While there are many differences between the academic systems of Northeastern University and Oxford University, the biggest difference for me was the personalized learning held at the core of Oxford’s educational approach. A distinctive and important part of studying at Oxford are the ‘tutorials,’ where students meet with tutors, who are experts in the course topic, to discuss the course material throughout the term. The tutorials provide a chance for students to receive individualized feedback on their work and to talk in-depth about their subject. Instead of describing this unique system in an objective manner, I felt it can be best explained by those who actually participate in the tutorials. Below are brief explanations and testimonials to the success of the tutorial system by Oxford students (and myself!). Enjoy!
To begin, I wanted to share my own personal experience with the tutorial system. I wanted to study abroad at Oxford as I felt that my two academic interests, neuroscience and philosophy, required this setting to really explore. Neuroscience is blowing wide open as new research presents novel findings everyday. It’s much more common for me to see unknown variables and unproven hypotheses in my neuroscience classes than in chemistry or physics. There are still unresolved controversies in physics, of course, but these take place against the backdrop of broad agreement. In philosophy and neuroscience, almost everything is controversial and open-ended, which is partly why I find them so exciting. The best way to study this material, I believe, is in a conversation-based setting, of which the Oxford tutorial system is the epitome. The intimacy of the tutorial system offers what many of my lecture-based classes have struggled to provide: the idea that students have important and noteworthy perspectives to share. The tutorial system fosters critical thinking by pushing students to be ready for criticism and to respond to it. This continual learning and shaping of ideas is what is so stimulating about academia, and what the tutorial system really excels in providing.
“The tutorial system here in Oxford is incredible. Essentially, a small group of students (for me, between 2-3 students) will meet up, once a week for about an hour to discuss our essay, ideas, questions with our tutor, who often happens to be the leading academic in that field. It’s such a great way to hammer out big picture thinking, as well as really knuckle down into the details and complexity of ideas and their contradictions. Through this system, you build such valuable relationships with your peers, and your tutor becomes a personal mentor rather than a distant and un-relatable professor.”
– Maddie, St. Catherine’s College
“It’s an unparalleled opportunity to be face to face with an authority on the subject, who has the tools and context of years of academia to critique your essay in a way that can be very useful and surprising. [You] often try to treat the tute as a springboard from which you leave with more questions that you came with. Tutorials often take place in academic’s offices; this again adds to the intimacy of the affair, because often [you] can see into lives of academics and see their passions quite literally laid out in front of you – e.g. what books are on their shelves, framed posters, etc. Tutorials outside of college also offer a chance to get inside Oxford in a way you wouldn’t always be able to.”
– Freya, St. Catherine’s College
“The tutorial system has helped me test out my ideas in a space without judgement and it is a true privilege to have a tutor devote their time to me and maybe one or two other peers.”
– Hamidah, The Queen’s College
“As a history student, tutorials form the major component of our teaching. Tutorials are very small, focussed groups, normally only two students and a tutor. In them, we discuss that weeks essay topic, debating the various themes from the topic, and bouncing ideas off each other. They are also a space where you can discuss anything you were unsure about from from your reading, and the tutors will give you feedback on your essay. Overall they provide a highly concentrated environment of learning.”
– Chloe, St. Catherine’s College
“Since it is so close quarters it allows us as students to explore the full breadth of the topic with the helping hand of an expert in that field. I definitely feel that the best academic experiences I’ve had in Oxford have come from tutorials, and I’ve been able to approach subjects in ways that aren’t really possible in the very impersonal setting of a lecture hall.”
– Jin-Gyu, Keble College
“To me, the tutorial system is a method of learning that encourages students to be autonomous and responsible for their own education. In writing weekly essays, we are in essence our own teachers. You only have class for maybe an hour or two a week, but it’s a concentrated session that allows you and your professor to dig deeper into the topics you’re studying. Not only that, but because each tutorial is usually one-on-one, it gives students the opportunity to delve deeper into specialized areas and receive a much more personalized education than what you would get in a typical lecture experience.”
– Lauren, St. Catherine’s College
“The tutorial system really scared me when I first came to Oxford – being put on the spot, forced to think of arguments and responses immediately – but as I grew used to my tutors and the structure of tutorials, they became my favourite aspect of academic life. It’s being able to talk about really interesting topics with someone who is a world-class expert in that area; you explore the issues and intricacies of Renaissance materiality or the restriction of the human form in Beckett. It’s truly great.”
– Alice, The Queen’s College
