UGA at Oxford event celebrates unique study abroad experience
On Sept. 12, friends of the University of Georgia will convene in London to welcome the newest participants of the UGA at Oxford program and celebrate one of the most unique study abroad experiences UGA has to offer.
For 30 years, UGA students have made their home in the stunning environs of the University of Oxford, enjoying the connection between one of the oldest universities in the United States and one of the oldest universities on the planet.
UGA at Oxford offers a vast array of courses in a wide range of disciplines—humanities, sciences, international affairs, business, communications, law and more—with sessions held throughout the year.
Despite being immersed in the Oxford student experience, UGA study abroad students still pay regular in-state tuition, covered by any existing financial aid—as if they were in Athens taking classes. The courses offer UGA credit towards each student’s major pathway, but they are taught by Oxford faculty in the distinctive Oxford style of undergraduate education.
That distinctive style is characterized by two key features: the “collegiate system” and the “tutorial model.” The collegiate system sees each student taught within the colleges—Oxford has 38 constituent colleges—but completing their education with six, three-hour exams set by the university, encouraging competition among the colleges. The core of a student’s education is made up of weekly, one-on-one, hour-long meetings with one of the college’s fellows, who is often a full professor and world-leading academic.
The tutorial model eschews the type of education that points students to specific lessons and textbook chapters, opting instead for a comprehensive approach in which a student is introduced to all available literature on a subject and must chart their own course. Each week, they create work examining the subject, discuss it with their tutor and defend the work from their tutor’s critiques.
Students who take part in UGA at Oxford are granted access to truly one-of-a-kind facilities. Depending on the focus and/or semester of their program, students live, work and play in the centuries-old halls of Keble College or Trinity College or UGA’s own UGA at Oxford Centre, a renovated nineteenth-century Victorian mansion in north Oxford.
UGA at Oxford alumni leave the program having enjoyed an unparalleled learning experience and embraced a different culture, two things that can have a profound impact on the student experience and, ultimately, our students’ lives.
If you will be in London on Tuesday, Sept. 12, we invite you to join us in welcoming the newest UGA at Oxford students and celebrating the program and people who make this singular learning experience possible.
