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<\/a>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n2. Sports. The culture around sports (or, \u201csport,\u201d as they would say in the U.K.) also feels very different than in the U.S. Although athletics at Oxford are pretty elite, it seems (from an outsider\u2019s perspective) that they are more of an addition to students\u2019 lives than the whole of their lives. There\u2019s little publicity around Oxford sports, and the financing system is totally different than in the U.S., so there isn\u2019t money for huge stadiums and facilities. Students seem to do sports for enjoyment, and student athletes don\u2019t become media stars. Even though they do like rugby and rowing, Oxford puts academics first. It\u2019s a refreshing perspective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though Oxford has a culture all its own, I couldn\u2019t help but notice the similarities between the two universities. Some of them were uncanny, some just made me laugh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. The uniform. At Mizzou, you could wear Mizzou gear almost every day and fit right in. While Oxford students basically never wear brightly colored \u201cOxford University\u201d hoodies (too American, probably), they do frequently wear college merch, or \u201cstash.\u201d The favorite item is a black puffer coat with the student\u2019s Oxford college\u2019s crest embroidered on the left chest and their initials on the right. It looks exactly like British school uniforms, so perhaps it makes them comfortable, because students will wear them even when it\u2019s a little too warm for a coat. Everyone likes to fit in, I suppose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. The students don\u2019t pay attention in lecture. There are technically no consequences if you don\u2019t go to lectures at Oxford. There\u2019s no attendance taken, lectures are live-streamed and recorded, and there are usually very comprehensive notes available ahead of time for the whole course. If there\u2019s not, you can easily access last year\u2019s notes which are likely to be very similar. So why there are still a few people who come to lectures only to plan trips to London, scroll through their email or watch baseball on their phone (yes, someone next to me actually did this), I will never understand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. It\u2019s a college town. Oxford is a similar size to Columbia, has a similarly-sized student population, and is also full of academic buildings. There are students everywhere during term and a mass exodus when every term finishes. Needless to say, despite the abundance of Gothic architecture and the thousand years of history, it still felt weirdly like the Missouri college town I\u2019ve grown accustomed to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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