Blenheim Palace!

Students found themselves in altogether more grandiose surroundings today, as we took a trip to  Blenheim Palace. This historic country house is home to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, as well as being the birthplace of Winston Churchill (who Badar claims is his uncle...).

Although students were less than pleased about the hot coach journey to Blenheim (the UK rarely gets hot enough for air conditioning), the beautiful grounds of Blenheim were a worthwhile reward for the journey! The palace boasts a maze, huge landscaped grounds -complete with a a mini-train to tour them- and many, many swans.

After exploring the grounds students had a guided tour of the Palace, including the room where Winston Churchill was born, and numerous beautifully decorated rooms. These were filled with priceless antique furniture and had impressive paintings from masters such as van Dyck adorning the walls.

After Blenheim students ate at Aziz, a  Bangladeshi restaurant on Cowley Road. The curry there was excellent, with Sarahkate and Yuval both agreeing that this was their favourite restaurant yet! The evening was spent attending more seminars, and getting some rest for the last day of the summer school tomorrow!

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Day 10

The main event of today (apart from studying of course) was a punting trip! Unlike in Cambridge, students were in charge of the punts this afternoon, which provided a lot of entertainment for the students! There were many horizontally facing boats and dramatic collisions, with one student Liz having a swim in the river! Liz enjoyed a break from the hot sun, so much so that she decided to go for a dip again. Alex, whilst originally nervous about falling in really got into punting and enjoyed herself!

That evening students enjoyed a dinner in the garden followed by a careers seminar run by an advisor for the Oxford University careers service. Students were encouraged to explore the wide range of careers in existence by listing the different jobs related to household objects such as a music album or bottle of weed killer.  Students were then given questions asked by top consulting firms and challenged to tackle them in groups. They did very well to come up with answers to tough questions quickly - for example coming up with the next date composed entirely of numbers which did not repeat themselves!

The main task of the session was designed to mimic "assessment centre" type of tasks, where job candidates are given tasks to complete in groups and assessed on how they work as a team. Students were challenged to build a tower as cheaply as possible, with a minimum height of 60cm, able to hold withstand a weight being placed on top of it. We saw a range of designs - including the prohibited but highly ingenious idea of securing the tower by attaching long strands of tape to the ceiling and the tower! The winning team went for an excellent minimalist design - well done!

Day 9

Presentation and interview skills workshops took up the majority of the day today. In the presentation skills workshop students were challenged to design a radio station, including the concept, business model, average day's programming and even a jingle! They then presented their pitch to the group.  Ideas included a London underground station for deprived boroughs of London. The prize of fudge from The Fudge Kitchen was well earnt by the winning teams!

The interview skills workshop was run by an experienced human resourcer who has interviewed hundreds of candidates. Questions such as "who are you?" and "what is your greatest fault?" are very difficult to answer on the spot, yet often come up in interviews for a wide range of jobs. Students were encouraged to explore who they are as potential employees and students, as well as what makes them special.

Through this we learnt about Alex's experiences swimming with dolphins and Johanna's experience of living in a diverse range of countries!  Questions requiring candidates to give evidence of possessing a particular skill or experience, such as "give me an example of when you worked in a team were also explored. The workshop will prove very useful for upcoming university interviews, as well as job and internship interviews in the future.

After dinner at student favourite Noodle Nation, students assembled in the garden for the summer school's very own Alternative Olympics. The countries Narnia, Tommorrowland, Jonar, United States of Candy and Trashland courageously competed against each other. Events included eating a chocolate bar with a knife and fork, three-legged relays, eating polos with chopsticks, and forming a human pyramid.  It was a very close contest however the overall winners were Trashland, followed by Panam  and Jonar in 2nd and 3rd.

Day 8

More individual tutorials for Medics and Psychologists were on the cards for today. Joanne found her tutorial very valuable, and received very useful feedback on her personal statement, as she will be applying to Psychology courses at UK universities in the Autumn. Like yesterday, these individual tutorials gave students the chance to  discuss their subject one-on-one with a tutor and receive personalised feedback on their work.

In the afternoon students had more seminars, following on from the previous seminars - Life as a Junior Doctor, Environmental Studies, Philosophy and Ethics, Current Affairs and Creative Writing.

Students were treated to a traditional Sunday dinner, at the historic Oxford pub The Mitre. Sunday dinner is traditionally a big family occasion in the UK, and whilst some students were unsure

A relaxed film night followed in the evening. The films on show were classic Bond films and the less classic John Tucker Must Die. A relaxed evening was much needed as the action - packed days, rigorous academic assignments and uncharacteristic heatwave hitting the UK was making the students a little tired!

Day 7

Students had individual tutorials today where they recieved one-to-one tuition, apart from Medicine and Psychology students, who have theirs tomorrow. These tutorials were valuable for the students and allowed them to get one on one feedback about their work, as well as discussing their subject in a way tailored to them rather than a group. Olivia's tutorial focused on exploring the work she has done so far in more detail, whereas others focused more on feedback for a particular piece of work.

Students then braved the intense sun to make their way to a lateral thinking workshop. This workshop challenged students to think laterally through a variety of games and exercises. Interestingly many students first thought that lateral thinking was thinking logically to solve complex problems - by the end of the workshop they learnt that lateral thinking more involved thinking creatively or differently about a problem.

Students played games, including the scissors game, where students had to figure out a rule  as to when the words "crossed" or "uncrossed" were correct or incorrect.  Some students, such as Brett and Alex, picked up on the rule immediately. Others, such as Diletta and Will, were sure they had figured out the rule but actually had found a different one whilst others such as Yuval and Claire found it very difficult to determine the rule!

Talking about these differences revealed that those who struggled to find the rule were often over-thinking or looking for a complicated pattern when the rule was actually very simple. It showed how even coming up with a clever way of tackling a plan can be unhelpful, and highlighted the importance of recognising the need to change strategy sometimes.

Then it was back to the accomodation for enormous portions of traditional British fish n' chips. The rest of the evening was spent in the sunny garden playing football, frisbee and guitar playing! The football got very competitive, even involving plots from Irene to hide a certain team member's shoe!

Day 6

A trip to Cambridge gave students a break from tutorials and an opportunity to see for themselves the differences and similarities between Oxford and "the Other Place"! After breakfast everyone piled onto the coach and set off on our two hour journey. The earlier start and busy days meant that many used their time on the bus to catch up on sleep!

Once arriving in Cambridge the first item on the itinerary was a tour of the city by Rosie, OCSS coordinator and Cambridge Alumna. This tour included famous bridges, colleges such as King's and Trinity, the Union and Rosie's own former college, Jesus.  The students learnt local nicknames for landmarks and colleges, as well as many anecdotes and trivia (apparently you could walk from Cambridge to London on land owned by Trinity College!). Students were also able to explore Jesus College in more detail, and hear about student life from Rosie. The college also was displaying its biannual sculpture exhibit, so the grassy quads were adorned with weird and wonderful art pieces including a fire truck and a series of wrinkled bronze umbrellas!

After some free time which was spent exploring Cambridge's many shops by many of the students (including  Joanne, Johanna, Reika, Yuval and Dimy who proudly showed me their purchases), the city was explored via river! Everyone went on a punting tour which included the Backs, the grassy banks onto which many colleges back. Some tour guides let the students have a go - on our boat Jace had a try. He discovered first hand the difficulties of steering when first starting punting! Hopefully this practice will put the students in good stead for punting themselves back in Oxford later in the week.

On the coach back home students kept themselves (and staff) entertained with Liz's new ukulele. The whole bus sang "Wonderwall" by Oasis accompanied by ukulele, followed by a newly written song about activities coordinator Alasdair and his "bad hair", finishing on a rendition of "Happy Birthday" for the other activities coordinator, Isobel.

Rosa, Jace and Lauren on the punt!

Nina, Konstantinos, Emma and Jean-Luc enjoying Cambridge

Day 5

A visit to the Ashmolean museum followed students' tutorials today. The Ashmolean museum is the world's first university museum. Students were sent on a mission to find the collection of rings that inspired the One Ring from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Other highlights of the collections included the Kish Tablet, thought to be the oldest written document, drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo and Raphael and the death mask of Oliver Cromwell. 

After pizza and salad for dinner it was time for students' seminars of choice which included Life as a Junior Doctor, Environmental Studies, Current Affairs, Ethics and Philosophy and Creative Writing. Claire and Harrie enjoyed their model UN exercise in Current Affairs, where they represented Brazil and USA. Other countries involved inluded Haiti, Iran, Morroco and Russia. Liz was looking forward to the Environmental Studies seminar, which explored the role of emotion and facts in climate change and other enviromental issues.

We were excited  to have a new student, Sneha joining us today. Sneha is studying English and Economics.  She will be studying at a UK university next year; this summer school will be a great introduction to studying at a UK university. Although it's a shame she couldn't join us from the start of the summer school, she will still have over three weeks to make the most of her time here.

The Ashmolean