A highly successful History Study Day

The History Study Day offers talented year 12 students who are interested in reading History at university an insight into the strengths of the Oxford course and the realities of studying and living here.

After a welcome talk they attended a series of 3 seminars, led by the History tutors at St John's. Lunch was spent talking with current students and enjoying a guided tour of the College. The day ended with a Question and Answer Session, where tutors and current students responded to the students' questions about the application process, the course and the College, and more informal discussion over tea. 

The students gave very positive feedback on their experiences of the day. Asked what they most enjoyed about it they said:

• 'Being properly challenged academically and having the chance to learn with like-minded and enthusiastic people.'
  
• 'The intellectual stimulation of the seminars, the chance to meet other like-minded prospective history students and the chance to take in the wonderful atmosphere of the College.'
  
• 'I enjoyed the whole day, but a particular highlight was obviously the seminars. I found them intellectually stimulating, and it was nice that for one day I was not thinking about how to answer exam-style questions in order to achieve top grades; I was just looking at the History which is where my real passion lies. I particularly enjoyed the seminar on Joan of Arc taken by Hannah Skoda, but the Medieval Science was also a real gem, despite me not understanding most of what Aquinas was writing about!'
  

and the most useful part of the day:

• 'Talking with the students at both lunch and in the Q&A session, as they explained what it's actually like to live and study in Oxford and the amount of work expected, they made it seem more real and achievable as they completely knew where we were coming from.'
  
• 'I think the most useful part was definitely the Q and A session at the end of the day. This gave me a real insight, from both a tutor and student perspective, of the different aspects of Oxford Uni life, but also the details about what the courses entailed.'