why are oxbridge terms so short & without a break?

edinburgh dont have reading weeks and our first semester is 13 weeks (last 2 are exams so effectively 11 weeks constant work) and then we finish at christmas

and our second is 17 weeks with a break for easter in the middle

Think for themselves, yes, but "innovation" is perhaps slightly too big a word for it. After all, let's be realistic here: it's kind of unlikely that you'll revolutionise your field through essays you write in your first year.

Well, I assume I only have one a week. Definitely do this term, but next term I might get taught in-college for a paper and it's plausible that my tutor will be mean and set more...but I think I'm going back out of college in the third term so I'll be free of Merton workload insanity again.

I guess as someone already said, in subjects like History and other social sciences, that is one thoroughly researched essay- which will take time no matter how clever you are, as opposed to Literature, where it is more likely that you can real off an interesting reading of the text without putting in hours into preparation/planning

Hmm, I'm not so sure I agree with this, actually... There is a reason why English tutors tend to give out a lengthy reading list each week, and there is a reason why they usually expect you to get through most (though perhaps not all) of it. Interesting readings of a text don't just form in a vacuum and they don't exist in a vacuum either - they are interesting relative to something. In order to be able to come up with a genuinely interesting reading, you have to familiarise yourself with that "something" first, otherwise it will just be a stab in the dark, as you can't possibly know whether what you're saying really is interesting and innovative, or whether it's actually been a critical commonplace ever since the 1930s (or the 1990s, for that matter).

I thought lectures and tutorials only started in week one?

what sort of things?
do you know if its possible to ask to be given that work before you arrive so you don't spoil your freshers week

what sort of things?
do you know if its possible to ask to be given that work before you arrive so you don't spoil your freshers week

(I wasn't talking about innovation there)
I just meant- I always found it much easier to read critical works of texts and use them to give an edge to my reading- or even a thorough incorporation of my response to that reading in relation to the text, than to do research on a historical or social geography topic

Actually, now that I think about it, I think at least once last year, the Classicists (or at least the Classicists at Worcester) had a "reading week". Though all this meant was that they didn't have tutorials. They still had lectures and work to do

No, you'll have to live with it. For the social sciences/humanities it would be difficult to do at home as you won't have access to reading lists/jstor etc.

Isn't there a move towards only having tutors teach seven tutes a term, to give them more research time and thus the uni more money? It's officially the case in History, at least (not that my tutor pays attention...)