Oxford Summer Courses | Review

This summer, I traveled around 3,830 miles to Oxford University to have the experience of a lifetime. While there, I was given the opportunity to study creative writing through a two-week course while living at Sommerville College. The opportunity to live the Oxford University student experience in the United Kingdom was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this 16-year-old American girl, and I took it.

To give you a brief overview, Oxford Summer Courses is a company that connects students ages 13 to 24 to summer university programs hosted at Oxford University. They allow you to choose from various courses based on your age and the preferred location at which you wish to study (Cambridge, London, or Oxford). They provide not only a learning experience but also a place for you to stay while you spend two weeks studying your chosen course and making friends. On top of this, they accommodate daily meals and schedule your transfers to and/or from the airport if needed. The program also wants to ensure that you see many different attractions during your stay in the UK. Each week there are constant activities and travels to fun and beautiful places. With small class sizes, actual Oxford and Cambridge professors, and a setting that far outweighs the average American classroom, Oxford Summer Courses offers a unique perspective and experience for anyone looking to reenvision summer vacation.

Weekly Schedules

Not everyone's schedule looks the same, but here's a basic outline of what my time in Oxford looked like:

Week One:

8:00 am - Breakfast

8:30 am - 8:50 am - Check-In

9:00 am - 10:30 am - Tutorial (otherwise known as a "class")

10:30am - 10:50 am - Break

10:50 am - 12:00 pm Tutorial (continued)

From noon on, you either have free time to get yourself lunch and explore, or your Student Helper's will have an activity planned that you'll meet up for, usually around 2:00 pm.

Dinner in the dining hall is usually around 6:00-6:30 pm, but apart from the two nights each week you eat in the hall, most days, you'll be going to a variety of restaurants around that time.

After dinner, there's usually free time, unless there's another activity planned, such as a tour or movie theater trip, until the next check-in at 10:00 am. The college enacts a curfew at 10:30 pm, so most students retire to their buildings at that time.

Each Wednesday, there is no tutorial. Instead, you spend the extra time working on an assignment your tutor requires. Once you've turned it in, your day moves forward like every other day. Thursdays are days where you'll be sectioned into either 1:1 or 2:1 groups, and you'll be given specific times to meet with your tutor to reflect on the assignment you submitted the previous day.

Weekends are free from coursework to enjoy your time and do many fun activities with your friends.

Week Two:

The only main difference in week two is that your tutorial is from 2:00-5:00 pm rather than 9:00-12:00 am from the previous week. This causes your second week to feel like it's flying by much faster than the first.

What to Bring

• Clothing for hot AND cold weather.

  • I cannot stress this enough. Most of us brought lots of clothing for hot weather and not enough for cooler temperatures. The temperature went from a UK record in heat during a heat wave to dropping fifteen degrees the next day. The entire week before I arrived at my course was extremely hot, and then halfway through my first week at Oxford, the temperatures dropped and became weather for pants and sweaters.

• A formal outfit

  • You will need one to two nicer outfits to wear. There is a formal (a large and fancy dinner) each Friday and your graduation. Graduation falls back to back with your second formal on the same day.

• Course materials (this may vary based on your chosen course)

  • A bag of some sort (a tote bag or backpack)

  • A laptop

  • Paper and writing tools (pencils or pens)

• Money

  • Oxford Summer Courses posts a recommended amount of pounds for each age group to bring with them. Everyone during my course paid for their lunches on top of their shopping expenses and snacks. You will most definitely need money for water (unless you choose to drink tap water from your sink in the dorm) because the college did not provide enough water for the number of students staying there. The only times to access water were breakfast and dinner in the dining hall, and even then, we had to ration.

Looking Back

I wish I'd been provided more information before arriving at Oxford Summer Courses. Since the college you'll stay at depends on many factors, it makes sense that they don't post pictures of what your dorm will look like ahead of time, but it still bothered me when I didn't know what to expect.

When I applied to OSC, my dates were automatically switched to the week following the initial week I'd chosen. I received an email asking if the change was okay, explaining that the week I'd applied had already been filled up. I was perfectly okay with this, but when I got to the college, I discovered they had also changed my accommodation. They never informed me that they downgraded my room from a private room to one with a roommate and had altered my private bathroom to simple access to the communal washroom in my building. I complained at first, but it wasn't bad to use the shared bathrooms compared to summer camps attended. Still, their system can be very disorganized, as I encountered several other girls who were also put into the wrong rooms when I arrived. Some of them were given private rooms when they signed up for roommates, and others were given roommates when they signed up for privates. Hopefully, Oxford Summer Courses will work on this in due time to have fewer issues with students being unhappy about their accommodations.

Aside from this, schedules were well organized and put together. Students at the college were bunched into groups by subject. For example, my group consisted of students taking the following courses: architecture, creative writing, English literature, and art history. These groups contain the people you'd spend most of your time with. I wish there had been a better system that allowed us to participate in activities that combined our group with other groups because we would have made more friends. Each day was well organized. Our student helpers informed us each morning of the plan for any activities. The helpers were always incredibly welcoming and became close friends with everyone in the group. Everyone at Oxford Summer Courses, staff, and students alike, was so welcoming from the beginning to the end.

Another positive aspect is the level of freedom offered to students. We're given plenty of free time to explore, shop, and eat. You didn’t have to be escorted everywhere; this level of independence allowed for an authentic college experience.

There's so much to say about my time at Oxford Summer Courses. It is a wonderful experience for teenagers worldwide, and I highly recommend that anyone considering attending to go ahead and apply. The application process is straightforward, aside from the lack of information regarding room choices. There are so many courses to choose from, so CHOOSE!