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What you wish you'd been told before coming to Oxford

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griffle

brilliant thread <3 i'm considering whether to take english at oxford but i'm the kind of person who really likes having a life and i'm a little lazy, i don't work as hard as i should in favour of slobbing in front of come dine with me or something, would the workload for english at oxford kill me? by the looks of that holiday reading list above, it might.

also, is there very little focus on modern english then?

and i know it's a little irrelevant, but what other universities did you oxford englishers like before you accepted oxford? i'm a little scared i'll choose the oxford course (on the crazy chance i get in) over others that i would have liked a lot more ie. flexible, modern.

thank you so much :smile:

to be fair, that easily describes like, half of the people i know doing english here. although i don't watch come dine with me :wink:

.

yeah, not so much with modern stuff. i mean you do a modern paper in your first year - usually, anyway - and then you can do a vaguely modern author for paper 7 if you like one of the options, and you can do modern stuff for paper 8... but none of your finals exams will be on modern literature.

i liked warwick. i still don't think i'd actually rather be anywhere else - the good does outweigh the bad - but the warwick english &cw course would have suited me better.

Reply 101

cpchem

Andy the Anarchist

It is no joke to say that first year at Oxford is at least double, if not more work than you will ever get at A level.

If you're a half-decent scientist, I reckon it's more like a ten- to twenty-fold increase in 'own-time' working - given that I, for example, never did more than about two hours per week in homework during years twelve and thirteen. That number skyrocketed when I got here.

Reply 102

Andy the Anarchist

cpchem

Well I'd say it was a four times increase for me, but I didn't want to be accused of hyperbole :p:

Reply 103

Cirsium

cpchem

Agreed. I probably did a bit more than 2 hours because I used to work during free periods while dealing poker, so it wasn't exactly condensed! In my first year I was probably only doing about 5 hours each day on top of lectures and labs but it's still a significant difference from A-level where essentially I turned up and just internalised what they said.

Reply 104

Mathlete91

Athena

Do you know CW (your college, about to go into 3rd year)?

What course? I haven't heard of them I don't think.

I don't really like Oxford work, I don't really think I would succeed in any degree here :frown:

Reply 105

Mathlete91

If you feel like that now, why not change courses, as long as you like the uni, that is? Provided you've got through any preliminary exams reasonably well, you should be able to do it - and there are plenty of options open to you, if you got in for Maths. Sorry you're having an awful time - please do think about switching; it's horrible to be here studying a course you don't enjoy. Hope things work out for you!

I don't think they would let me change courses, and anyway I would have to start again, in which case I may as well change unis and have a better time of it, and carry on with my course despite not liking studying it at Oxford. I think I'm just not good enough to be at Oxford and won't succeed, and also my prelims results will be awful so nobody will let me transfer :frown:

But thank you for your kindness!

Reply 106

*pitseleh*

griffle

To be honest, I was pretty lazy in my first year (took most of the week off; worked for probably two solid days each week.. though I did do a fair bit of holiday reading) - it's doable, and I got through exams fine, but I'm definitely happier this year, due to putting in a bit more effort, and feeling more on top of things. Make of that what you will!

There is very little focus on Modern English; there's an option in first year (which I didn't take, though most do), and you can take a modernist bent for two of your special options at finals, but other than that, you would almost definitely be better off trying somewhere else if you weren't interested in much before 1900.

As for other courses: Durham was the one that really excited me.

Mathlete91

I don't think they would let me change courses, and anyway I would have to start again, in which case I may as well change unis and have a better time of it, and carry on with my course despite not liking studying it at Oxford. I think I'm just not good enough to be at Oxford and won't succeed, and also my prelims results will be awful so nobody will let me transfer :frown:

But thank you for your kindness!

You're welcome; and if you think you'd have a better time at another uni, that's absolutely the right thing to do, IMHO.. I only think it's worth thinking about changing courses if you like the uni itself. It sounds like you've got yourself (understandably, if you hate the course) into a pretty self-critical frame of mind, though.. just remember that the style of work and teaching at Oxford doesn't work for everyone - one of my closest friends left last year, and is just about to begin a degree at York. I've known it happen to quite a number of other people, and it's rarely ever that the individual 'isn't good enough'; rather that the environment just doesn't suit them.

Sorry, am waffling.. it's just that you sounded so sad that I wanted to say something encouraging. Good luck, whatever you decide to do. :smile:

Reply 107

anita21

Mathlete91

I don't really like Oxford work, I don't really think I would succeed in any degree here :frown:

My cousin also did maths at Oxford and hated it, so you're definitely not the only one to go through this.

I was doing psychology at oxford up until a year ago - I also really struggled with the massive workload (I really don't suit writing essays) and basically didn't do any work one term and then never caught up in the holidays.. decided to withdraw rather than go back, face the music & probably get sent down...

it was really crap leaving friends and moving back home, but it's now working out as i've applied to do a different course at different unis starting in october (already got 2 unconditional offers yay :woo:

) and I can't wait to get started doing a course I actually enjoy doing the work for at somewhere a bit more relaxed than the high pressures (imagined or real) of oxbridge :biggrin:

good luck in whatever you decide to do - stick it out or switch unis.. there's obviously advantages and disadvantages of both options, but take it from me that it's not the end of the world to drop out of oxford, difficult though it may be at the time.

Reply 108

pinkpenguin

That having your computer on when you're trying to read for an essay is not 'helpful' nor aids your jealousy of seemingly non-working friends of yours at other universities.

And Wikipedia is a useful enough during an 'I-have-an-essay-due-in-1-hour-and-have-only-1500-words' moment. Just don't reference properly and take that rant from the tutor..

Reply 109

Elles

Sooz2471

...and that you can't buy sweet wine anywhere for under £15... :wink:

You can!

Try Waitrose (Headington) for a sweet wine shelf & plenty around the £10 mark. Even Sainsbury's (Clarendon) did a pretty drinkable own brand sweet spanish white for something ridiculous like £4.

I suppose mine would have been spend more time just enjoying it & make the absolute most of it - 6 years goes quickly! :biggrin:

Reply 110

made_of_fail

tbh, it's not all that bad. i know a ppeist who does **** all. plus your econ courses are a joke

Reply 111

Teebs

made_of_fail

tbh, it's not all that bad. i know a ppeist who does fuck all. plus your econ courses are a joke

I know your mum and she does **** all too, although in a different sense.

Reply 112

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Teebs

I know your mum and she does **** all too, although in a different sense.

Reply 113

Teebs

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Just because I'm nasty less often doesn't mean I don't still have it :p:

Reply 114

The_Lonely_Goatherd

Teebs

Just because I'm nasty less often doesn't mean I don't still have it

I'm not quick-witted, so I'm showing my appreciation of your quick wit with my smilies :yep:

As far as English is concerned, as well as taking modern options for Paper 7 and Paper 8, you can also do relatively modern stuff for Paper 1, if you want to. Obviously I'm not denying that the course is very traditional in focus, but that's still 3/8 papers that don't ahve to be historically-concentrated in the way that the period papers are.

(I actually did history-of-Standard-English and a comparison between Shakespeare and Sheridan for Paper 1, and a lot of people at my college worked on dictionaries - but then we were a very traditional lot, with liberal humanist tutors. I know that there are areas of Paper 1 which are less traditional - some people do things like language and gender, which is a fairly young sub-discipline by its very nature.)

Reply 117

Mayfly

Just because you've been taught 8 topics doesn't mean any more than two of them will come up in that Finals paper, and they won't neccessarily correspond to what you've learned on that topic. Sometimes a whole essay will have to be based off an obscure article you read on the side. Look at past papers to remind yourself of the fickleness of the history faculty's idea of what its curriculum is, and do some around-reading.

Also the same faculty won't bother sticking to the date they told you they'd release exam results on.