Undergraduate Student Life

You arrive at Exeter College with difficulty - it's right in the centre of town, fronting on to a tiny mediaeval street, the walls cluttered with undergraduate bicycles. Step through the big wooden doors of the Lodge, and you will see the great Victorian Gothic chapel that towers over the quad, and probably hear the ethereal sounds of the choir rehearsing inside it. Right across the quad is a different world - the Undercroft Bar, one of the main social hubs of the College.

Daily life for undergraduates revolves around lectures, tutorials and eating in our beautiful hall together. The College will be the hub of your social life - and your work life too. Being at Exeter College is - as at every Oxford College - first and foremost about work. Undergraduates are taught partly or entirely in tutorials - classes usually of only two people and a tutor, who will give you a piece of work and a reading list, and then leave you to get on with things by yourself for the rest the week, until your next tutorial.

If you are studying an arts or social sciences course, your academic life will be spent mainly in Exeter College and in other colleges where you will be sent for tutorials. If you are doing science or engineering, you will spend most time at the labs. You will probably work, especially in your first months in College, harder than you have ever done in your life. But you will probably never have had more personal attention and or have been taught in smaller groups.

In your first week here as a Fresher, you will almost certainly go to the Freshers' Fair. There, you will be wooed to join a bewildering variety of University Societies, from sports such as basketball, hockey or Extreme Frisbee to intellectual pursuits such as debating, German or Buddhism. Back at College, you will find many more clubs and societies. There are College sports grounds, a vibrant musical life and societies for medics, lawyers, and those studying politics, philosophy and economics. The College runs its own programme of seminars that are the envy of students at other colleges. Recent speakers have included Philip Pullman (an old Exonian), Will Self and Lord Butler. There is an internship programme to offer students work experience during the vacations.

The terms will seem short and the vacations long. But at the start of each new term, you will have Collections - Oxford lingo for exams that don't formally count towards your degree, although persistent bad marks can have unpleasant effects. So you will spend at least some of the holidays catching up on study you missed in the term.

In your second year, and maybe in your other remaining years, you will not live on the central College site. You will probably either share a house with other students in town, or live in Stapeldon House ('Stapes', as it is generally known), about 20 minutes' walk away on the Iffley Road. But you will come into College for the day, and probably for much of the evening too, either to see friends, or to work in the library, which is open 24 hours a day ( a rarity in Oxford).

Enjoy yourself here - we look forward to seeing you!