Oxford's exceptional tutorial system has helped to make the University world-famous and lies at the heart of how you will learn throughout your three years. It encourages you to challenge conventional wisdom and your own assumptions, to develop and express your own ideas and arguments, and to strengthen your analytical abilities.

Lectures

Lectures take place in the Economics Department or at the Saïd Business School and are occasions where you will mix with students from every college. Typically, there are two hours of lectures per week related to each course, covering core theories and concepts. This means that you will attend an average of at least four hours of core lectures a week. In addition, there are many other lectures which significantly expand your understanding of topics and which students are encouraged to attend. While these lectures form a foundation for your learning, in Oxford it is tutorials that comprise the heart of the teaching system.

Tutorials

The distinctive tutorial system at Oxford which has contributed to its worldwide reputation for undergraduate education. Tutorials provide the opportunity for you to interact with tutors who are experts in the subjects you are studying. They involve hour-long meetings with your tutor and typically occur every week for each paper you are studying. Tutors are usually College Fellows or Lecturers.  You meet together with usually just one or two other students and discuss the work that you have prepared over the previous week. This prepared work usually takes the form of an essay or some similar assignment.

In preparation for the tutorial you will be asked to read articles and chapters related to the topic and to address the question set. In the tutorial you will explore this topic with your tutor. Tutorials are not just about information exchange and they are not mini-lectures. Nor are they intended primarily to instruct, though they are opportunities for tutors to explain carefully what a student does not understand or misunderstands. More importantly, tutorials are opportunities for tutors to help develop your skills of critical thought and analysis, argument and exposition. You should expect to have your ideas and arguments challenged, to be prepared to defend your position or to amend it as appropriate, and to engage critically with the literature and with other students’ work.

Colleges and Departments

Lectures at the University of Oxford are based in departments and there you mix with all other students taking the Economics and Management programme. However, tutorials are more usually based in colleges, particularly during the first year of the course or when taking core Finals courses.  When you come to take specialist Finals options, the tutors who you are assigned to typically experts in that particular field and may well be tutors in a college other than your own. When taking tutorials for Finals papers you are also likely to mix with students from other colleges. 

There are an outstanding range of facilities at Oxford in both the departments and also in the colleges, including libraries, on-line resources and lecture theatres.  As you use these facilities you will get to know and make friends with those studying at different colleges.