Students to study at Oxford

Photo by: Will Gentry

 

While some students look for jobs or frantically attempt to throw together summer plans after school ends, senior Afton Paris and junior Tyler Parette pack their bags to study at the University of Oxford.

“The program’s called Best Semester, and pretty much any student can apply,” Parette said. “They have programs in India, Nashville, China, they’re all over the world; but the one that really caught my eye was Oxford, just because of the prestige that surrounds that school.”

The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities – which Oklahoma Christian is a part of – runs Best Semester, enabling students to study their majors in a foreign environment.

“Any student in any major can apply to a number of different programs they have at the CCCU,” Raymon Huston, professor of history and political science, said. “… [For] students that want to study film, there’s a program at Hollywood they can go to. Students that want to study journalism can actually go to DC and work with one of the major papers.”

The students studying at Oxford go to learn various aspects of political science. Both Parette and Paris plan to study international relations as their major track.

“Our classes are not yet confirmed by the program,” Paris said. “I hope to be studying international relations and theory of politics as my two tutorial subjects.”

Studying through Best Semester works a little differently than taking classes at Oklahoma Christian, according to Parette.

“We’re all able to choose a major track and a minor track,” Parette said. “Instead of sitting in a lecture, you’ll have an advisor, usually a graduate student or even a professor. For my major track I chose international relations, and my minor track is an offshoot of politics in the Old Testament. I’ll have an advisor on each of those, and I’ll meet with my advisor once a week. … He’ll give me assigned readings and various tasks, and then a week later I’ll turn that in and meet with him again.”

Despite the novelty of studying in another country, Parette recognized that studying at Oxford will not be the same as the previous study abroad trip he participated in.

“As soon as I got accepted into the program, I was really excited,” Parette said. “Now, I’ve moved into a phase where I’m more nervous. You’re hoping that you can perform as well as you need to in an environment that is held up as one of the academic strongholds of the world.”

Paris also worried about the academic shift she will face while abroad.

“I’m pretty apprehensive about the academic rigor,” Paris said. “I know that the educational style of Oxford is very different from that here in the States. All the classes are conducted one-on-one with a scholar in whatever you are studying, and you basically spend an hour every week debating the stance and arguments of the paper you’ve written for that week. It will take some adjusting to.”

Though she may be nervous about studying at Oxford, Paris already has one semester abroad under her belt and looks forward to another opportunity.

“It has been a lifelong dream of mine to study at the University of Oxford,” Paris said. “When this opportunity arose to spend an entire semester studying there, I was absolutely on board. I am really looking forward to the immersion aspect of being in another country and being completely surrounded by a different culture and way of life.”

Paris and Parette realize that their acceptance into the program at Oxford is not ordinary.

“It’s highly competitive,” Huston said. “They don’t accept that many students per year. … It’s not very easy to get in. You have to be an exceptional student. I know of one other student that has made it to the Oxford program from OC.”

The difficulty getting into the program lies not only in the small number of students accepted each year but also in the application process itself.

“You need to have various signatures from every department on campus, it seems like,” Parette said. “This [application] required four letters of recommendation along with an extensive questionnaire on their website about your interest in the program, your interest in studying abroad, and why you believe the program is going to be beneficial to you. There was also an analytical essay that I had to do.”

That particular essay remains unique in Parette’s mind due to its unusual nature.

“That was different from any other essay I’d written for an application before,” Parette said. “Instead of actually answering a question, you had to discuss in the essay how you would go about researching the question that they presented. … You had to discuss why or why not that statement was true, but without discussing why or why not it was true; you had to talk about how you would go about doing that. It was really weird and complicated.”

Taking advantage of the opportunity to study at Oxford could ensure the students are more appealing to future employers, according to Huston.

“I’m extremely proud of them,” Huston said. “I think they’ve achieved more than I ever thought about achieving as an undergrad, and I think this is going to help them out in their future. It will make them very marketable for when they go to graduate school, and even after graduate school. This is a program and opportunity that they’ll never have again and I’m so proud of both of them for taking advantage of it.”