My First Tutorial

I came to Oxford with over 100 pounds of luggage and much more apprehension.   Three eight-week trimesters that cram every aspect of chemistry in excruciatingly detailed lectures and problem sets that seem as endless as the reading.  Although six weeks of break punctuate each term, I was quickly informed those breaks should be considered “holiday, but not vacation.”

With thoughts of long nights and exorbitant amounts of caffeine, I was very surprised at my tutor’s recommendation of my schedule for the year: 1^st and 2^nd Year Physical Chemistry and 2^nd Year Inorganic Chemistry. Three classes? No labs? No Orgo?  After a year filled with flashcards, heady chemical fumes, and solution manuals, I began to view the year with more optimism.

I now had a schedule which had all lectures end at noon every day.  Coming from the American system where I ate granola bars as meals between Problem of God and Multivariable Calculus, having a single subject to study and nearly twice the time to study gave me hope.

Unfortunately, I abused this hope. My tutor emailed me my first problem set: seven questions to finish over the course of one week. I went to every lecture, blithely taking notes and skimming handouts, but tossing them to the side of my desk so that I could spend the afternoon walking with Christ Church Meadows and having high tea at The Rose.  The information would be reviewed…eventually. The charm of Oxford was too overpowering. The day before the problem set was due, I finally read through the questions.

One of the first diagrams I learned was the potential energy curve for a diatomic molecule:

Here was my night based on that model:

I didn’t do well my first tutorial.  I sat in a room with a second year chemistry major and my tutor.  He handed our problem sets back and I cringed at the abundance of red marks on mine.  We then started the hour session off by reviewing the questions and the proofs behind the equations used.

A combination of nervousness and sleep-deprivation had paralyzed my wits so that whenever my tutor looked meaningfully at me for an answer, I could only muster enough courage to stop my breathing and widen my eyes in terror.  Even if I knew the answer, I couldn’t find enough courage to form a cohesive thought and my response came out as disjointed stutters.

Now I knew why the tutorial system was so difficult. I couldn’t just regurgitate or fib an answer like I did on understudied exams; I also couldn’t write down all my researched knowledge in an outlined and eloquent essay like I did on my papers.  The answer could not be found in a single, main textbook; my courses now demanded lengthy searches in the library to find each textbook, primer, and article on the subject matter. The problem sets not only had to be done, but the concepts and proofs had to be understood and recalled on cue in a reasonably succinct manner.  The endearing British accent that I found so fascinating days before now only cause my mind to blank and blood pressure to spike.

Feeling dejected, I asked my tutorial partner after class whether this would be a common occurrence.

“Oh don’t worry, it’s a freshman mistake,” she replied, “We all struggled with tutorials our first year.”

Great, I now needed the stamina to both acquaint myself with every person/potential best friend in college and over-work each homework assignment for fear of making a bad first impression.  Not very appealing, but then again, I was a freshman not so long ago.  Change a few words and my handy diagram could have easily applied to my first calculus midterm at Georgetown (with similar results).

My last blog commented on the comfort of the familiar: familiar friends, familiar professors, familiar schedule.  I was too ingrained in the American system of busy work weeks and study-packed weekends. I learned how to manage my time without (severely) affecting my psyche—but that was after a few months of miscalculations and distressed phone calls home.

I will say again that I don’t like the prospect of being a freshman (again). On the other hand, my second tutorial with that professor went much much better. I managed to get more sleep.