The Ultimate Learning Vacation

10-27-2014

A Summer Week at Oxford University with No Tests, No Papers

 

Bellevue, WA, October 27, 2014—You can take a summer course in basket-weaving at your local college or even a science course high above Cayuga’s waters. But the ultimate in learning vacations is The Oxford Experience, a summer program of one-week courses at England’s legendary Oxford University that offers some 60 classes in archaeology, history, politics, art, music, houses and gardens, literature, creative writing, and sciences.  The program takes place from July 5 to August 15, 2015 at Christ Church, the most beautiful and prestigious of Oxford colleges, originally founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525..

 

The Oxford Experience is open to everyone.  There are no requirements, no exams and no papers.  Courses include The Birth of Europe, The Georgian Home, Shakespeare and His World, The Age of Winston Churchill,  Creative Writing for All, Political Philosophy, Beethoven—His Life and Music, English Country Houses, Understanding the Cosmos, The 18^th Century English Landscape Garden, and Oxford Murder. Classes are small (maximum 12) and tutors are friendly and approachable.

 

A week of the Oxford Experience costs $2,027 in U.S. dollars, $2,277 in Canadian. Summertime students, who come from many countries, live in Christ Church dormitories that range from the 18^th to the 20^th century. (A limited number of rooms with private bath are available for an additional fee.)  They dine, surrounded by portraits of famous Christ Church alumni—13 of them prime ministers—in the impressive Tudor Hall made famous by the Harry Potter films.

 

The price includes tuition, accommodations, evening entertainment and lectures, a welcome reception and all meals—a full English breakfast, buffet lunch and delicious served three-course dinner.  Once a week each student is invited to dine on High Table and on the final night everyone gathers for champagne (and picture-taking) in the flowering Cathedral Garden and a gala farewell dinner in Hall, where “diplomas” are distributed.

 

Classes are held in the morning; in the afternoon tours of Christ Church and the city of Oxford are offered, as well as excursions to stately homes, cathedrals, museums and such.  (The Shakespeare class, for example, attends a matinee at London’s Globe Theatre.) In the evening there are pub walks, whisky tastings, traditional morris dancing, wine and croquet in the Masters’ Garden and Evensong in the college chapel, which is also the Oxford Cathedral.

 

The deadline for summer 2015 registration is officially May 1, but the more popular classes fill as early as December, so early registration is urged.  For more information, visit www.conted.ox.ac.uk/oxfordexperience , or write to The Oxford Experience, OUDCE, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA, U.K.

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