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Another Yank at Oxford — Part 8
Academics
I had the great good fortune to be able to attend Oxford University as an undergraduate from 1975 to 1978. I essentially talked my way into the university without taking the entrance exam, completing my ‘A’ levels or going through the central clearing system for university applications in the UK, then known as UCCA and, these days, UCAS. What I was able to do is not possible today.
Despite the impression I may have given you by discussing my love life or lack thereof, I actually attended Oxford University to study for a degree. The regime there was very different from anything I had experienced. I had been accepted to read Arabic, and as a result, all the instruction I received was at the Oriental Institute in Pusey Lane, behind the Ashmolean Museum.
There were six of us on the course, including another American, David Rundell, who was also at Queen’s, although he was a graduate student reading for an M Phil degree. That means there were only five undergraduate students studying Arabic in the entire university.
The approach to learning Arabic was fairly brutal. We had eight weeks’ tuition as a group in the first term, during which…
