Ethan Gaines
Virginia Program at Oxford
Oxford, England
Summer 2019

During my time in England on the Virginia Program at Oxford, I was blown away at the how good the food was and how culturally diverse the cities of Oxford and London were. St. Anne’s College was surrounded by amazing Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Spanish, and French restaurants that offered delicious meals and reasonable prices. As for my favorite meal on the trip, nearly every place I went to offered an amazing burger, which I would say is my favorite food of all time. Every week, a large group of us would take a short walk to the Rickety Press, a busy pub with great atmosphere, for their five dollar burgers every Monday for lunch, which were definitely the tastiest burgers I have ever eaten.
In my opinion, how you spend your free time on the Virginia Program at Oxford is very different than how you would spend it at Hampden-Sydney. At Sydney, in my free time I would either go to the gym, play videogames, or hang out with my friends after classes. Oxford did not offer a lot of those things, and with the workload being so intensive, any free time I had went towards midday naps and relaxing in my room. Of course, with the drinking age being lower in England, we spent our fair share of free time at bars and pubs, all while being responsible though.
The classroom experience and how you go about studying was also different at Oxford than it is at Hampden-Sydney. Class at Oxford was an hour long every morning, and sometimes in the afternoon, structured so that the lecturer had around forty minutes to present and go in depth into their topic, with the remaining twenty minutes designated for questions. Abroad, it is disrespectful to interrupt the lecture with questions, and the use of cell phones and laptops was prohibited.
How you studied was also very different, in that you could not wait until the late evening to head over to the library and begin your research. You really had to commit each and every week by beginning your research early and writing at all times throughout the day in order to finish a well-written paper on time. There were also more options available as to where to study. Rather than spending all your time at the desk in your room, it was very popular to walk to either the prestigious Bodleian Library or University Park to research your topics. University Park was a favorite of mine to study at because we were blessed with great weather during our time at Oxford.