Michaelmas

[raven]

"It is typical of Oxford," I said, "to start the new year in autumn."
-pg 101, Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh.

...what? None of you had posted it yet! Someone had to crack and say it first!

Anyway. My detour into minor pretension aside, this really is an autumn like the one described in Brideshead, sombre and grey and very wet. I have been back in Oxford two days, have successfully unpacked my things, set up my room, and rediscovered the joy of communal living. My flat are half back - four of us are here, three to come - and we're all doing things like staking out fridge space and redecorating the kitchen with our collective posters and generally, inevitably, coming home.

Right now we have up the map of the world, the periodic table, an Escher print that falls off the wall in some misguided attempt at life imitating art, a bunch of cocktail recipes, the Underground map and a picture of Mount Fuji. I like it - it feels less like a college kitchen (or "kitchenette" - ghastly word) and more like a place where a group of friends actually live and work. I brought my camera but not its charger, so I can't show you my lovely room, but it is lovely - doesn't have much character, but is big and airy and has a window seat. I still have the same postal address - which I will post, under flock, pretty soon - but not the same physical address, if that makes sense. In other words, I've moved to the top of tower six, but am still picking up post from my pidge. It's nice to still be in the centre of town - jacinthsong and lizziwig are close by, too, which means we can do what we did last night and eat pizza at the drop of the proverbial hat, and I'm really very happy with my living arrangements.

Oxford is just as it was, only wetter. Balliol is awash with freshers, one of whom had a nervous chat with me whilst waiting to see the college secretary, in which he described me as a "finalist". I am a finalist. Oh, dear. I don't want to be a finalist, thankyouverymuch. And right now it looks like I won't be one, because it's Monday of noughth week and I haven't yet heard from a single tutor who's purportedly teaching me this term. Grrr, argh, etc.

Balliol is awash with plain old water, too. I went down to see the college secretary re: transcripts - oh, god, a brief digression on that. I have tried over and over to explain to people, mostly American people, that the concept of a university transcript is not universal. No, it really isn't. Despite what the Law School Admissions Council seem to think. Anyway, I was vindicated when the college secretary peered over her glasses at me and wrote on my form, neatly and with academic disdain: "THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD DOES NOT ISSUE TRANSCRIPTS."

Thank you. Yes. Oh, dear. How to explain this one, I wonder.

Anyway, where was I? I was in college waving these forms about, and just as I was crossing the back quad, there was a noise like stone hitting metal and suddenly, an eight-foot geyser rose impressively into the air. It was raining so hard that the additional water didn't make much difference. Instead, everyone about - students, dons, gardeners, everyone - just stood amid the sopping greenery and said something along the lines of, "Oh, how pretty."

Because, you know, it was. It was a burst water main, and they fixed it eventually, but it did look striking, and had an unexpectedly soothing effect on all the stressed people rushhing about. College actually does look very pretty indeed, despite the grey - it's covered in flowers, bright colours, lush verdant everything. It's beautiful. Also, Balliol has a new college pet tortoise. The tortoise we did have was called Rosa Luxemburg and was kidnapped - it's suspected it was nabbed by Trinity and boiled - the year before I came. I haven't met the new one yet. I'm told it's quite sweet, in an ancient reptilian sort of way.

Anyway, back to work. I am drying off, after having spent most of my morning going over the OULES Aeneid script with foulds - we're previewing it for the others tonight - and trying to get through my to-do list, including a couple of commissions for Cherwell, because I am crazy.

About the two pieces - one is brief, on the history of the rainbow flag as a queer symbol, and I'm pretty sure I can find all the info I need online, but the second one is more interesting. It's a new column, entitled provisionally "How to be...X", and I think I could do with some help. My piece is "How to be the tute partner from hell", and I would appreciate suggestions on this. How do you be the tute partner from hell? My most irritating tute partner ever was smug, self-centred, never did essays, never answered emails, schmoozed me shamelessly and ran for Union President. Surely there are more varieties of experience than this.

Enough. I am so glad to be back in Oxford. Back where it's wet and miserable and stressful, but I have a room of my own, and the company of people who happily stand around and listen to the sound of running water.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention the LSAT! Yes, well. I will talk more about the LSAT when I have stopped banging my head against the wall.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Hearing from a tutor by Monday of 0th week? You lot are spoiled - in my young day it was rare to hear from them before Thursday of 0th week, leading to a mad panic over the weekend if the tutorial was scheduled for the start of the week, and rescheduling of Freshers' Fair duties when collections were sprung.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it's like in other subjects, but PPE tutors seem to like assigning vac reading - they've always tended to send emails in eighth week of the term before!

And, ahaha, that's the great thing about PPE - no collections!

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

What are transcripts?
My tute partner from hell (composed of a mix of ones I've had) would write really, really long essays that would put mine to shame even if I had actually worked on them, and would ask for more work/ collections while I was there so that I couldn't refuse without looking bad. And would always be on the way back from the library, having finished the week's work, if I ran into them on the way to the pub.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

They're an American thing where they take all the courses you've taken and the marks you got and put them into some sort of tabulated form. I think. I've never seen one! In vain have I tried to explain yes, well, at Oxford we DO ALL OUR EXAMS IN ONE GO, oh god.

Really, really long essays - I hear you. One of mine used to write essays that were 4500 words long! There is no need for that sort of thing!

[chiasmata]

Hello! You're back! Hurrah! Are you around tomorrow afternoon at all? I have The Day Off to do things for Freshers' Fair, but will be done with that by about 1, I imagine... xxx

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in first year, one of my tute partners customarily wrote essays that were so long that my tutor asked her to write summaries to read out instead, while she took the essay in to mark. I didn't really mind the long ones then, as they took half an hour (literally) to read, so I didn't have to think up crappy points for very long (I'm no good at epic.)

American academia seems very complicated.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oooh, maybe! Let me think - have got to go to careers service in the morning, ick, and by then I think I may well have a reading list. Er - I might have to be quick about it, but d'you fancy a coffee somewhere? 1 sounds good to me.

[chiasmata]

Ooh yes, that would work! I ought to do some proper work in the afternoon, anyway. Should imagine I'll be in Queen's Lane - at least, that's where I intend to be (am having coffee with the rest of the committee and an enthusiastic newbie at 12) - so shall we meet there at 1?

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

You...don't have transcripts?
*boggles*
but
but
but...

how do...what do...*boggles again*

I assume England has post-college schooling? What DO you include in those applications so the school can know what you're background is and whether you are qualified?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Sure! See you there. xx

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

You just list your qualifications in the application form and one institution asks another institution; though increasingly they want to see degree certificates and the like, as far as I can tell.

[skipthedemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's right, you have true finals! I did the International Baccalaureate program in high school, so I'm at least vaguely familiar with those. You do get some sort of marks for that, right? It's got to be translatable somehow.

You might want to call one the law schools you are applying to directly, and ask them they how they handle transcripts from Oxbridge types. At Yale and Harvard, there have to have been at least a few....

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

What's a transcript? (Ooh, Googlefu says: "An Academic Transcript is an official document which states your course, subjects and results, completion date, graduation date and is signed.") We have degrees - they say what grade we got. Overall, anyway. Having one for individual subjects might be good, because it would show where particular strengths lie. Or weaknesses, which is where I can see a negative.

Post-college... meaning post-university - doctorates and the like? Well, I suppose you have to show your degree certificate; I don't know.

Other people are far more qualified to answer this, to be honest. [laughs]

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Okay. So I'm guessing the "one institution asks another institution" bit is our transcript. Usually your college sends your transcripts directly to the graduate/law/medical schools you apply to.

Actually, now I'm wondering if what you call "degree certificates" are more like our transcripts than our diplomas (which is what I first assumed they were...)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

...I think you just write down BA (Hons) PPE and hope for the best?

No, seriously, I think you write what qualifications you have and the institution you apply to then contacts Oxford if they need confirmation.

The thing is that I couldn't have a transcript, even if I wanted one - the system just doesn't work like that. The tutorial system is very informal. You do your reading yourself, present yourself at your tute with your partner and the tutor gets you into a discussion of your essay, your thoughts on the subject, tests out in their way whether you know what's being talked about, and offers a few comments on the essay (usually oral, can be written). And that's that. After three terms you sit Mods/Prelims, which are first-year exams that don't actually count for anything as long as you pass them. Then you're on to Finals papers, which operate off the same system, without formal or written assessment - unlike, I think, America - until summer of your third year, in which you sit eight Finals papers and your degree class is calculated off whatever marks you get.

So, a transcript written for me now would be something like, well, she did these subjects (which they would have to ask Balliol about), but if you want to know how well she did, go and talk to whoever taught her - the university themselves have no idea of my progress or otherwise.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

We have degrees - they say what grade we got.

So you don't get grades for individual classes but only one final grade over the entire time?
Transcripts have your final gpa (um, an average of all your grades over the years converted into number form - because I'm pretty sure England doesn't do gpa's)

It's pretty common here to have a broader education in college and even switch tracks when applying for graduate or professional schools, so I think maybe transcripts are more necessary for how we do that...maybe...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

No GPAs here, no. Remember that all my papers are in one subject - PPE. It's not like the broader concept of liberal arts - it's a lot more specific than that, so just one grade overall is sensible, because it's one grade for one subject.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'll get a degree class for each paper I talk, and one overall.

I need to find out if I can persuade Balliol to actually write me a letter explaining the situation! I hope so...

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait - what?

I think what you're saying is that you have exams or tests across the years which count, rather than having final exams to count as your final score. We have the final score system, yeah.

I'm not sure what college is in America. [buries head in arms] Oh god, seperated by a common language indeed.

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

[clings] Luff you. I got confused just thinking about that, never mind trying to write it out.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

College is undergraduate university in America. *g*

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Wow. I knew the, um, education system was different in England, but I didn't realize quite how different the approach is. I admit that kinda boggles my mind a bit.

We have (usually) 4 years of college. You pick a major and take a lot of courses in that, but you (more or less depending on the person) also take a lot of coursework outside your major. Courses are semester long (some come in 2 or more semester sequences) and involve classes (lecture and discussion), research, labwork (sometimes), 1-2 midterms and a final exam - and often papers, depending on the subject. Senior year is usually a culmination into doing research for and writing a thesis. But we have grades and such all along and you only get super comprehensive exams in grad school (usually called quals or prelims)

And since so many people don't get the same major in grad school as in undergrad, transcripts help a grad school see if the person has the coursework (knowledge) necessary to succeed post-college and can indicate how well they might do in grad school...I guess.

I wonder why the systems are so different? If our system is partly compensating for having so many more people/schools or what? Though, ultimately here the letters of rec you get from advisors are such carry the most weight, and I expect you get those from tutors, so I'm sure you'll be okay. I'm sure American schools have had British students apply before so they've dealt with it in the past.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

hee :)
It's so crazy that we're so different!

In America you have high school. And then college/university.

We distinguish that by two different types of schools. Colleges are usually smaller and only have undergraduates. Universities have both undergraduate and graduate students. So you can get your undergraduate degree from either a college or a university (and, just to be more confusing, universities usually contain several "colleges" - the "college of engineering" and "the college of liberal arts and sciences" though they're all part of the same university so the degree is from that university).

My undergraduate was a college (rather than a university), so I usually just say "college" to mean "undergrad"

And, yes, you think right. We have different courses each semester and sit final exams for each course at the end of that semester (but total grade for the course includes any midterm exams, papers, homework, and labwork in addition to the score on the final).

We then assign numbers to grades (A=4, B=3, C=2) and use that number to compute a g.p.a. which is a sort of final average summary of how we did. But we have two gpa's. I majored in chemistry, so all my chemistry classes were averaged to create my "in major gpa" and all my classes total were averaged to create my "cumulative gpa"

Your head spinning yet? :)

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

Remember that all my papers are in one subject

I think I would have gone insane in that kind of situation :)

(I was known in my college dorm as the girl who took everything. Sure, my major was chemistry, but I wanted to take physics and math and computer science and biology and Classics and history and literature and...)

Though I'm pretty sure PPE, at least, sounds like a pretty broad topic.

Luckily we don't have to really narrow down until graduate school (which was one of the things I hated about graduate school - *just* chemistry was BORING)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

As a general rule, getting into postgraduate courses in the UK isn't as competitive as it is in North America, because there's less funding attached to places. When I applied for my MA, the fact that I had a first-class honours degree meant I was a shoo-in for the course (and same for getting accepted to do a PhD), but then I had to submit an application to a national body for funding, with two academic references from my previous institution and the institution I was applying to (which were actually the same place), a 500 word research proposal and things like that.

I did get a breakdown of my marks after I graduated, so I suppose I could use that if anyone wanted a transcript. Our degree also come with different classes, thirds, lower seconds, upper seconds and firsts. The bit of my funding application for my referees to fill in included the depressing section:
Class of degree:
[] A high first
[] An average first
[] A borderline first
[] 2.1 or other
That was kind of intimidating.

I don't know how it happens for professional courses, but a lot of the time your job experience and things like that will count for more than your degree marks.

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

[curls up into a tiny ball, rocking back and forth]



:P Actually, that sounds like a lot fairer - if slightly more complicated - way of doing things. Then you can't get people who skive all year and somehow breeze through exams, when essays and homework counts too. Hmm. And some people don't work well with the pressure of exams, so their hard work would be rewarded by the marks over the term, too. Thanks for explaining it all! :D

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Probably worth noting that the system I describe is the Oxbridge system, not the English system. We're weird here. :)

I'm not sure why the system is so different, you know. I realised as recently as last night that in Britain you have a year more of school than the Americans do, which may be the reason an undergrad degree is usually three years, not four. Other than that, I don't know. One thing, though - the tutorial system here has basically not changed since the twelfth century. I strongly suspect that everywhere else has just out-evolved us. *g*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yes, I occasionally yearn for the chance to do other stuff, like they do in America! But then I remind myself that my degree is a) a year shorter and b) much, much cheaper! *g*

PPE is a good subject, you're right. It's a broad degree for historical reasons; it used to be standard preparation for a career in the civil service, hence the possibility of philosophy without Greek and Latin. (My Latin is abysmal - I wouldn't be here if they hadn't changed the rules, as my teachers at school told me on a daily basis.)

[chiasmata]

Yes, exactly - and even in biological/medical sciences, where it can be very competitive indeed due to the funding that's often attached to the places, you don't really need a transcript. I was offered my (funded) PhD place on the strength of my application form/cover letter, a first-class honours degree, letters of reference, and my performance at interview: they did ask for a transcript, but I couldn't give them one because although my undergraduate university does issue them, it was all a bit last minute.

[marymac.livejournal.com]

I have, somewhere, a transcript of the first proposal for what became the PPE course. 1855!

You're living proof of my thesis topic.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

tute partner from hell -> tried to force me to sleep with him in second year.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

I think "complicated" is all about what you're used to.

And some people don't work well with the pressure of exams, so their hard work would be rewarded by the marks over the term, too.

*nods* That was me. I traditionally did poorly on final exams, so they would almost always made my grades drop, but since I did well enough the rest of the year (and didn't bomb most of the finals) I still graduated with high marks overall.

Of course, we still have problems comparing between schools - gpa's are supposed to make that easy, but earning an "A" at my school was considerably more difficult than at other schools so...we still get complicated :)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's true - you people get MONEY. *shakes fist* Should have specified that I know the arts and humanities better than the sciences and social sciences.

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

So for you getting accepted to grad school has no relation to funding then? Or am I reading that wrong...

From everything I was told, when you apply grad schools in America look at 1) Publications/poster presentations, 2) Research experience and 3) letters of recommendation first (in possibly not that order). Then at transcripts and then at standardized test scores (these would be GREs or LSATs or MCATs or, um, the business version). So, yeah, experience counts for more, but marks can make or break you.

(and that's an interesting way to break down degree class :) )

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

So it gets even more complicated then? :)

[biascut.livejournal.com]

So for you getting accepted to grad school has no relation to funding then? Or am I reading that wrong...

I had to have my acceptance before I could apply for funding, but getting accepted is basically a formality on most Arts courses, as long as you satisfy the basic requirements of a 2.1 or above in a relevant degree subject. So I got that in March 2002, and then I had to apply for funding, and I didn't find out until August 2002 that I hadn't got it, so I self-funded my MA and the first year of my PhD. I only got funding for the second and third year of my PhD, and handed in at the end of my fourth year (our PhDs don't involve any coursework, either, just the thesis - which I handed in last Friday, woohoo!)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hee, oh, how awesome! Tell me more! What was it originally like?

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Hee, I just had to pop in here and wave to a fellow IBer. I did it too. I did it years ago and I STILL share your pain. :D

[lizziwig.livejournal.com]

Tute partner from hell - was a complete and utter dickhead, never did any work, borrowed my essays 'to compare' then virtually duplicated them, left me to talk my way into cavernous holes, then did better than me in Prelims. Bitter? Moi?

[marymac.livejournal.com]

Well, as you'd imagine, big emphasis on the classics, but pretty much what you do now. I stuck one of the initial proposals for the examination subjects on my LJ, cause it won't fit the comments. If you work across from each line, you can see which subjects were to be examined for each department.

Can't find the King's College Civil Service Entry syllabus, which is mildly worrying, cause I did transcribe it, but anyway. One of your Masters of Balliol was involved in it all, too.

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Oh God lol Oxford sounds awesome. How are u gonna deal with it not giving transcripts though?
Am going to look at Cambridge next week..am very excited! :)

[tau_sigma]

Ohh. Is it wrong to say that I wish it were sombre and grey and wet here? Because it's not; it's cold and clear and there's just something comforting about rain in all its misery, and there isn't any just now.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*g* Yep. I tried hunting this down yesterday, but couldn't find it - this post (http://loneraven.livejournal.com/500032.html) details some further oddities of the Oxford system.