Always the Adventure: Oxford's no-wrong answers policy led to growth as a writer and academic

Bigfork High School graduate Amber McDaniel shares her adventures from a semester abroad at Oxford University and four months of backpacking across Europe.

Finding out I had been accepted to Oxford was emotionally dichotomous. On one hand, it was a dream come true to study at the world’s top university, the alma mater of so many of my literary idols. On the other hand, it was absolutely terrifying. I was plagued with fears about the pretentious people I would meet and that I would be intellectually inadequate. In regards to the former, I was happily proven wrong almost immediately, but it took a bit more time to dispel my second concern.

Oxford functions under a vastly different academic system. Unlike the participatory small classes I was used to, I was suddenly nothing more than a face in a weekly lecture hall, one more set of hands contributing to the applause at the end. In addition to these lectures, I attended weekly tutorials, one hour individual or small group meetings with a personal tutor in which I would discuss and defend the single essay I had written on an assigned topic for that week. In one part of this strange system I was anonymous, and in the other I was placed under the microscope.  

My first few tutorials were disastrous. Somehow ending up in an ethical philosophy tutorial, something I have never studied before, with two other students who had been studying it for years, I was essentially thrown off the deep end right in the beginning. I had no idea how to write about utilitarianism’s dependency on non-consequentialist concerns. I did not even know what that meant. My stacks of recommended reading contained lines like, “If this is right then it follows that the self-interest theory tells me that it is desirable that I desire to do what it is not desirable that I do. And it also tells me that it is desirable to do what it is not desirable that I desire to do.”

My head swam with strange words and crippling self-doubt, until I finally learned that at Oxford, there are no right and wrong answers; only strong convictions and logical thought. As my confidence grew, so did my performance.

While there was not the same quantity of work to which I was accustomed, the quality demand was higher. At Oxford, a 70 percent is considered a good mark, which was a lower number than I have ever seen on an essay. As an international student, however, I was never actually given grades, only constructive criticism and the rare treasured praise. For fully matriculated students, exams are the only grades that matter but since exams are cumulative over all years of higher education, they obviously do not expect abroad students to take exams and thus how to evaluate them remains a bit mysterious to all involved.  

In fact, my grades have still not been returned so I have no conception of how I actually did. As a grade-obsessed perfectionist with a 4.0 GPA, this was initially difficult for me, but as I felt myself growing as a writer and an academic, producing work I was proud of, a simple letter in the margin slowly lost its importance. It is ironic to consider that Oxford, of all places, taught me grades are not everything.  

By experiencing something new, I also gained valuable perspective about my own country’s education system about which I was admittedly a little pessimistic. From up close, it is easier to see negatives than positives, but stepping away allowed me to properly compare and contrast the two.

I loved the independent nature of Oxford, but at the same time I hated its narrow focus, where studying more than one subject is essentially impossible. In America, we are encouraged to step outside our field. I myself take full advantage of this as a double major with various minors.

Oxford values depth over breadth, while I believe that breadth is what really enriches the academic experience.  

Studying abroad gave me the opportunity to step outside my comport zone, gain perspective, and temporarily experience the best of both worlds, allowing me to leave humbled and empowered.