When he first arrived at Princeton as part of the University's exchange program with Oxford University, Matthew Yeo looked at the American academic system and almost went back to England.
"I gave thought to going home," he said. "But I'm very happy now."
The difficulties Yeo faced — being an ocean's distance from home, experiencing a drastically different educational method and integrating into the regular Princeton student population — are challenges of the University's new exchange partnership with Oxford.
The exchange — part of the Oxford-Princeton Partnership — is an agreement between the two institutions to "cooperate in areas of research and education," Associate Dean of the College Nancy Kanach wrote in an email. "It includes research collaborations among faculty, graduate and undergraduate student exchange."
Discussions about the collaboration began in 2001, and sharing research methods and equipment began last year, said Kanach, who oversees study abroad. This is the first year of student exchanges, through which Oxford students from various colleges — smaller schools within the University — are studying here while some Princeton students spend time in England.
There are four undergraduate history concentrators, two graduate students and two fourth-year engineers at Princeton for the program, Kanach said. There is also a molecular biology major doing only laboratory work. The history and molecular biology students will be here for one semester, and the engineers will stay the year.
When the program began, however, it included two more students, but they left at the beginning of the semester.
"These students are real pioneers," Kanach wrote. "There really hasn't been a precedent at Oxford for students to go abroad and do work that will become part of their final degree assessment. The two who left felt uncomfortable with the newness of the program. They also felt that they had just started to get used to Oxford and weren't really ready to switch systems so soon."
The Oxford system
In the Oxford system, a student concentrates on one tutorial — a private meeting with a professor — for six weeks, learning about a single subject in extreme depth, said history professor Robert Darnton, who participates in one discipline of the exchange, the history of books. Darnton is familiar with both educational systems, having received his Ph.D. at Oxford and having taught at both schools.
In addition to the tutorial system, lectures at Oxford are not as serious or well-attended as at Princeton, Darnton said.
"One-on-one debate is the student's whole focus for three years," he said. "At the end [of all three years], you have a week — a period of exams called 'Schools' — and everything rides on how you do that for one week."
The grading system for "Schools" — first, second, third and fourth classifications, as well as failure — is rigorous, and only those students who earn a first are considered qualified for academic or high civil service careers, Darnton said.
The pressure surrounding "Schools" preparation has been one factor in Oxford students' decisions to leave. Darnton said one of the students had left because he was worried about the intense exams.
"He thought that one semester at Princeton would have cost too much that he would fall behind," Darnton said. "I think [the exchange students] could learn so much from undergoing culture shock . . . that it would make them better scholars.
Getting settled
Louise Powell, a student from Oxford's Merton College, had never been to the United States before she began her semester here.
"It was like, 'I'll throw myself into the deep end,'" she said, describing her choice to participate in the exchange. "I'm really enjoying it. It's definitely worth coming."
Powell and Yeo say that Princeton takes some getting used to — from the "bubble effect" of forgetting about the rest of the world to the social scene on 'the Street' — but they say that their overall experience has been positive.
"Everyone is unbelievably friendly," Yeo said. He added, however, that he has not fully integrated into the student body.
"It hasn't been easy, but that's what you expect when you're from a foreign culture."
Because both he and Powell live in residential colleges and attended an international orientation before the academic year began, they spend most of their time with freshmen and international students, frequenting New York City as often as Prospect Street, they said.
The other cultural differences are small, they say — including Princeton students' intrigue with British accents and the stigma here attached to smoking.
But there are advantages too. Yeo loves the fast Internet connection. Powell said she likes the variety of food, but Yeo had his own criticism.
"Everything here — the food, the streets — is about a third bigger," he said, half joking, half puzzled.
Becoming better scholars
The Oxford students here have found different ways of adjusting to the differences in the two systems. Yeo, who at first had difficulty finding classes that suited him, finally settled on one music class and two upper-level history classes.
Powell has tried to immerse herself in the American system by taking four classes.
"I figured if you guys take four, I'll take four," she explained. One of Powell's courses is HIS 389: American Cultural History since 1876, to which she feels she contributes "a European view."
"I get a lot out of it, and I think the other people get something out of it as well," she said.
Both Yeo and Powell said they like the constant evaluation of their work in the American system, and both enjoy Princeton's preceptorials.
"It's just a tutorial with more people," Powell said. "It's very similar to the Oxford system."
"[Precept is] much more of a general broad group discussion than an argument, but it's certainly quite lively and interesting," Yeo said.
He also commented that Princeton students have incredible "access to so many erudite professors."
At the end of their semester here, the Oxford history students will write for each of their two required classes a 7,500-word essay, Powell said. The papers will be sealed until June 2004, when they will be read in the place of exams the students would otherwise write then, during "Schools."
The ultimate compatibility of the systems, it seems, will come to light when those essays are graded.
For now, "we are still in the first weeks of this program," Kanach said. "We assume that we will learn a lot from our experience this year and will make improvements as necessary. Both Oxford and Princeton are committed to making the exchange work and flourish."
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