kokonutz

So my 20-year-old daughter (where DOES the time go!?) was nominated to study abroad at Oxford Brookes University this coming Fall and appears to be headed that way.

Despite having spent countless time in London, I find myself utterly ignorant of the Oxford area, its accessibility to London as well as anything at all about the University itself.

Any opinions (good and bad), advice, and general notions greatly appreciated.

Oxon Flyer

Brookes is well regarded as a University and Oxford is one of the greatest cities in the world to study in. I'm sure your daughter will have a wonderful experience there.

The main campus of Brookes is in the Headington area of Oxford, which is about a mile and a half from the city centre and the colleges of the 'other' university. It's not that convenient for the train station which is a couple of miles away, however, the main Headington Road runs straight through the campus, and as well as local buses to all parts of Oxford, direct coaches run from there to London (every few minutes, 2 different services), Heathrow and Gatwick. Out of town visitors can also choose to leave their cars at the Thornhill Park and Ride and take the bus, again to the heart of the campus.

There's a sub-campus at Wheatley, which is about 10 minutes drive away which is again well served with dedicated Brookes bus shuttles.

exilencfc

I think it's pretty good access wise. There seems to be a lot of buses there from the railway station and Oxford is fairly convenient for London and LHR. Oxford is a great City and Brookes is well regarded with an improving reputation. So basically what Oxon Flyer said +1

MAN Pax

All good - though Oxford Brookes is not part of the Oxford University.

It may be a thriving establishment with a good reputation for some subjects, but Oxford University it isn't.

kokonutz

This is great information and appreciated. Mostly I was curious about Brookes' reputation since I had never even heard of it until a couple months ago. And I take their online information with a grain of salt.

Her goal is to of course continue her education and absorb English culture, but also see London and travel around Europe as much as possible, so I figure access to rail (and a night bus!) and Stansted/Gatwick/Luton for discount travel options will be a priority. I keep telling her that I refuse to acknowledge that the likes of ryanair and easyjet even exist but, then, 20 years ago I was running around Europe on a Eurail pass, so...

Best of all, it'll be a great excuse for me to hang out in England more 'visiting her'. ^

JanePond

She may still be well served with a EURAIL PASS. Easier to negotiate to the rail stations, and can manage the shorter distances with some comfortable sightseeing. One can also read required text books on the train, thereby being more productive. <g> I must admit it's been >40 years since I had one. But trains have become more comfortable and flying, even short trios, has become more bothersome.

RichardInSF

Unless I am mistaken, Eurailpasses are not (and never have been) valid in the UK, which makes this seem a suboptimal choice.

lhrsfo

But student rail passes are available in the uk and are widely used. Get tickets with them as far in advance as possible (but beware that they are absolutely not changeable or refundable) and it will be cheap.

Having said that, I would imagine your daughter will simply get the bus to London - very cheap, comfortable, frequent and fairly quick. It avoids having to go the wrong way into Oxford to get to the station to come back out again and, depending upon her London destination, might get her to a more sensible place - Paddington is not generally where people want to end up.

Eurail passes will only come in handy if she wants to drift around Europe on the train. But flights are so cheap nowadays that many kids just fly there and back fairly regularly. The challenge will be in getting to Gatwick or, more likely, Luton or Stansted for a sensible price.

My generation still is slightly snooty about Brookes (it was Oxford Polytechnic, ie one grade below a university until all the polytechnics were, by diktat, turned into universities) but since then its reputation has massively improved and is now considered the best of the former polys and a very good university in its own right. However, you should be aware that students at Oxford University might still retain an air of superiority about them (think Harvard and Boston University).

Reason077

"Eurail" passes aren't valid in the UK, but "InterRail" passes (also a product of the Eurail group) are.

InterRail passes cannot be purchased by non-European residents, but as the OP's daughter will be a UK resident while she resides in Oxford, she will be eligible.

Starting at £161 / €181 for a "5 days out of 10" Youth (< 26 y/o) they can be quite good value!

It's not valid on Eurostar, and supplements are payable if you want to use high-speed services on the continent (ICE, TGV, etc), but in most cases these are pretty reasonable (< €10).

See http://www.eurailgroup.org/Rail%20Passes/InterRail.aspx
and http://www.interrail.eu

stut

And, of course, positioning flights can be extremely cheap these days, if you want to do the whole Ryanair thing to some obscure corner of Poland, only to work your way back by rail.

(So much better than when you used to have to call round a dozen bucket shops to get leftover seats on charter flights, almost no onward transport, and all sorts of compulsory travel insurance scams...)

Oxon Flyer

Both of the London operators (Oxford X90 and Oxford Tube) run night services deep into the small hours.

FWIW, Oxford Tube tickets are resold by Megabus and, if you are able to book a couple of weeks or more in advance, you can often get a seat on many of the off-peak services for £1 each way. Savvy Oxford residents can park free at Thornhill and enjoy a trip to London for £2 return (plus the 50p Megabus booking fee)

kokonutz

I imagine most of her travel around Europe will be of the Friday-Sunday variety, so for that it'll mostly be using the airlines which must not be named.

I also presume she'll likely take rail excursions around the UK. She'll have to figure that out for herself.

This latter bit is what I suspected and appreciate your confirming. As for the air of superiority, I have already made it perfectly clear to her from personal experience that as an American abroad in the England she can expect to encounter two things:

1) An air of superiority, and
2) Being mocked in ways that seem very much like compliments.

And that she will truly be a woman of the world when she can give as good as she gets.

At least, thanks to years of my frustrations, she'll be carrying a chip and pin credit card!

stut

Don't forget

3) Gentle mockery is a sign of affection over here!

MSPeconomist

Nominated? Is this a special fellowship?

Is this part of a study abroad program organized by her own school, some other school, or is she going independently as a special visiting student (usually a much better experience, but requires more independence)? Will she take regular classes with British students and live in dorms with them? Or will she be segregated with other foreign students? She should plan early to make sure she will get full credit, including satisfaction of specific course and distribution requirements, for the courses she takes.

It sounds like at least the father is viewing this as more of a life experience than education. Will she be there for an entire academic year?

kokonutz

It's an exchange program through her University (Old Dominion University). So she will be 'living the life' of a British student from Brookes who will be living her life at her school. So she'll be living on campus, attending regular class and her coursework will be fully transferable (a study abroad counselor at her school helped her choose courses wisely).

It's sort of interesting, because I will still pay tuition, room and board to ODU and presumably some other sucker parent over there will still pay tuition, room and board to Brookes and our children will simply swap places. Sadly (imho) it is only one semester rather than two.

Anyway, based on the essay she wrote for her application to the program, it appears she is going 95% for the life experience and 5% or so for the academic experience. The acorn not falling far from the tree and all! ^