Opportunity Oxford Online Course - Video Transcript

[Text on screen: Opportunity Oxford supports talented students with the transition to university, ensuring the best possible start to studying at Oxford. We spoke to some current students about their experience of the online course and their advice for offer holders.]

[Q1: Which elements of the online course did you find most helpful?]

Anna: For me the most beneficial aspect of the online course I think was the fact that each assignment focused on a different skill that would be required for my degree, whether that's note taking, doing lectures, summarizing an article, drawing a diagram, and especially I remember the last task was an essay and my A-level subjects were not essay-based at all and I hadn't done an essay since GCSE.

Olamide: See it as an opportunity to help us develop skills that we may have some experience in, or skills that we haven't been exposed to at all, so i feel like embracing it and being open-minded to the program would be an amazing thing and would help you.

Alice: You know the feedback that you can get can really give you some confidence. You can ask questions, you can interact with people. It's an environment where everyone just wants to learn. It really made coming here to start term so much more comfortable and so much more exciting.

Olamide: So I guess after that like really long summer break, getting back into doing work was really helpful.

Maddie: I think because normally during the summer I quite miss doing work so it's quite hard when you've got so long off to get back into it, so I think it was really beneficial anyway to be doing that course.

Omarr: In terms of the skills, they were relatable to what I do now day-to-day to be fair, so yeah it was pretty good.

Kane: The critical thinking, the analysis skills I got from it were really really useful on a day-to-day basis now, because every single day I'm reading cases and that was the first time I'd done it, so the online course I think was really helpful in terms of getting a foundation and also helping building on skills.

Marwa: It was quite interesting and it kind of just confirmed the fact that this is why I wanted to do law.

Maddie: It reassured me when he was like "Don't worry, it doesn't have to be perfect" and I think that's really important now because even now nothing's ever going to be perfect, your essay is never going to be perfect, and it really helped me get into that mindset that as long as I'm trying, try your best and the tutor was really helpful, he really gave me good feedback.


[Q2: What advice would you give to those about to start the online course?]

Kane: This is gonna be the first bit of Oxford work you've done. It's supposed to be tricky, it's supposed to get you involved in it, it's supposed to show you what it's going to be like and it's supposed to challenge you.

Maddie: It's just all there to give you experience and any experience is good experience, it gives you experience writing essays, reading articles, and I think that's always going to be a good thing to take from it.

Marwa: Definitely get into contact with your other course mates that are also doing the course. I think that was quite helpful, talking about some of the materials together, getting like advice like "Oh I found this useful, like you should do this" and stuff, and it's quite a collaborative environment.

Omarr: Like the best advice I could give someone is to actually give themselves two weeks to do it, and then once you actually get it done like it's not that big of a deal like you can get through it fairly quickly, so long as you you know use like, appropriate time and stuff.

Olamide: You know yourself you know whether like how long it takes you to read a book or an article, so bear that in mind when you are looking at each individual task. It will be less stressful if you plan your days, plan when you want to do the work, how you want to do it, where you want to do it.

Tahmid: I'd say enjoy it and don't stress out about it at all. Everyone's studying their subjects because they enjoy that subject and they want to explore it. 

Anna: I was really concerned about how I would manage with the work and how different it would be from my workload at A-level, but I think Opportunity Oxford gave me confidence that I would be able to cope.

Alice: Just don't be afraid to ask any questions, you know, this is the time for it. You get to enjoy getting to know your subject in relatively long periods of time you're free to explore, you're free to ask these questions. This is an opportune moment to get to know how to balance social life and work life.

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More information is available on our website: www.ox.ac.uk/opportunityoxford 

If you require an alternative format please contact us on: opportunityoxford@admin.ox.ac.uk