The Collegiate System

The University of Oxford is a collegiate University, and if you want to study for an undergraduate degree here you have first to be admitted as a member of one of the colleges that together make up the University. Graduate students, by contrast, apply to and are accepted by a University Department, and are then offered a place by a college. Generations of Oxford students have found collegiate life a conducive one in which to work, to make new friends, and to explore new challenges.

The University does the following:

• it determines the content of the courses within which college teaching takes place;
• organizes lectures and seminars;
• provides a wide range of resources for teaching and learning in the form of libraries, laboratories, museums, computing facilities, etc;
• admits and supervises graduate students, examines theses;
• sets and marks examinations and awards degrees.

Each College supplies a focus for your intellectual life by:

• providing teaching;
• maintaining its library; and
• nurturing academic research.

But the college also becomes your home, and St Anne's aims to provide an environment which is both comfortable and protective but also stimulating.

To see a video about studying at St Anne's, click here.

You may also find the University's 'Wall of 100 Faces' helpful.

This contains videos of students from across the University talking about their courses and life at Oxford.

Teaching at Oxford

Oxford offers undergraduates a unique learning experience through the tutorial system, in which students meet regularly with their college tutor, either on a one-to-one basis or with one or two other students, as an integral part of the pedagogic mix. The individual nature of this teaching system means that College tutors take a keen interest in their ‘tutees’, ensuring that they are getting the most and the very best from the University (faculty/department) classes and lectures, as well as preparing for and contributing to the stimulating dynamic of the tutorial. It has the additional advantage that it allows a considerable amount of choice: courses offer students the chance to study their chosen field in depth, whilst a range of options allows for a wide spread of special interests within a given course.

Postgraduate students are a valued part of St Anne’s, and make up more than a quarter of the total student body. The University offers a wide range of taught graduate and research degrees, ranging from one to three or more years in length, and tutors at St Anne’s actively engage with students at postgraduate level at every opportunity. The graduate community at St Anne’s welcomes PGCE students, Masters students and DPhil research students.

We are ideally situated for the Department of Educational Studies in Norham Gardens and take a sizeable cohort of one-year PGCE students every year preparing for a career in teaching. Masters students also make up a healthy number, and St Anne’s students take programmes across the spectrum, including the medical sciences, social sciences, humanities, life and environmental sciences, mathematical and physical sciences.

Our Fellows are supervisors and advisers to postgraduate research students working in such diverse fields as Materials Science, Applied Statistics, History of Medicine, English Literature, International Relations and Plant Sciences, to name a few. The College welcomes applications both in the areas of its Fellows’ interests and outside them.