It is also the oldest English-speaking university in the world and has an incomparable tradition of learning, thinking and innovation which counts among its former students and professors some of the greatest minds in the history of Western civilization. To learn about some of these, take a look at Oxford's famous alumni.
Oxford also has a very distinctive structure, political philosophy and intellectual culture. Every Oxford student belongs to one of the university’s 38 constituent colleges. Students are taught within their individual college by faculty members who belong to that specific college and are known as its ‘fellows’. The college’s fellows collectively form a council called the ‘governing body’ which controls, administers, and ultimately owns the college. These colleges form a union which makes up the University of Oxford, but each remains strongly independent from central control.
The colleges and their fellows are not subject to the university, but rather the relationship is the other way around. The Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford is elected by and accountable to the fellows of the combined colleges, who collectively make up one large legislative body called ‘Convocation’. This means that the colleges and their faculty are strongly independent in their thought and expression. Importantly, the colleges are both partners in their union as a university as well as fierce rivals in academic achievement and intramural sport.
Oxford has a very distinctive method of undergraduate education, characterized by two key features, the ‘collegiate system’ and the ‘tutorial model’. Under the collegiate system, each student is taught within his or her individual college throughout the three years of their education, but then at the end must sit a series of six three-hour exams, set by the University. In this way, students of every college are subject to the same standards of assessment, but are taught and prepared by the individual colleges in a competitive spirit, always seeking to produce the very best students. The core of a student’s education is not made up lectures and seminars, but rather an hour-long meeting, one-on-one, each week, with one of the college’s fellows, who is often a full professor and a world-leading academic in his or her field.
In the tutorial model, students do not sit in lectures where they are told what they must learn; nor are they provided with chapters from text books which contain ‘the answers’. Instead, they are given access to the vast field of academic literature on any given topic, with guidance as to where to begin and what direction to pursue; but ultimately they must learn to chart their own course through the field effectively. Moreover, for every meeting each week, students are expected not only to read as much as they can from this array, but must produce an essay or complete a set of problems. They must then defend this against their tutor’s critique and use it as the basis for a two-way discussion of the fundamental issues underlying each week’s topic. Students must learn how to construct their own original argument, put it forth persuasively, and defend it against criticism. As the only member of the class, failing to have attempted the work is not an option.