The Shadow Student
Americans have always been keen on Oxford. There are American towns named Oxford, there are Oxford shirts and Oxford loafers, there are universities, including Yale, modelled on the Oxford system, and there is a large number of American students who jump at the chance to spend a year studying in Oxford, purely in order to get the 'real' Oxford experience. Yet, while they come expecting the real thing, what they often get is Oxford reflected through the looking-glass. While they are set tutorial work, and do become members of colleges, American visiting students often find that they remain spectators rather than full participants in the Oxford scene....
Features: The Lonely Planet Club
The trouble with truth is that it so often adheres to stereotype. This is bad for artists, novelists and unshaven women from Turkey, and, in the lurid playpen of student life, there are a group of people who have had similar problems of late. The gap year traveller has in the last few years, found a place in everyone's hearts next to couples who wear matching shell suits....