Tutorials!

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Well, our time in Oxford is already nearing an end! In fact, today is the last that I'm meeting with my tutorial professor. 

It looks like none of my classmates have spoken about the tutorial process yet, so I figured that today is the perfect time to quickly explain it. 

Before arriving in Oxford, I was asked for a few ideas for a specialized course in my field that I'd like to focus on. 

Then, before I knew it, I was here! A few days later, I was matched with a professor to study my second-choice topic: the neuroscience of dreaming. 

(I know it sounds nerdy, forgive me. I'm a STEM major.)

The tutorial itself is a one-on-one meeting between you and a professor, where they assign you a reading list and an essay prompt each week. Then you write a ~1500 word paper to present for your next meeting, rinse, and repeat. 

It's a bit of a blur honestly– the tutorial combined with our Shakespeare course is more weekly writing than I've done in years. 

That's not to say it hasn't been wonderful. My tutor is great and I love my topic. I've researched sleepwalking, dreams and affective mood disorders, and the science of dream analysis in depths that I wouldn't have otherwise approached until graduate school. 

I could go on about how foreign the tutorial feels, how antithetical it seems to American education, how useful it is... but to keep things brief, I'll trust that this about sums it up!

-K 

(I don't really have any pictures relevant to my tutorial, so here's me with some beets. Enjoy!)



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