College Campus

People often wonder where in the city of Oxford is the college campus. That is a very complicated answer. There are 44 colleges within the University of Oxford (my college is New College). Each college is within it's own right a college. It has it's own place in town with a wall around it's land, and each college has it's own pub and library (and around here, yes, it's in that order - first build the pub and then the library!).

I know in America it's weird to think of everything having a wall around it, but in Europe it's not all that strange. Colleges are very exclusive - at the door(s) to every college is a porter whose job is to keep the "public" out because only staff/students associated with that particular college have full access to the grounds/buildings. Don't get me wrong - everyone is very nice here and the it's easy to get into a college that you don't belong to -- Simply find someone who goes to that college, invite them to your college, and they will reciprocate the invitation. I already have some friends in mind to get me into Christ Church so I can eat in their dining hall (where the Great Hall in Harry Potter is filmed).

Members are very proud of their college, and very defensive. So while I'm entertaining the topic of Harry Potter...for the record, New College was approached FIRST to use their dining hall for filming the Great Hall but New College asked for just a little too much money, so the director/producer went to their second choice: Christ Church. Secondly, New College was used in the filming of Harry Potter. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, there is a five minute scene where Harry is snubbed by fellow classmates and Malfoy is turned into a ferret by the fake Madeye Moody. Do your best to tear your eyes away from Daniel Radcliffe long enough to see the beautiful architecture and grassy area used in that scene...say hello to the Cloisters at New College (at least, that's what they call it here - cloister's are really just a small grassy area that looks really pretty and is surrounded by outdoor hallways).

But anyway, now being WAY off topic, back to the point: the nonexistent Oxford campus
Relatively few people live within their college walls. The majority of people actually live outside of the city of Oxford and commute into the city. (I live in an area of town mostly home to college students called Jericho which is really hard to get into because there is so much demand for housing inside the city.) In addition, scattered throughout the city are different libraries and university departments (Did I ever mention that there are 114 libraries within Oxford University?). Not only that, but a student's tutors are not necessarily from that student's college and typically tutorials are not held within college walls. In addition, club events happen ALL over town.

So, in my normal day, I could easily walk all around the entire town heading to college, tutorials, libraries, lectures, and club events. Just for you, I created a little representation of where my feet might lead in an average day...home is upper left, college is just off to the right from the center of town, the psych department is upper right, and the two Bodleian libraries that have reading rooms which carry psychology textbooks are by the psych department. So there really is no Oxford University campus. The entire town is the campus...sort of.

Someone asked me to include how much time it takes to get to all these places. Well...walking from home to city center is 10-15 minutes, home to the psych department is 15-20 minutes, and home to New is a whopping 20-25 minute walk, all depending on how fast you walk, which way you take, traffic, etc. I spend most of my days at home, in the city center, or at the psych department. I only go to New 1-2 times a week because it is so far away. The most common mode of transportation in Oxford is walking or "cycling" as they call it here. There are some people who do drive, but that is the minority. Fortunately, walking is rather pleasant here because it's so beautiful in both nature and architecture.