After some weeks of settling in (read: having beers with new friends, organising myself and attending several induction lectures), classes have finally started. There are a great variety of classes, ranging from „International Law of the Sea“ and „Company Law“ to „Law and Medieval Society“. The faculty often recommend attending an undergraduate option (though only MJurs are allowed to, BCLs not) to get a firsthand-look at the „real“ common law. I am more intrigued, for my extra options, by the rather specialist courses of „Corporate Finance Law“, „Comparative Corporate Law“ and „Principles of Financial Regulation“ and „International Law and the Use of Force“.
“The Cube” is arguably our nicest class room.
While lectures will introduce the topic and alert students to which topics are important, seminars are where actual participation and discussion take place. Students receive reading lists, which they ought to prepare for seminars. Likewise, debates revolve around a list of questions given to students beforehand. Also, each class will have four tutorials. In those, a professor will meet up with groups of two to four students and discuss a particular topic in detail.
I have to admit: This seems to be a very tough and time consuming schedule. This holds even more true, if you consider that you constantly get bombarded by interesting events and activities to attend and participate in Oxford. I will keep you posted on how this actually works out!