Freshers Week at Oxford is the week just before the beginning of the actual term, with lots of activities for all the first-year students who have just arrived. Even though none of the students in our program are first-year students, the program office took advantage of this extra time for several orientation activities, as well as giving us the chance to participate in some of the events.
I met with my academic advisor and one of my tutors on Monday. Both meetings were fairly short and not too eventful, although I did get the reading list for my first tutorial that day as well. The essay isn't due until next week, though, so I have quite a bit of extra time to work on that assignment. On Tuesday, we had our Bodleian Library orientation and got our cards, which are useful for a lot of things besides just getting into the library. (It's a lot like the Library of Congress, where you have to show your card to get in - you can't check out books. The Bodleian is one of three copyright libraries in the UK, which means they get a copy of every book published.) The Bodleian doesn't just have A classics reading room - they have THREE of them. One is all Greek literature...one is almost all Latin literature...and I think the third one was print copies of journals.
On Wednesday we had a tour of the library at New College as well as some of the other areas of the college: the Junior Common Room, the chapel, and the gardens. The New College library also has a classics reading room of its own, and unlike the Bodleian, they let you check books out. I've already taken advantage of that to get one of the books for my first tutorial, although to get access to some of the other books I'll need to go to the Bodleian.
On Thursday, the big event was Fresher's Fair, which is where all the student organizations at the university come and set up a booth and try to reel you in. Even though Oxford is a much smaller university than Mason, I could swear they have three or four times the number of student organizations. It was almost all set up inside the Exam Schools building, which is where a lot of the lectures are held during term, as well as (surprise!) exams. They routed you from one room to another - I think there were seven or eight rooms in all.
I've picked a couple of things to try out - we'll see how they go. One is the Oxford University Fencing Club - fencing is one of those things that has always seemed cool to me, but I've never bothered to try. Well, now I'm going to try it. Hopefully I won't be too awful...I went to their "taster" session on Sunday afternoon, and it seemed like fun.
The other one is a student-run choir at New College. (No, not the famous one - you have to apply to that one as a freshman, you have to be a guy from what I can tell, and it's insanely competitive. This one is a non-auditioning choir called the Wykeham Singers, named after the college's founder.) The first rehearsal was Monday evening, and was a bit harder than I expected - I can sightread music on the piano just fine, but I'm not nearly so good at it when it comes to vocal music. Thankfully there are a bunch of altos (no way I was going to hit the high notes in the soprano parts), so I was able to sort of follow, and they let us take the music home with us.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with my second tutor. My two tutorials are on Seneca the Younger and Virgil & Horace - my fourth choice and my first choice. I didn't get the tutorial I was hoping for in Greek, but at least I got one in prose and one in poetry. I think the term is going to be very interesting, all in all.
I met with my academic advisor and one of my tutors on Monday. Both meetings were fairly short and not too eventful, although I did get the reading list for my first tutorial that day as well. The essay isn't due until next week, though, so I have quite a bit of extra time to work on that assignment. On Tuesday, we had our Bodleian Library orientation and got our cards, which are useful for a lot of things besides just getting into the library. (It's a lot like the Library of Congress, where you have to show your card to get in - you can't check out books. The Bodleian is one of three copyright libraries in the UK, which means they get a copy of every book published.) The Bodleian doesn't just have A classics reading room - they have THREE of them. One is all Greek literature...one is almost all Latin literature...and I think the third one was print copies of journals.
On Wednesday we had a tour of the library at New College as well as some of the other areas of the college: the Junior Common Room, the chapel, and the gardens. The New College library also has a classics reading room of its own, and unlike the Bodleian, they let you check books out. I've already taken advantage of that to get one of the books for my first tutorial, although to get access to some of the other books I'll need to go to the Bodleian.
On Thursday, the big event was Fresher's Fair, which is where all the student organizations at the university come and set up a booth and try to reel you in. Even though Oxford is a much smaller university than Mason, I could swear they have three or four times the number of student organizations. It was almost all set up inside the Exam Schools building, which is where a lot of the lectures are held during term, as well as (surprise!) exams. They routed you from one room to another - I think there were seven or eight rooms in all.
I've picked a couple of things to try out - we'll see how they go. One is the Oxford University Fencing Club - fencing is one of those things that has always seemed cool to me, but I've never bothered to try. Well, now I'm going to try it. Hopefully I won't be too awful...I went to their "taster" session on Sunday afternoon, and it seemed like fun.
The other one is a student-run choir at New College. (No, not the famous one - you have to apply to that one as a freshman, you have to be a guy from what I can tell, and it's insanely competitive. This one is a non-auditioning choir called the Wykeham Singers, named after the college's founder.) The first rehearsal was Monday evening, and was a bit harder than I expected - I can sightread music on the piano just fine, but I'm not nearly so good at it when it comes to vocal music. Thankfully there are a bunch of altos (no way I was going to hit the high notes in the soprano parts), so I was able to sort of follow, and they let us take the music home with us.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with my second tutor. My two tutorials are on Seneca the Younger and Virgil & Horace - my fourth choice and my first choice. I didn't get the tutorial I was hoping for in Greek, but at least I got one in prose and one in poetry. I think the term is going to be very interesting, all in all.
No comments:
Post a Comment