Katherine C. - Oxford, England - Fall 2010

It has been one month since I arrived in Oxford and started here at CMRS – well, very nearly a month and by the time this is posted that will be true. What to say about what has really been a cavalcade of experiences in this one post? I guess I will try to go in order on an overview scope. For anyone interested in a detailed account of the day to day my personal blog is at http://katherinesoxfordexperience.blogspot.com/ and I welcome any direct inquiry beyond what you are assigned to ask in the comments here at my e-mail address: mylinkay@gmail.com either now or in the future and will do my best to answer promptly.

When I arrived the staff had someone to meet me at the Gloucester Green coach station and that was Bianca, the current Junior Dean who is here working on her doctorate and overseeing the dorms this semester. I did end up bringing two suitcases and that did make it difficult to manage my baggage, but for a whole three months here I really did feel I needed all I brought – and incidentally I do recommend bringing a range of clothing for warm, chilly, sunny, and rainy weather because the weather here in England is nothing if not unpredictable!

The building we are housed in where classes also take place is quite old to our standards, though not ancient as some of the places in Oxford can truly claim, and so there is no elevator. Expect stairs and plenty of them. I also recommend bringing an Ethernet cord for your room if you are bringing a laptop – even though wireless is provided, it is an old building and so a hard-line connection is more reliable, especially in the first few days when things are getting set up and settled in. Every room has outlets (look into proper converters as needed, more on this in my personal blog’s earliest entries) and Ethernet connection plugs on the walls.

The semester here at Oxford is not the same length as the semester at home, ours is longer, so initially you are not taking all your classes when you begin. You start with the Integral class that you were required to sign up for in this program and that runs one month with its own final and essay assignment at the end before your other three classes begin (the 2 tutorials and the 1 seminar). This gives you a good amount of time to settle in and is actually quite brilliant because the four field trip outings described in the packet are all done in this first Integral course which really gives you a feel for England in general and gives you plenty of time virtually every afternoon to explore Oxford and familiarize yourself with the landscape, shops, eateries, and other essentials. Basically you have two lectures every morning Monday – Friday from 9/9:30 to 10/10:30 and 11-12, and a Field Trip each week which takes up the whole day generally; breakfast is served from 8-8:45, lunch from 12:30 to 1:15, and dinner from 6:30-7:15. You can see from that the places in the day built in for study (remember to study!!), exploration, and making friends.

At first, it is really you and a building full of other American students here for the Integral course ahead of all the other English students who will trickle in gradually before the start of official University term. This, while at first it seems counterproductive to your immersion into another culture, is actually another stroke of brilliance by CMRS’s methodology because you can build a base of support and friendship among students in the same position as yourself before going forth to encounter the bulk of native students.

This is getting a bit long… what else can I say? Oh, well the field trips are amazing – do bring a camera and take lots of photos. If you are not planning to travel while you are here they are going to be your best opportunity to see the sights and they are already funded in the cost of your tuition as far as admission and transportation – though you should bring some money for food and souvenirs of course. Also, and this is rather important, when you receive the recommended reading list from CMRS about a month before you leave and it suggests that you might want to “look into” some of the listed texts for what they call colloquium – READ THEM. Buy them and read them, I wish I had. First, it will save you money to buy them and bring them and you can mark them up how you like if they are yours (remember the dollar is worth less than the pound so buying them here logically costs you more) and also it will save you time which will be at a premium as you will very much want to go out and explore and make friends and so on – not be in your room reading earnestly every hour of the day your first month here. Also, they hit you with a rather larger list of recommended reading when your Integral course starts up and it is really easy to feel overwhelmed by that (don’t worry, for that list you can be selective, and that will be explained in the program) if you are also trying to read whole books for colloquium which are all required reading. Many people here stressing out this week because of that little issue, so if you can summon your motivation to get what is suggested read ahead of time you’ll be better off for it when you are here.

Of course, this is the barest of overviews so please do ask questions and please do feel free to go to my personal blog and read or ask questions there, e-mail me, follow, comment, whatever you think will be helpful. A big thing on my mind while I am here (and before my 3 major classes pick up next week) is sending back as much that might be helpful as I can to my Elmhurst community, family, and friends while I am on this epic adventure.

Editor's note: Take a look at the View from St. Mary's Tower video that Katherine produced at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyM56T4p-ms. Gorgeous!