Studying at St Edmund Hall as a Visiting Student
Why apply to be a Visiting Student at Teddy Hall?
It is a once in a lifetime opportunity. As a Visiting Student you will be welcomed into our community of around 400 undergraduates, who are studying for a wide range of University of Oxford degrees. Our Visiting Student programme offers you the chance to be challenged academically by outstanding tutors, inspired by a beautiful living and working environment, and immersed in a vibrant social, sporting and artistic community.
You will study at St Edmund Hall (one of the colleges that make up the University of Oxford) for up to one year alongside our undergraduates, and we will work hard to ensure that your experiences here will match those of our regular students. You will be given accommodation with our undergraduates and have the opportunity to study the same subjects.
In terms of undergraduate population, we are one of the largest Oxford colleges. Our student body is made up of small, close-knit subject groups. At Teddy Hall you will become close friends with like-minded people who share your passion for your subjects. You will also live alongside and make lifelong friendships with people whose academic interests are radically different from your own.
An Oxford college is much more than a hall of residence. Your college will arrange the tutorial teaching which makes studying at Oxford a distinctive experience. At St Edmund Hall we believe in providing expert teaching, and the courses we offer reflect the academic specialisations of our tutors. As a Visiting Student you will be taught by the same specialist tutors who teach undergraduates reading for an Oxford degree, and you will often share your tutorials with an Oxford undergraduate.
We also have first-rate facilities to help you reach your academic potential. That includes excellent IT provision, seminar rooms with up-to-date audio-visual technology and a multi-purpose hall which regularly hosts plays, concerts and lectures. Our College Library, housed in a historic converted church, is open seven days a week and its holdings cover the full range of undergraduate subjects.
Visiting Student Courses
As a Visiting Student at St Edmund Hall you can select courses from a maximum of three subject areas chosen from list of available courses.
View courses for Visiting Students
Each term you will study one primary course and one secondary course. All of our courses are taught using the Oxford tutorial system. A tutorial is a one hour meeting with an academic expert in the subject, for which you will usually have prepared work such as an essay or a set of problems. For a primary course, you will have eight tutorials and for a secondary course, you will have four tutorials.
The application form asks you to supply first and second choices for your courses. Please note that the Oxford system is very different from that at most other universities. The preferences you state on the application form will be used when considering your application, and based on these we will make you an offer of specific course options. Once this offer has been accepted it is extremely difficult to change your courses.
Many of our Visiting Students come from the USA on a Junior Year Abroad programme, but we also welcome independent Visiting Students joining us from countries all over the world.
Visiting Student Team
Visiting Students can access the same support and welfare networks, resources and facilities as all of our other students. However, we recognise that Visiting Students hold a unique position within the College and we have therefore made additional provisions specifically with our Visiting Students in mind.
The Tutor for Visiting Students is the Fellow (a Fellow is an academic and a senior member of the College) with overall responsibility for the Visiting Student programme and will be your Director of Studies. The Tutor for Visiting Students is assisted by two Visiting Student Junior Advisers who are current graduate students here at the College.
Tutor for Visiting Students
Dr Alex Lloyd is the Tutor for Visiting Students at St Edmund Hall. She is also a Fellow by Special Election in German at the College and researches the cultural memory of post-1945 Germany. Her role is to oversee the Visiting Student programme and to work with the Academic Administrator and Registrar, colleagues in the College Office, and the Welfare Team to ensure students can study effectively and thrive at Oxford. Dr Lloyd has weekly office hours during term time (these are advertised at the start of each term) and can be reached at alexandra.lloyd@seh.ox.ac.uk.
Visiting Student Junior Advisers
Shivani is a second-year doctoral student at the Department of Psychiatry, and a Visiting Student Junior Adviser (VSJA) at St Edmund Hall. As a VSJA, Shivani is keen to help visiting students navigate through and make the most of opportunities at both the College and the University.
James is also a VSJA at St Edmund Hall. He is a doctoral student in Population Health investigating the economics of prediabetes. In his VSJA role, James is engaged with helping visiting students integrate with life in college and in Oxford more widely.