Pratica di Shadowing: What Studying at Oxford is Really Like - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Creazione lezione...
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Hi, my name is Victoria and I just finished my first year as an undergrad at Oxford studying philosophy, politics and economics
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and I'm basically going to walk you through the past year
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to help you get a better idea of what it's like to be a student at Oxford.
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First, just to make a distinction,
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Oxford is the university but Oxford is composed of 30 something undergrad colleges and each one has its own dining hall,
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its own tutors which are professors, It has its accommodations.
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its grounds.
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and that is basically where students spend their time.
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So they go to a college at the University of Oxford and You don't just go to like Oxford generally.
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The academic year at Oxford is composed of three terms.
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So you have a Micklemes.
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Hillary and Trinity.
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Each term is eight weeks long.
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Usually students arrive during zeroth week though and then there are six weeks between the terms.
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So the brakes are quite long Term time is very intense.
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So the first term of the year is Mechomis.
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It starts in the beginning of October as a fresher, which is what they call first year undergrads.
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You show up during zeroth week and you have a whole orientation week where they have you get to know everyone, get to know what it's like to be a student there,
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and you get to meet your college family.
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which is basically the system that most Oxford colleges have.
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where as a student you get assigned
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a student in the year above you who's in your course ideally
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and hopefully has some traits that are similar to you And they sort of mentor you or
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provide a source of information for you as you settle into your life at Oxford.
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Then, as a first year, you get like married to just any of your friends and then you can become college parents.
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and then you'll get your children assigned to you once you start your second year.
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So I have three college spouses, I guess you would say.
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Obviously it's not like a romantic thing, it's just these are some of my best friends.
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or like college married
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and then we'll have the chance to do family things with the freshers we get assigned
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when we go back in the fall.
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During freshers week they will have maybe like a fair for the different clubs
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surrounding the college you can go to the university -wide pressure's fair
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you will usually have a meeting where you meet the tutors
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the tutors are basically your professors they are who you'll have tutorials with which is the whole Oxford tutorial system where
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about every week you go and you bring out an essay or a problem sheet that you worked on
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and talk it through with your tutors and it's more like a a dynamic conversation
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to really push the way you think more so than Like, here's a grade.
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"Here's what you're supposed to do." there were also bops and like parties and a lot of social stuff, bops are just um
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like a party hosted by the college and a lot of different social things happening in the first week.
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Also, obviously, in the UK drinking is legal from 18
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So alcohol is like at almost every event at Oxford at the end of the first week of like lectures, tutorials
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coursework once
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that started at the end of the first week you have your matriculation where you wear your subfusk
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that hopefully you picked up during freshers week which is your gown, your mortarboard, and then ribbon or tie.
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and just a white shirt and then a skirt or trousers.
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that have to be black and then black shoes and tights.
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And matriculation is basically just a ceremony where you become officially a student, you walk down, to the Sheldonian.
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You can wear your mortarboard which you don't get to wear again
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until you graduate and you become officially a student of the university.
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Throughout Michaelmas term is a great time to explore different clubs and societies.
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I tried out rowing, which I have stuck with, and now I'm going to be vice captain next year, which is super fun.
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You'll probably have some kind of initiations either with your subject for your course.
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which I wasn't really prepared for but usually hopefully they're just like funny little activities
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that you get to go around the university doing.
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And then there are some holidays.
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in Michaelmas so obviously there's Halloween which is mostly just like a clubbing event.
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There's the 5th of November which is Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night.
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There is Thanksgiving if you're an American like me.
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my warden hosted a Thanksgiving dinner that I was invited to which was very nice and also like
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Hall just served a Thanksgiving formal for anyone who booked on.
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then there's oxmas which is basically like the Christmas season but because I the end of term is quite early.
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I think it's at the beginning of December
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you can't really celebrate Christmas while you're there so they have Oxmas
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where like the chapel will have events you'll put up a Christmas tree, and they'll have usually a Christmas like, Sunday dinner. in -haul.
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The second term of the year is Hillary.
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It starts mid -January.
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And it's historically just kind of the worst term of the year.
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The weather isn't great.
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It's very rainy.
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you can't really do much like my whole rowing season got cancelled because the river flooded Um, it's not the most happy time of year.
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Which they do have like fifth week blues is a term that they have where like each term by fifth week, you know, There's a lot of pressure from the work you haven't been home for a
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while and so you'll get like fifth week blues and they'll usually try to have
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some welfare events to bring up people's spirits but Hillary just kind of the whole term
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is that although I had a great Hillary so you know it doesn't have to bring you down
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But some of the fun holidays that they have and Hillary are Burns Night, where you get to have haggis and do like the Ode to the Haggis,
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and try it, which is really fun.
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Um, they're Shrug Tuesday, just like Mardi Gras, Pancake Day, the day before lunch starts And then, the whole like Lent season starts
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on the Wednesday Ash Wednesday which is actually quite a fun thing to do the choir and chapels
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at Oxford are really nice even if you aren't religious
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It's a great place to go just because it's so beautiful and The choirs are usually quite good.
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And they have a lot of events with like also refreshments if you want that.
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And then in Hillary, there's for the big rowing event.
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torpids which didn't happen my year because the rowing river flooded but it's usually a fun event.
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Um, and then they have like St. Patrick's Day is at the very end of term So sometimes that happens, like celebrations.
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Sometimes not really.
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Hillary, there's just not a ton happening.
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There might be some balls, some other events, but Besides that, it's mostly just like your prime working time.
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Over the Easter vac, if you're interested in rowing, there's the boat race between Cambridge in Oxford that happens
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and I also went to a rowing camp so some colleges will have different camps or trainings
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that they'll do during the vacs.
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The third term of the year is Trinity.
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which is mostly a revision term where people are quite stressed it's still a very fun time because the weather's better, but if you're in first year,
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you have exams at the end of your first year called prelims.
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which they don't count towards your final grade for like your degree
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but they are very important because if you fail them you have to reset them and if you fail your reset
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you don't get to come back to the school.
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Um, and because you haven't had any real grades or tests up to that point.
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So the structure of the academics at Oxford is that You have your tutorials each week.
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and in order to prepare for your tutorials where you have a discussion with your professor
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you can go to lectures most lectures are
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more or less optional or they'll have recordings
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So it's not like overly necessary that you go is encouraged and it can really help
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but most of your learning comes from you reading
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just on your own from the reading list that's assigned to you by your tutors.
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If you're in a STEM subject, you'll have labs.
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and lectures as well but you'll also have some kind of problem sheets to work through and then you take your
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you know, essay, Um, tutorial sheet whatever it is you send it to your professor and then they will sometimes
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give you a grade on it but it's not a great accounts for anything it's just like an approximation how you're doing.
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Or they might just give you some comments on like, "Oh, you know, work on this." you know, ask you questions throughout the essay.
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which they might talk about more in your tutorial.
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So you don't get a grade...
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really at all from your tutors.
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at the end of the term you will get an evaluation of kind of like,
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"Oh, here's the mark that you would probably get based on your work on your prelims.
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and then at the beginning of each term you have mock exams called collections.
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that are put on by your college
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where you go and you sit and basically have a mock exam
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to give you an idea of what it would be like those do get marked and graded.
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On the grading scale, at Oxford is quite interesting.
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basically a 40 is a pass and then anywhere from a 50 to a 60 is a 2 /2
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Anywhere from a 60...
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to a 70 is a 2 -1 and then 70 and up is a first But no one really gets like
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honestly above like 75 I mean, maybe more so on Um,
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like STEM subjects where there's more maths involved But if you're doing an essay subject, it's very hard to get above that.
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Anything above 80 is considered publishable.
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So you're not like no one's really getting in that especially for a timed essay.
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during a preliminary exam.
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Besides having all that pressure for your first Oxford exams, during Trinity term.
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There are actually a lot of fun things happening.
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The weather is like really nice in Trinity, although we did have some heat waves which was not ideal.
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Especially.. considering the Oxford just doesn't have AC really at all.
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My college had a boat party where we went to London we got to go on a boat in the Thames
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There's Mayday which is
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this holiday where
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on the last day of April everyone stays up all night to hear the choir sing from the Maudlin tower.
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which It's fun, but like It's really hard to stay up all night.
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So some people just wake up early to go listen to that.
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There was Beating of the Bounds was a random one that I went to where they had
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the school boys go around to all these like marks throughout
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old center of Oxford and like they hit it and mark it.
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Um...
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That's like some kind of religious holiday.
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There's summer eights, which even if you don't do rowing, this is a really big social event.
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So everyone goes down to the river, to the boathouses.
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There's usually.. like drinks and you know, burgers on the grill and everyone watches the races to see which college will get headship,
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which college will bump every day.
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really fun to definitely do that and then a lot of colleges also have garden parties throughout the term
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and at the end of the term there are commemoration balls
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which are really fancy white tie events where like there are fireworks, there are performers.
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I didn't go to one this year but they are very expensive but also very fun.
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I've heard.
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Then once prelims happen, you have your carnation that you wear for prelims which is white for your first exam, pink for your exams in the middle,
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and then red for your final exam.
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And then after that people do
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this thing called trashing where they'll get paint powder and throw it at each other and then they'll jump in the river.
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This was actually like kind of forbidden by the Oxford City Council during my year, so it didn't happen so much.
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But it is a fun thing to do if you're allowed to do it.
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If you are thinking of applying to Oxford or you will be attending it, this coming fall.
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There are a few things to know one you definitely need to be self -motivated.
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I had maybe three four contact hours with tutors a week
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And then I also had lectures on top of that
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but there are only like a few hours a week where you actually need to be there
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and you will be held accountable.
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And especially also given that you don't get grades, it can feel easy.
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to kind of slack off on an essay or not do it very well.
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which isn't ideal for your academic performance So you need to be very self -driven.
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make your own schedule and stick to it.
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found
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that there was a pretty good work -life balance then again
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my subject is doesn't have a lot of contact hours
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so it was kind of up to me to make sure that I was spending enough time on my work
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and also making sure that I finished it in a short enough amount of time
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that I had time to do other things.
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I was very involved in rowing.
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I rowed or had practice of some sort almost every day.
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Um.. a note from my warden which is like the head of the college is that you should have one athletic
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sort of activity and one academic activity, which I think is a good way to think about to make sure you're doing enough, but also not doing too much.
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I think a lot of people had good work -life balance.
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but it can be very easy to just either spend all your time working
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in the library and just only coming out to eat and to sleep
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or to spend very little time in the library because you don't have a lot of contact hours and you think, "Oh, I can just write an essay in a few hours
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and it will be fine." because of all the work that people have meals are going to be your social time
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So in a haul, Colleges only have one hall each which is where you can go and you get your meals.
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There's no kind of meal plan, so it's up to you if you want to eat there or not.
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You can always go out and eat.
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Oxford isn't that affordable of a city to be doing that honestly like haul meals
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how good they are and how expensive they are is very dependent on what college you go to.
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but your hall is where a ton of people will be there
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eating and like your friend group will socialize because since everyone else has work so much of the time.
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you will sometimes only see people at meals Because the breaks between terms are so long, your accommodation and your lease might not include those break times,
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so that would mean that you have to move out
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every term even if you're living in the same room all three terms you have to move your stuff out.
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between them.
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There's usually some kind of storage provided for it by the college
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or that you can find around the city but it does pose a little bit of a complication.
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for me something now and it means that you probably should bring as much stuff like
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Decor wise or whatnot because you're just gonna have to bring it out and after every eight weeks.
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While it can definitely be stressful, I had a great time in my first year at Oxford, and I'm excited for the next two years to come.

Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione

Questa lezione di conversazione di livello B2 si basa sul video “What Studying at Oxford is Really Like”. Questo video contiene 199 frasi e 2747 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 15:21. Chi parla ha un ritmo naturale di circa 179 parole al minuto, vicino a una conversazione quotidiana. Il 85% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese; conviene studiare le altre prima di iniziare.

Vocaboli chiave di questo video

Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
tutor sostantivo/ˈtjuːtəː/istitutore, istitutrice
tutorial sostantivo/ˌtjuːˈtɔːɹɪəl/esercitazione
lecture sostantivo/ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/conferenza, lezione
assign verbo/əˈsaɪn/assegnare, accantonare
choir sostantivo/kwaɪɚ/coro
compose verbo/kəmˈpəʊz/comporre
haggis sostantivo/ˈhæɡɪs/haggis
zeroth aggettivo/ˈzɪɹoʊθ/zeresimo
warden sostantivo/ˈwɔɹdən/direttore, direttrice
reset verbo/ɹiːˈsɛt/azzerare, rimettere a zero
mock verbo/mɑk/parodiare, imitare
chapel sostantivo/ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/cappella, chiesetta
accommodation sostantivo/əˌkɒm.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/alloggio
approximation sostantivo/əˌpɹɑk.sɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/approssimazione
boathouse sostantivo/ˈboʊtˌhaʊs/rimessa

I phrasal verb che sentirai

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
bring up verbomenzionare, nominare
go out verbouscire, andare fuori
pick up verbotirare su, sollevare
put up verbocollocare
try out verbosaggiare, collaudare
wake up verbo/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/svegliarsi

La grammatica di questo video

Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:

StrutturaNel video
Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosatutors which are · fresher, which is · with which is
Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fais composed · wasn't really prepared · was invited
Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adessohave stuck · haven't been · I've heard

Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione

Chi parla usa 57 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come you're, don't, you'll. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.

  • I suoni “th”: zeroth /ˈzɪɹoʊθ/, athletic /æθˈlɛt.ɪk/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
  • I suoni “sh” e “zh”: fresher /ˈfɹɛʃ.ɚ/, matriculation /məˌtrɪkjəˈleɪʃən/, accommodation /əˌkɒm.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/, approximation /əˌpɹɑk.sɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, carnation /kɑɹˈneɪ.ʃən/
  • Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: matriculation /məˌtrɪkjəˈleɪʃən/, accommodation /əˌkɒm.əˈdeɪ.ʃən/, approximation /əˌpɹɑk.sɪˈmeɪ.ʃən/, commemoration /kəˌmɛməˈɹeɪʃən/, complication /ˌkɑm.pləˈkeɪ.ʃən/

I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:

  • /h/ — va soffiata, non è muta: haul /hɔl/, haggis /ˈhæɡɪs/, boathouse /ˈboʊtˌhaʊs/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/
  • Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: compose /kəmˈpəʊz/, haggis /ˈhæɡɪs/, zeroth /ˈzɪɹoʊθ/, reset /ɹiːˈsɛt/, mock /mɑk/
  • /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: haggis /ˈhæɡɪs/, chapel /ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/, slack /slæk/, athletic /æθˈlɛt.ɪk/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/

Come esercitarsi con questo video

  1. Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
  2. Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
  3. Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come tutor, tutorial, lecture.

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

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