WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR COURSE SUBJECT?

                                               King's College, Cambridge 





Are you tempted by an unfamiliar Oxbridge course? Fine, but a student applying for something not studied at school would be unwise to just look at the basic course information. While reading some course-related books is essential, details about subject areas, projects, achievements and careers are more easily found online.  Which sites, though, should you go to? Fortunately, some Oxbridge course pages contain useful links.

 

This is particularly true of two Cambridge courses.  Architecture applicants will find sound advice not just on the course website, but also on the excellent Architecture pages produced by King’s, one of its colleges: http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/subjects/architecture.html. 

 

Cambridge Engineering applicants will benefit from exploring the very informative course pages. Smart students, though, will also follow the links found on it its “Resources” page and visit the clear and comprehensive website of the university’s world-famous Engineering department:  http://www3.eng.cam.ac.uk/admissions/guide/otherfactors.html

 

The website of Oxford’s Archaeology and Anthropology course links to an external body, the prestigious Royal Anthropological Institute, which offers prospective applicants both inspiration and information: http://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/about-anthropology/what-is-anthropology.html.

 

The Materials Science course website run by Oxford, meanwhile, links to several of this field's professional and academic bodies. To get the full picture of this little known field, visit www.iom3.org , www.materials.ac.uk , and www.whystudymaterials.ac.uk.

 

Classics, a course taught only by a small minority of schools, is open to Oxbridge candidates educated anywhere. However, Cambridge applicants new to this popular subject cannot really claim to be thrilled by it until they have visited the key link on the university’s course page:  http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/prospective/undergraduate.  The university is also running a full study day on Classical Civilisation on September   23rd. You can still book a place at this free, sixth form geared event via  http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/prospective/undergraduate/events#section-3.

 

Oxford Classics gives more general advice and does not even offer a reading list. Its website states: “We encourage students to read as widely as possible about any Classics materials they find interesting (in literature, history, philosophy, archaeology, and/or philology), and to think critically about their reading”. Applicants unsure what this means may want to draw on the Cambridge advice, even if applying to Oxford.

 

By working your way through the relevant links you will be able to (just metaphorically!) kill two birds with one stone. Firstly, you can check that the course you picked is definitely right for you. By drawing on the information in those links when writing your UCAS statement, though, you can also convey to the university that you are the curious and determined student it seeks.

 

Students seeking more specific UCAS advice should read the relevant chapter in OXBRIDGE ENTRANCE; THE REAL RULES.