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| Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
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Student life in an alien world : All work and no play... by Jeevani Mantotta One day someone said to me, "You seem to be having a lot of fun at Uni. You never talk about studying". I thought, "Well, yes. I study a lot, but it's not interesting. So, what's the point talking about it?" For the first time I thought about just how much work it was.
Oxford's strength is in its tutorial system (Cambridge calls them 'supervisions'). Students are taught, in pairs, by an expert in the field. My first tutorial was a shock. I was given a title and a reading list and told to have the essay in by the end of the week. I hadn't had lectures on the topic and knew very little about it. I had 5 days in which to find the books, read them and absorb enough information to hold my own in a discussion about the topic. I nearly quit there and then. Half a packet of chocolate biscuits later, I'd calmed down enough to make a start. Just when I was getting to grips with the idea of how much information I needed to cram into my poor sleep deprived head, I was sent the work sheet for a different set of tutorials with a different tutor - these were also due the following week. All this and lectures as well! I hit the biscuits again. The pressure is enormous. For some, it's too much. Oxford and Cambridge have some of the highest drop out rates in the country. Most people drop out to go to other universities where they get top results and have a lot more fun. Some people are clever enough to breeze through it all. The rest of us just grit our teeth and get on with it. It's a difficult pace to keep up for long, so it's lucky that the terms are only 8 weeks long. You're so busy assimilating information that there's never enough time to absorb it properly. That's where the vacations come in. We had exams at the start of every term, so part of each vacation was spent relearning all the things that were hastily crammed in during the term. It detracts from the holiday fun somewhat (sigh). With all this frantic work and play can really wear you out. At the end of each term, I used to come home and sleep round the clock for a day. When I left for Uni, I was a light sleeper. By the end of the first term I could sleep through a hurricane. |
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The transition from A levels to University level teaching is quite
difficult to take. Oxford throws you in at the deep end (Cambridge, I
gather, does too). Everything I'd learnt at A level was covered in
lectures by the end of week two. From then on, it was all new territory.
At school you have teachers who pause and explain things when you get
lost. At university a tutor delivers a lecture and hands you a reading
list. The rest is up to you. If you get lost, that's your problem.
