Today I went through the experience that I have been nervous about since the begining of the programme: tutorials.
In the way that the Oxford Summer Programme does classes, you must meet twice with your professor for each class. This means four hours of one-on-one discussion with your professors in discussion of four papers. This week we present our first two papers and next week we do the last two papers.
I have the same professor for both tutorials, so my experience was a bit different than some of the other students.
I scheduled my tutorials in the same day, so both of my papers were due today. This means that today I turned in 4,062 words in essays, which I then had to discuss and defend with my professor. This sounds super intimidating, but in actuality I found it to be a very rewarding experience. We were able to discuss area of imporvement as well as aknowledge good thoughs and dicuss how they were either well-articulated or how it could be better addressed. It also allowed a deeper discussion of the material than is possible even in a 2,000 word essay.
The way they write essays is a bit different as well. Instead of a prompt, students are given a list of questions from which to select a topic. I am taking a Jane Austen and Gothic Literature class so the question I selected for my Jane Austen class was:
‘The mothers of fictional heroines are usually bad and living or good and dead’ (Janet
Todd, Women’s friendship in literature (1980, p. 2). How does Austen treat
mothers/fathers/guardians in relation to at least two novels?
And the question I addressed in my Gothic fiction class was:
How do Walpole and Austen present female friendship? What are the obstacles that
prevent confidence and intimacy between women and how are these linked to the
authors’ social critiques? (in discussion of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, a Gothic novel parody)
I was very nervous for these tutorials but both of them went extremely well and I am now less nervous anf more excited for the other essays I will be writing!
