st hugh’s college oxford for history

hey i’m just wondering what st hugh’s is like for history (ie what is it’s reputation in the university, does it have a strong history faculty) and also generally what is it like to be a student there? thanks :smile:

Reply 1

thegeek888

Original post

by Anonymous

The St. Hugh's College, Oxford library looks a lot a Waterstone's bookstore with multiple copies of the most in-demand books?! 😀 lol

Search on YouTube for more St. Hugh's College, Oxford videos. 😉

Also, be sure to check out: "The Oxford University - Alternative Prospectus."

Colleges - Oxford University Alternative Prospectus (oxfordsu.org)

PS: @Stiffy Byng studied History at Wadham College, Oxford in the early 1980s, so she should be able to tell you more about the History degree at Oxford perhaps?

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

Stiffy Byng

The Oxford history degree has changed a bit since the 1980s. It remains delightfully wide in scope. Each undergraduate can take a different path to an Oxford history degree. There is a lot of scope for variety within the compulsory bits of the course, and there are plenty of optional bits.

OP, I suggest that you don't worry too much about the reputation of a college within the university. Every college that offers history is good for history. Oxford gossip and banter is just Oxford gossip and banter.

Colleges don't have faculties. There is one Faculty of History for the whole university. Different colleges have different numbers of Tutorial Fellows, Research Fellows, Stipendiary Lecturers and so on to provide teaching. Colleges make arrangements with other colleges for teaching to be provided so as to cover all options within a subject. Lectures (optional) are arranged by the University, although neither I nor any other Oxford historian whom I know has ever been to a single one of the lectures. I suppose that somebody must go, perhaps to catch up on sleep.

Some people suggest that St Hugh's is far away from the centre of Oxford, but all things are relative. Oxford is not a big city. St Hugh's is just over a mile from the Radcliffe Camera, and a short walk from the Cherwell Boathouse. I used to walk or cycle from Wadham to go to tutorials at St Hugh's, and I didn't die of exhaustion in the process.

This article has some useful insights into the history of history at Oxford -

https://academic.oup.com/past/article/261/1/259/7246025?login=false

Reply 3

tzipora butcher

Original post

by thegeek888

The St. Hugh's College, Oxford library looks a lot a Waterstone's bookstore with multiple copies of the most in-demand books?! 😀 lol

Search on YouTube for more St. Hugh's College, Oxford videos. 😉
Also, be sure to check out: "The Oxford University - Alternative Prospectus."
Colleges - Oxford University Alternative Prospectus (oxfordsu.org)
PS: @Stiffy Byng studied History at Wadham College, Oxford in the early 1980s, so she should be able to tell you more about the History degree at Oxford perhaps?

thank you that’s really helpful!

Reply 4

Anonymous #2

Original post

by Stiffy Byng

The Oxford history degree has changed a bit since the 1980s. It remains delightfully wide in scope. Each undergraduate can take a different path to an Oxford history degree. There is a lot of scope for variety within the compulsory bits of the course, and there are plenty of optional bits.
OP, I suggest that you don't worry too much about the reputation of a college within the university. Every college that offers history is good for history. Oxford gossip and banter is just Oxford gossip and banter.
Colleges don't have faculties. There is one Faculty of History for the whole university. Different colleges have different numbers of Tutorial Fellows, Research Fellows, Stipendiary Lecturers and so on to provide teaching. Colleges make arrangements with other colleges for teaching to be provided so as to cover all options within a subject. Lectures (optional) are arranged by the University, although neither I nor any other Oxford historian whom I know has ever been to a single one of the lectures. I suppose that somebody must go, perhaps to catch up on sleep.
Some people suggest that St Hugh's is far away from the centre of Oxford, but all things are relative. Oxford is not a big city. St Hugh's is just over a mile from the Radcliffe Camera, and a short walk from the Cherwell Boathouse. I used to walk or cycle from Wadham to go to tutorials at St Hugh's, and I didn't die of exhaustion in the process.
This article has some useful insights into the history of history at Oxford -
https://academic.oup.com/past/article/261/1/259/7246025?login=false

this is a useful read. A few questions please:

•

Do you have a tutorial only with someone from within your college or is there a possibility of being allocated to a tutor at a different college

•

Do History undergraduate students all have joint seminars/ lectures on a weekly basis?
Many thanks!

Reply 5

Stiffy Byng

Original post

by Anonymous

this is a useful read. A few questions please:

•

Do you have a tutorial only with someone from within your college or is there a possibility of being allocated to a tutor at a different college

•

Do History undergraduate students all have joint seminars/ lectures on a weekly basis?
Many thanks!

You will have tutorials with academics in your own college and in one or more other colleges, depending on what you are working on. I was at Wadham and most of my tutorials were at Wadham. but I also had tutorials at Pembroke, Magdalen, St Hugh's, and All Souls. YMMV.

Weekly seminars or classes were not usual when I was at Oxford, except in the introductory weeks for the old-style Prelims which we took at the end of the first term of the first year; and for revision in the final term of the final year.

I was taught in one to one or (more rarely) one to two tutorials. I did not go to any lectures, although there are always lots of lectures if you wish to go to them. My main tutor said that he'd prefer that I spend an hour in Bodley than an hour in a lecture. So that's what I did.

I worked a lot in the Upper Reading Room of the Radcliffe Camera, in the Upper Reading Room of the Old Bodleian, in the All Souls library, and in the History Faculty Library (then in the Indian Institute, but since absorbed into the Radcliffe Camera, I think). I did not often work in my college library, which I thought to be over-lit, but I sat in the more gently illuminated beanbag area at the front of the library and read periodicals sometimes. I went once to each of the English Faculty Library and the Law Faculty Library for some research, and very occasionally worked in the New Bodleian (now called the Weston Library).

I attended some optional seminars at New College in my second year. I attended a weekly seminar in the Hilary Term of my final year with Keith Thomas at St John's. That was an invitation-only seminar which I attended on the recommendation of my main tutor.

I also went to Stubbs Society meetings which were usually in Oriel, to hear papers given by distinguished historians, accompanied by claret and on one memorable occasion by rare whisky liberated by Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre, from the cellar of Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was unhappily installed as Master. He had stepped down from the Regius Chair at Oxford and gone off to Cambridge the year before I matriculated. Trevor-Roper showed admirable chutzpah by talking about the forgery of the Ossian poems in the eighteenth century. This was just after the Hitler diaries debacle. A public school type wearing a kilt, who claimed to be a descendant of the forger McPherson, tried to take Trevor-Roper on, in defence of the honour of Clan McPherson. That did not go well for the undergraduate but was fun to watch.