A Summer Abroad Student's Guide to Oxford
Zainab S.
Oxford: A city of history, mystery, and a little bit of magic.
Me: A past Summer Abroad participant, travel enthusiast, and self-proclaimed Oxford guide.
As your guide today, I’m going to tell you about Oxford and how to get around the place (not on a broomstick sadly). I will also provide some useful tips for popular destinations around Oxford. This guide is intended for students who are participating in the Oxford program or considering it. The student experience is vastly different from that of tourists or other kinds of visitors. Not only is this an academic program that requires completing assignments, engaging with your professor and fellow students, and going on field trips specific to your course, but it is also a program that gives you a glimpse into being a student in the place that you go to. This makes the experience entirely different from going on vacation to one of these destinations and thus, it presents a unique and extremely valuable opportunity.
So, here’s a breakdown of all the important things you’ll want to know about arrival, residence, food, transportation, and attractions in Oxford as well as some extra tips too.
1. First Stop: Arrival
So, to start off, when you arrive in London, if you’re coming on the recommended flight or close to it and plan on taking the group bus to Oxford, you should find fellow students and the on-site staff at the designated terminal (all details are provided on the Summer Abroad student portal). Once you're all together with all your luggage, you take the group bus which takes about two hours to get to Oxford. You will then pull your luggage down the street toward Worcester College and through the gates. If you need any help (I know I did, with a suitcase in each hand and a backpack on), don’t be afraid to ask someone, especially any of the on-site staff. Once you’re in, wait to get an envelope with information about which residence building you’ll be staying in and with the key to your room. Additionally, if you mentioned any dietary needs in your application, you’ll get a little slip that you can show when you go to breakfast every morning so that your meal is in line with your dietary needs (it might say vegan, halal, gluten-free, etc.). After that, you can head to your room and get settled. Some of the buildings don’t have elevators, so if you’re on a higher floor, you may need help taking your luggage up.
2. Next Stop: Residences
You’ll be staying at the Worcester College Residence which is part of the Oxford University campus. During my own program, UofT students stayed in five buildings: Beaumont, Wolfson, Casson, Nash, and Staircase 24. Each student has a private room and washroom, and there’s a shared kitchen for the residents on the same floor. Each building has its own benefits. For instance, some have an elevator while others don’t and some are right next to the classroom while others are a few more minutes away (the furthest is about a 4-minute walk from the classroom, so not really that far!), but generally the residences are very similar. If you have any particular accessibility requests, you can always make these beforehand. If you just prefer one over the other, you can make this known and the program may take this into account if possible.
Tip 1: A few things that I found were very necessary in my room in the first few days of the program were the following: hangers (as there weren’t enough in the closet for all my clothes), a tissue box, a large bottle of water (you can drink the tap water, but it’s helpful to have this on the very first day to keep in your room), a SIM card (I used an e-sim from Giffgaff), toiletries like soap (this wasn’t in the washroom, but I had packed it with me from Toronto so I didn’t need to buy it when I got to Oxford though I know some of my friends did), dishwashing soap (you could pitch in with the others you’ll be sharing a kitchen with to just buy one bottle so you don’t end up having five bottles that go almost entirely to waste).
Tip 2: If you find something missing in your residence, you can always contact the on-site staff about this. For instance, the kitchen I was using didn’t have a microwave when we arrived, so I emailed the on-site staff who reached out to the maintenance team and had the issue quickly resolved.
3. Next Stop: Food
Oxford has diverse food options. As mentioned previously, breakfast offered in the dining hall can accommodate any dietary needs (these should be made clear beforehand). Outside of this, there are numerous restaurants and cafes within walking distance of Worcester College. If you are looking for a particular cuisine or have certain dietary needs (vegan, vegetarian, halal, etc.), there are numerous options available. These are a few of the places my friends and I visited because we were looking for restaurants with both vegan and halal options:
- Comptoir Libanais Oxford
- Rozana Covered Market
- GLUT
For grocery stores, the two main chains you’ll find nearby are Sainsbury and Tesco. I used a few different locations depending on which was closer, but the one I preferred was the Sainsbury store in the Westgate shopping centre because it was bigger and had more options. It was also nice to browse the other stores in the mall with friends.
Tip 1: Pack a tote bag or other bag with you to use whenever you go out to buy groceries, so you don’t need to buy a new plastic bag each time.
Tip 2: If you don’t really cook often or don’t know how, I would recommend not bringing pans and other kitchen appliances with you with the plan of doing so in Oxford (I did and ended up not using them at all as I found it more convenient to eat out for that month rather than spend too long trying to cook something). Of course, there were other students cooked meals in the kitchen, but if it’s not something you really do, it might be a bit ambitious to start during your summer abroad.
4. Next Stop: Transportation
Transportation is super convenient in Oxford and especially for Summer Abroad students staying at Worcester College. For class field trips, there is a planned coach bus to take classes to their destinations. For travels outside of class trips, there are a couple of options. One of the best parts about staying at the Worcester residences is that the Oxford bus station is just across the street. The Oxford Tube is a double-decker bus that takes you to stops in Oxford, West Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and London. This is the bus my friends and I took when we went to London; it takes about 2 hours and the cost for two ways was about 21 pounds (one way was 14.50). The Oxford train station is about a 9-minute walk from the college. My friends went to nearby cities like Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath by train. You can buy tickets online beforehand or, like my friends and I, just get them from the ticket machines at the station.
Tip: Take a picture of your ticket whenever you use public transport.
5. Last Stop: Attractions
Oxford is filled with beautiful historic sites. It’s the perfect sort of place for lovers of history, architecture, literature, and art because you’ll find numerous museums, libraries, bookstores, and high places to look over it all. During my program in August 2024, the on-site staff led students on numerous optional tours for free to places like the Oxford Castle and Prison, the Ashmolean Museum, towers like St. Mary’s Cathedral tower (which has one of the best views of Oxford), the Oxford debate room, and the Bodleian library (I would highly recommend signing up for all optional tours as soon as the registration is open during the program). There were also regular walking tours to places like the Oxford Canal and Christ Church Meadow.
A few places I went to with friends in our own time were:
- Blackwell’s bookstore on Broad Street (has one of the rooms that once held the Guinness World Record for being the largest room in the world selling books)
- Covered Market
- Pitt Rivers Museum
- Oxford University Museum of Natural History (right next to Pitt Rivers Museum)
- Cherwell Boathouse (for punting!)
- Port Meadow (the best place in central Oxford if you’re looking for greenery - and cows!)
In general, one of the best parts was simply walking around Oxford especially streets like Broad Street which was lined with bookstores and cafes. One of my favourite things was to browse the Harry Potter shops (mostly found on Broad Street and Cornmarket Street). These and others like High Street and Market Street are also great to shop for souvenirs.
One location I would recommend visiting which isn’t exactly in Oxford but very close to it is Blenheim Palace. My friends and I visited and, though we didn’t go inside the palace, we enjoyed the beautiful grounds surrounding it. This was one of my favourite places to simply sit down and think while enjoying a stunning view of green hills and a glimmering lake. The bus stop was about a 5-minute walk from the college (not the usual Oxford bus station), and it took 45 minutes to drop us off directly outside the palace gates.
Tip: I would recommend visiting sites in Oxford during the weekdays so you can make the most of the weekends to see other cities which take up more time in the day.
Well, that’s my guide to Oxford for any future Summer Abroad participants heading there. I hope you found this insightful and helpful. There’s so much more to say, but I think some things should remain mysteries!
Oxford: A city of history, mystery, and a little bit of magic.
You: A soon-to-be Oxford expert!