Oxford Preview

Oxford city:
Many people (including me about 2 years back) don’t know that Oxford is a city. In fact Oxfordshire is the county in England and Oxford is the main town in that region. Oxford's name comes from the crossing point (ford) across the Thames. The ford was used by cattle farmers to drive their oxen to market. It is the combination of the words 'oxen' and 'ford' that give Oxford its name. (Fords are places where the water is shallow enough to walk across to the opposite bank.)
There are two universities in Oxford, Oxford University (the famous one where I am going) and Oxford Brooks University. This town is about 90 miles South West to London. It is famously known as the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’ for the skyline of city is embellished by the spires of many churches and towers and other monumental buildings.
River Thames passes through Oxford. It becomes wide and shallow there. And it is called as “Isis” and not Thames.

Oxford University:
It is one of the most famous and most ancient universities in the world. Established about 800 years before, this university is still recognized as among the top three universities in the world. Today Oxford University hosts almost 30oo0 students and almost thousand world class faculties, many of whom are Nobel laureates. This university has given two presidents to India (Pandit Nehru and Manmohan Singh) and hundreds of scientists and authors and politicians to the world. But there is no University campus as such. Various colleges and hostels and labs and libraries of university are in different buildings spread at the centre of the city.

SAID business school:
Though Oxford was providing the management programs long before, in 1996 they decided to formally step up into management education and started SAID Business School. This school provides the MBA and MFE degrees. SAID was a businessman who donated about 23 million for the building this business school (which he apparently earned by dealings of arms). So I would be studying in SAID Business School, University of Oxford.

Oxford and Cambridge similarities and differences:
Well just few years after Oxford started something happened and few people from Oxford went to Cambridge (which also is a city like Oxford) and started the Cambridge University. So the educational system of both the universities is very similar. But for some reason they hate each other. They won’t even take each others name. Instead they call the other university as “The Other Place”. There are annual sports events between both the universities every year which boosts this rivalry. The famous sport between the two universities is rowing. And the annual rowing competition is as competitive and extreme as Ayrton Senna – Alan Prost F1 race (I could say India – Pakistan cricket match but I hate cricket).

Oxford Collegiate System:
The most confusing part of Oxford is their collegiate system. Oxford University is consisted of about 40 colleges started at different times. Each college specialized in their own subjects. For under graduation you take admission to respective college and your courses, lectures, exams and administration will be through the college. If you don’t get into the college you applied, you are not admitted. But for post graduation, the courses are conducted by university. Still you have to take admission to one of the college. But once you get admission in the University, the college admission is secured. You still may not get the college you want, but you will get into some college for sure. The administration stuff such as accommodation, food and access to the graduate common rooms is provided by respective college.
To make it more complicated to understand, the MBA and MFE degrees are given by SAID business school under the name of University of Oxford. So I will be admitted in University of Oxford, My lectures, courses and exams will be through SAID Business School, but I am on the roll of Jesus College (I am admitted to Jesus College out of the other 40). Well, if you are still confused and interested in knowing it well, mail me… otherwise just leave it ;-)

Jesus College:
So apparently I am admitted in the Jesus College. This is one of the old and small colleges in Oxford founded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 and catered mostly Welsh students for a long time. This is also one of the richest colleges (with closing reserves and endowments of £79,700,391 in 2003. FYI, Oxford University owns more than £ 3 billion as reserves and endowment. This is more that what TCS annual revenue) I choose it because it is small and admits only 2 MBAs per year. So I am hoping to know more people outside the MBA class. Also this college is at the very centre of city and is not far from SAID. So things would be convenient to me. Jesus College also had very famous alumni like Lawrence of Arabia (there is also a Hollywood movie on him).

Examination School:
There is a dedicated building for exams there. This is one of the best buildings in Oxford. It was built in 1882 and since then this building has witnessed the never cracking tension, silence and the joy of holiday on the faces of hundreds of thousands of students. Fortunately this is fairly near to Jesus College so I won’t waste much time in commuting during the exam. Being a very old and traditional schools Oxford is full of various types of official, unofficial and even weird customs. One of the customs is that on the last paper of your degree, you leave the Exam School from the backdoor (like we leave the movie theatre). This marks the end of your exams and that you won’t even enter into this building again. Cool, isn’t it?

Oxford and movies:
Oxford is being pictured in many movies the most prominent of them all is Harry Potter. Many parts of ‘Hogwarts’ like ‘The Great Hall’ of dinning, the library and many other is the Oxford. And I am going to have dinner just like Harry Potter every night. But mine will be in a smaller hall as Jesus is a small college. The Harry Potter hall is the dinning hall of Christ Church College.
Also if you remember the white lead actress of Rang De Basanti… She is the daughter of the Oxford Dean.