applied to any uni in England (most of those to Oxbridge/Imperial). I'm not sure people are as bothered by it in Scotland (to be fair, Edinburgh/Glasgow/St A/others are pretty good, and free).

I was the only person in my year to apply to any uni outside of Scotland, except one other girl who applied to Oxford but didn't get an interview.

[Slumpy]

(Original post by ukdragon37)
I was the only person in my year to apply to any uni outside of Scotland, except one other girl who applied to Oxford but didn't get an interview.

Wow. That said, members of my family aside, I can count perhaps 5-10 people over the last 3 years who applied to anywhere in England from my school.

[lp386]

You know what we were saying about sport being seen as more egalitarian than Oxbridge? A BBC reporter's just tweeted that a third of team GB were privately educated, as were 40% of Beijing gold medal winners. Which isn't that much better... That said, I'll grant the gold medal example is not a huge sample size (the whole of team GB should be plenty enough to satisfy the law of large numbers)

(Original post by Slumpy)
The Scotland thing-we had 250 odd in my last year of school, and less than 10 applied to any uni in England (most of those to Oxbridge/Imperial). I'm not sure people are as bothered by it in Scotland (to be fair, Edinburgh/Glasgow/St A/others are pretty good, and free).

Ah, that's true - I hadn't considered that. English-centric bias...

[alex_hk90]

(Original post by lp386)
You know what we were saying about sport being seen as more egalitarian than Oxbridge? A BBC reporter's just tweeted that a third of team GB were privately educated, as were 40% of Beijing gold medal winners. Which isn't that much better... That said, I'll grant the gold medal example is not a huge sample size (the whole of team GB should be plenty enough to satisfy the law of large numbers)

Indeed, which further demonstrates that it is the public perception of Oxbridge which is the issue, rather than anything intrinsic to the universities themselves.

[FO12DY]

Is there a reason I only ever read PRSOM in this thread?

Actually had to UD it to find out what it meant. The definition cited TSR, but by my reckoning it should cite this thread! Seems to be used on every page from the first to current (and I've just got it in on this page).