YOU, TOO, CAN GO TO OXFORD!

01-19-2011

 

One-week Summer School at Oxford University is Open to All

 

Oxford,  England, January 19, 2011—Everybody, but everybody, from William Penn and Albert Einstein to Hugh Grant and Bill Clinton has gone to Oxford. And you can, too.  The Oxford Experience, a one-week residential course at Christ Church, one of the most prestigious and beautiful of Oxford colleges, is a great way to spend a summer vacation.  There are no requirements—the course is open to all—and there are no exams or papers.

 

The courses cover some 50 subjects as varied as The Brontës; Late Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories; Golden Mycenae, Epic Poetry and Helen of Troy; The Novels of Thomas Hardy; Riot and Rebellion in Shakespeare’s London; Cotswolds Folk Traditions; Templars and Hospitallers: the Medieval Military Orders; The Arthurian Stories in Text and Image; Ethics, Questions of Life and Death; and The Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

 

The week starts with a reception in Tom Quad (named for Cardinal Wolsey, who founded the college in 1524).  Mornings are devoted to course work, but most courses include afternoon excursions to stately homes, cathedrals or museums, for example, and on other afternoons there are tours of Christ Church, the city of Oxford, Blenheim Palace and Broughton Castle.  In the evening there may be a pub walk, a lecture, Pimms and croquet in the Masters’ Garden or a performance by traditional Morris Dancers.  Once a week each student is invited to dine on “High Table” and on the final night everyone gathers for drinks in the flowering Cathedral Garden and a gala farewell dinner in the magnificent Tudor Hall.  Christ Church’s Great Hall, by the way, plays Hogwarts Hall in the Harry Potter films.

 

Three daily meals—which give the lie to rumors about dreary English food--are included in the program: a full English breakfast, a buffet lunch and a served three-course dinner prepared by a talented chef.  Accommodations are in student dorms, some of which have private baths.  Those who sign up for two or more weeks—and there are many who do—get free bed and breakfast over the intervening weekends. 

 

The Oxford Experience will take place this summer during five weeks, July 10 to August 13.  Each week starts with lunch on Sunday and finishes with breakfast on the following Saturday.  The price of a one-week course—including tuition, accommodations and meals—is £1,090, or approximately US$1,730.  Excursions and private bathrooms are extra.  The deadline for registration is May 1, but early application is recommended as some courses are already full.  Registration is open at http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/oxfordexperience.   Information and an application form may also be obtained by writing to The Oxford Experience, OUDCE, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA, U.K.

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