Oxford vs Princeton

What kind of daily reading do you do?

Nice article though... reinforces the widely held view (on here at least) of how good the undergraduate system is at Oxbridge as well as illustrating the cost (significantly higher workload on academic staff)

What kind of daily reading do you do?

Nice article though... reinforces the widely held view (on here at least) of how good the undergraduate system is at Oxbridge as well as illustrating the cost (significantly higher workload on academic staff)

Actually, I think he missed the one major effect of our tutorial and personal tuition system: when you're not happy, they fix it.

For all the advantages of having an hour a week with a tutor going over your essay, the bulk of it, for E&M at least, is making sure that the 2-4 people sitting there understand that week's topic. That can be done, albeit not strictly as well, in a class. Lectures also should be more important, if they were done better, and made more core to the course.

However when this term the Univ economists realised that despite being interesting discussions and enjoyable tutorials, we didn't feel confident answering exam questions in macro because they were just that, interesting discussions, and not structured critiques of our essays nor long tutorials making sure we understand the topic thoroughly, we spoke to our tutors. Who immediately decided to give us two extra classes and lengthen our tutorials so we could go into the material in more depth. They also structured the tutorials to answer key questions and discuss important points, not just something around the subject. This means the problems were remedied while we were still being taught, and addressed immediately. That wouldn't be possible if we had a professor lecturing and teaching a class of 30 or 40.

In all systems things go wrong. Very few people have every single topic well taught. However when it does go wrong, the tutorial system means the tutor can listen to the problems and address it immediately, not just for next years class. It's impossible to feel like a number at Oxford, when your tutors rearrange their schedule because you have a commitment, or change things because of an individual request.

That's an incredible key strength of Oxford, I have to concur.

Why not? Harvard and Princeton are different, but they follow a similar system. Indeed, Princeton's often thought of as better for undergrad, as without the law, business and medical school it concentrates on academic studies more, supposidly.

I agree in a lot of ways, except:

1. As a New Jerseyan myself, I've always though Princeton was overrated

2. Although I did get the mean tutorial criticisms, tutorials almost always ended with "great job this week." I mean, do these people have thin skins or what?

3. Oxford tutors are great, but honestly most of the top academics have run off to the States because the money is better, so you'll have more professors at the top of their game at Princeton. I mean, Toni Morrisson and Cornell West! Amazing.

Yeah that's true, but for example, I went to office hours for a big time sociology professor at LSE. His office door was closed, locked, and had a tiny window you could barely see into! The office admin told me to wait, so I sat outside for 40 minutes waiting for him to come out. And one of the main reasons I didn't apply to Oxford for my MSc was that the head tutor for the program I was interested in cancelled his appointment without telling me, then yelled at me for asking later why he hadn't been there!

At my undergrad university you could walk straight into the office of any major professor and chat about anything you wanted. During office hours the doors were always open.