CHAMPIONSHIP-LEVEL EDUCATION
A TRANSFORMATIONAL EXPERIENCE For more than 20 years, the Oxford Honors Program has changed lives by giving students the opportunity to study at the world’s greatest university
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erhaps no other program better illustrates the transformational nature of Georgetown College’s education than the Oxford Honors Program. In the program, students take courses and are mentored by faculty in preparation for a semester abroad at the world’s greatest university. Although the program has existed as the “Oxford Honors Program” since 2008, the program was first established through a relationship with Regents Park College at Oxford University in 1998, and has been catapulting students to success ever since. Dr. Bradford Hadaway, professor of philosophy, has been with the program since nearly the beginning and has witnessed firsthand the powerful results. “Oxford University uses the tutorial method, and we quickly realized that if we were going to do this program, we needed to fully prepare students for that method of study,” said Dr. Hadaway. 13
The tutorial method emphasizes small-group sessions with faculty members, as well as individual advising, where students are routinely asked to orally communicate, defend, analyze, and critique the ideas of others, as well as their own.
Students in the Oxford Honors Program undergo training and specific courses in their first years at Georgetown College designed to introduce them to this method of instruction and prepare them for what to expect while studying abroad. This preparation is key to students’ success once they travel abroad. “The Oxford Honors Program is constructed in such a way that students often feel overprepared when they get to Oxford,” said Brynn Sandquist ’21. “You take rigorous classes, seminars, and workshops to prepare you for the application at the very end of sophomore year. In addition to learning how to think, read, write, and argue like an Oxford student, the program inherently helps you learn how to balance coursework with extracurriculars.”
AN UNFORGETTABLE JOURNEY
The culmination of the Oxford Honors Program for students is the journey to Oxford University, to study alongside the best and brightest students and work with some of the most brilliant academics in the world. For Sandquist, the moment she arrived at Oxford University is a moment she will never forget. “I was stretched mentally, physically, and emotionally in ways previously unfamiliar, but stepping off that bus in Oxford was the closest thing to magical I have ever experienced,” said Sandquist. “That moment made me so excited for all the dreams I will dream in the coming decades of my life because now I know what it takes to achieve them.” If the tutorial method is a highly individualized style of learning, the Oxford Honors Program shines
