Guest Post by Scott 🙂
The University of Oxford is very different from the other places I have studied. Let me speak first as a researcher. The libraries are both awesome and awesomely frustrating. Let us begin with the awesome aspects of the library system. They have a copy of EVERY* book published in the UK since 1610, which is over 9,000,000 books. The buildings in which the books are held are beautiful and historic. The study spaces are generous and abundant. The wireless system is quick and has a good signal. The library subscribes to a significant number of online journals and online versions of books. If you need it, there are very good odds that they have it.
There are some drawbacks to the library system.** First, foremost, and astoundingly, you cannot check out books from the main library. Yes, you read that sentence correctly: the main library is not a lending library. Those 9,000,000 volumes are available to be read there and there alone. Once upon a time, you had to swear not to take books out of the library as part of the matriculation (enrollment) ceremony. Also, about 7.5 million of the 9 million books are stored off-site; if you want them, you have to plan ahead by requesting it online and waiting (usually less than a day) for the book to be transported from the off-site location to the library building of your choice. There are other libraries that are lending libraries, such as the library for Philosophy and Theology faculties, and that is the library I use most often. I can only check out 16 books at a time and I can keep them for only a week at a time. You can renew them online up to three times before you have to bring them back to the library. If that weren’t frustrating enough, they have bankers’ hours! Monday through Friday they are open from 9:30 to 7:00. On Saturday they are open from 10:00 to 1:00. They are not open on Sunday. By comparison, I could check out about 50 books at a time from Baylor, they were all due at the end of the semester, and they have portions of the library that are open 24 hours a day.
For those of you who are thinking that I am an idiot for complaining about the library, know that my degree program is not about classes but about independent research, which for theology and history students means libraries! Consider two possible ways of viewing the library. The first one, characteristic of Baylor, ACU, and LCU, is that the library is there to serve the student; all of its policies conform to that end. The second one, characteristic of Oxford, is that the library is here for the past, present, and the future of the university…and they let students use it, too. I prefer the former!
I have several people wondering what classes I am taking. In short, I am required to take only one seminar class: The nature and practice of historiography. The degree I am working on (as an entry to the D.Phil. program) is a degree that requires a thesis, two supporting essays, a written examination, and a verbal examination. Each student has one or more advisers who help you navigate your way through the program to fulfill those requirements. I can attend whatever lectures or classes that I or my adviser think will help me be more successful. My seminar class is all about getting to know the secondary literature for different time periods in church history so that I am prepared for the examinations next summer. In addition to that required seminar class (with a reading list that is way too long) I am attending a series of lectures on Patristics (early church history), the English Reformation (because I know nothing about it and it seems to be a rather important thing in England), and a class that teaches Latin for historians. While I am taking those classes, I am supposed to work on my thesis and supporting essays.
I want to focus on the fights between heresy and orthodoxy in the early church. For those of you who are uninterested in further details, skip to the next paragraph. For everyone else, I want to study the use of rhetoric in those battles that determined who was right and who was basically kicked out of the Church. This is the fun part of church history where people are fired up and faithfully trying to answer hard questions about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and how Christians should act in the church. In addition to the theology, there is political intrigue, church leaders being exiled, grudges between churches that last several generations, the difference between the way the Western and Eastern Roman Empire see the world, and the notion that somehow, somewhere God is at work in these people trying to redeem humanity and conform them to the image of his Son! I am currently looking at the controversy about the nature of Jesus Christ starring Nestorius and Cyril of Alexandria. Nestorius was the looser (heretic) and Cyril was the winner (orthodox). Most studies about their little tiff place much of the success on Cyril’s capable shoulders, but I think a large portion of the blame belongs to Nestorius for defending his position very, very badly. If you read some of his defense (warning: Reading Nestorius’ works requires a Dr.’s prescription because it can cause migraines and sleepiness. You should not read his works while operating heavy machinery), the thought that he preached to a congregation in Constantinople would fill you with sympathy for those poor, poor people. I’m meeting my adviser this week to help me focus my work on something appropriate for a thesis.
I would also like to comment on my time here from the point of view of a commuter. I live about 2 miles from the city centre, and ride my bike there to get to libraries, lectures, and my study room. Those university buildings are spread through the central part of the town. If you could erase the downtown businesses and shops, you would be left with a fairly standard university campus…almost. That means that most of the buildings are within walking distance, but you have to watch out for the cars. Everyone has bikes and uses them to get around. That means there are a LOT of bikes and bike theft. For those of you in the South like Texas and Florida, you need help to imagine it properly. Imagine riding your bike in rain while it is in the mid/upper 30’s and dark. That was what it was like several times for me last week now that the sun sets at 4:18 p.m. That makes biking here very….interesting. To make it more interesting, the bike lanes are often a portion of the bus lanes going up and down the street. Buses regularly pass me close enough to almost touch them…in the cold rain…in the dark…on the wrong side of the road. But the whole town is doing the same thing so it must be fairly safe….right?
Oh yeah, a car hit me today (it was a stupid driver and only going about 5 miles per hour) so maybe it isn’t that safe after all.
It will be interesting to see how this experience compares to the American systems I have experienced. The Oxonian (the adjectival form of Oxford) system puts ALL of the pressure on the student to take his/her studies by the reigns and see them through. There are no grades along the way; you either succeed or you don’t.
So this is all I could think to include on my guest blog. I hope that it was entertaining as well as informative. If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will try to answer them as soon as possible.
Notes:
*It should be noted that the librarians admit that some books have slipped through the system.
**The library system is made up of several different collections and buildings. Each of the smaller colleges***, of which there are over 40, have their own library in addition to the university’s libraries.
***Look up the college system on Wikipedia because it’s too weird for me to explain in a few words.
Across the Pond 