English course workload - York and Durham in particular

Can anyone tell me what the general workload would be (number of essays etc). Someone said that the workload at Durham is much easier - is this true? Also at York do you get any tutorial time?

Reply 1

Charlottie

Yes, you get tutorials at York, or so they told me at the open day yesterday. The guy also mentioned two major essays per term. Other than that, I can't help much as I'm in a similar position. :smile:

Reply 2

dappleddawndrawndauphin

do any universities other than oxbridge have "supervision" style lessons with 2-3 people for English?

Reply 3

Charlottie

York were saying that they had something similar, and most universities have small group teachings for English which is just discussion. But, as far as I know, Oxbridge tutorials stand apart somewhat.

Reply 4

lskdgjsj

The supervision system is marvellous, but very hard to export. Last term I had six supervisors, and would generally have about four or five supervisions a week, one-on-one for an hour with a supervisor in literature, philosophy, language, or history, and all of my supervisors were lecturers or professors, not merely grad students: it's wonderful for the student, but it places quite a strain on teaching resources, and takes up a great deal of time. The newer universities, which lack the same highly evolved collegiate structure, would probably find it almost impossible to give undergraduates this amount of personal attention. I heard not that long ago that even Oxford was thinking of cutting back on it a little bit, by having more supervisions conducted by graduate supervisors.