JYA Subjects and Teaching

Visiting students at Worcester College are enrolled in one "primary" course of eight weekly tutorials per term, and also in a "secondary" course, consisting of four fortnightly tutorials per term. A tutorial is an hour-long period of concentrated study and discussion, and the tutor usually has either one or two students per tutorial. In advance students are expected to write an essay on an assigned topic, or complete a problem set or other assignment, based on work done in the Bodleian and college library. The completed assignment forms the basis of the tutorial discussion. Each JYA student at Worcester therefore completes twelve tutorial essays or assignments in the eight weeks of an Oxford term.

We encourage visiting students to attend University lectures relevant to their topics of study. They should be aware, however, that while such lectures complement and enhance understanding of the subject, they seldom directly apply to specific work that is required for the weekly tutorial. The tutorial system places great emphasis upon independent study skills, and needs a great deal of individual motivation and organization. Tutorials also develop argumentation and debating skills, and are both intensely intellectually stimulating and challenging.

Each completed tutorial assignment is taken in and marked by the tutor. These submitted papers, as well as tutorial participation, form the basis of the written report and grade that are assigned by tutors to JYA students at the end of the term. The tutor's reports are read aloud to students in the formal setting of "Provost's Collections", which take place each term in the presence of the Provost (the Head of the College) and College subject tutors. For visiting students accepted to Worcester via Butler University's Institute for Study Abroad, the grades and reports are then submitted to Butler for conversion to North American grading conventions. After this, they are sent to students' home educational institutions. Please see the Butler ISA website for more information on the conversion of grades, and the exact basis upon which credit is obtained. In the case of Princeton University students, grades are submitted to the Director of the Study Abroad Programme at Princeton. Please see the relevant section of the Princeton website for more information.

Worcester College prides itself on providing tuition in a variety of areas; past JYA students have studied English literature, history, theology, philosophy, classics, law, economics, politics, mathematics, biology, engineering, and physics. It is usually possible to offer tuition in most of the subjects for which Worcester accepts undergraduate degree-level students, but provision of tuition is subject to the availability of teaching resources, and not all subjects can be guaranteed to be taught in each term. It is crucial, therefore, that you list second choices for your requested tutorials in the relevant sections of the application forms.

Wherever possible, tutorials are conducted by Worcester College tutors, although, as with Oxford degree-course students, when this is not possible, instruction is sought from qualified tutors in other colleges, and very occasionally from advanced-level postgraduate students.