An Alpha!

This week is first week, my first official term week as an Oxford student. My first regular meeting with my primary tutor, Dr. Margaret Yee, was this morning. I absolutely love meeting with her. This is what I imagined the Oxford tutorial system would be. This is the kind of mental stimulation I’ve always expected from higher education.

Last week, I was assigned a 1,500 word essay on social psychology. I brought two copies to my tutorial and gave one to Dr. Yee and kept the other for myself. She then had me read my essay out loud as she made comments and marked the paper with checks. It was so nerve-wracking to read my paper out loud! I’d never read anything I’d written out loud to be critiqued before, so I was quite nervous. I kept getting tongue-tied and tripping over words. There were a few times when I couldn’t make sense of my sentences and thought that they were poorly written, but Dr. Yee said, “No, you actually have a very, very well structured sentence there. You’re just not taking the time to slow down and read it properly!”

I really didn’t know what to expect when I finished. I could hardly contain my excitement when Dr. Yee told me that she was absolutely thrilled with the paper and couldn’t believe how good it was, especially for a first essay. The Oxford grading system uses alphas, betas, and gammas in odd combinations such as alpha+, alpha beta, beta-, beta gamma, gamma +++, etc. An alpha is equal to an American A++ and very difficult to earn. Dr. Yee had told me in my preliminary meeting that alphas are extremely difficult to earn, so I was so excited when she told me that my paper was an alpha! She said, “I can’t even give you an alpha- or an alpha beta!” She also said that it was the best paper that she’d read all week. Needless to say, I was ecstatic. The funniest part is that I’d written the essay from 1:00 AM to 9:00 AM, just in time to email it to myself and leave at 10:15 AM to walk to the OSAP office to print two copies for my 11:00 AM tutorial at St. Cross College!

I celebrated my alpha paper by going to Starbucks for the first time since I’ve been in Oxford. It’s so expensive here, but I figured it was earned. I can’t wait for my next tutorials, but I’m a bit worried that I may have set the bar too high now! She said that grades are given based on improvement and demonstration that one has learned and developed over the course of the term. We shall see how the rest of the tutorials go!