You Don’t Have to Be a Rhodes Scholar to Go to Oxford Next Summer

12-09-2009

Oxford, England, December 9, 2009 — The Oxford Experience, a one-week residential summer course at Oxford University is open to all.  Anyone can go to Oxford between July 4 and August 7 when The Oxford Experience takes place and  Anglophiles from all over the world gather for a week (or two or more) of study and fun at Christ Church.  Historic Christ Church, founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525, is the most beautiful and prestigious of Oxford colleges, and students will feel a little thrill entering under Christopher Wren's Tom Tower.  There are no prerequisites for The Oxford Experience, no tests, no papers—just an interest in the subject, more than 50 of which are offered.

 

Among next summer's offerings are: The Brontes, Castles in Britain, The Twilight of the Romanovs, Alice's Adventures in Oxford, Beethoven and the Dawn of Romanticism, Scientific Breakthroughs of the Twentieth Century, Jewish Life in Medieval England, Enjoying the Cotswolds and The Battle of Britain Revisited.

 

The Oxford Experience attracts not only vacationing Americans, but a cosmopolitan mix of British, Europeans, Australians and South Africans (and an occasional Chinese or Mexican), who range in age from thirty to ninety. 

 

Participants stay in student accommodations, though rooms with private bath are available for an additional fee.  They dine in the magnificent Tudor Hall—lined with portraits of renowned Christ Church alumni—which gained fame in the Harry Potter films.  Three daily meals are included: a full English breakfast, a buffet lunch and a served three-course dinner.  Once a week each student is invited to dine on "High Table" and on the final night everyone gathers for champagne in the flowering Cathedral Garden and a gala farewell dinner in the Hall.  Those who sign up for two or more weeks get free bed and breakfast on the intervening weekends.

 

During the week there are excursions to stately homes and such, tours of Oxford and Christ Church, pub walks, whisky tastings, post-prandial lectures, strawberries and wine in the Masters' Garden, that very English phenomenon called "Morris Dancing," and Evensong in the college chapel, which also happens to be the Oxford Cathedral.

 

The price of a one-week course, including tuition, accommodation and all meals (except those on excursions) is £1,050, or approximately $1,717.  Excursions and private bathrooms are extra.  The deadline for registration is May 1, 2010, but early application is recommended, as courses fill quickly. 

 

For more information, go to www.conted.ox.ac.uk/oxfordexperience, or write to The Oxford Experience, OUDCE, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA, U.K.

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