Oxford / Cambridge DPhil residency requirement

[Averroes MD]

Hi,

 

I'm strongly considering Oxford or Cambridge for a DPhil in Islamic studies. I realize that it's not considered ideal for U.S. jobs but, leaving that aside for now, was hoping for an answer about this question I had.

 

What is the residency requirement for these two schools? They are three year programs... Can I spend 1 year at another university (here in the U.S. or maybe abroad in the Middle East)? Would that count as one of the three years? Is this possible since the DPhil's are research degrees only?

 

Or do they require you to be physically there for all three years?

 

Thanks!

Edited November 28, 2014 by Averroes MD

[xypathos]

This should answer your concern about the residence requirement: https://uni-of-oxford.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1148 (Oxford) and http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/students/studentregistry/current/graduate/programme/workaway.html (Cambridge).

 

I think you'd have to have a specific need to leave one university to study at another, without actually transferring schools. Graduate schools generally don't have study abroad programs (fieldwork is the exception here but fieldwork is vastly different than study abroad).

 

From Oxford and Cambridge's sites, leaves of absence are primarily meant for 1) fieldwork or 2) health reasons. Now, Cambridge does list the possibility for taking a leave from the school in order to attend another university but the work done there cannot count for your degree - they specifically mean the degree itself, though I'm not sure what "other qualifications" entails exactly. Probably a certificate, so in theory individual courses might be okay.

 

EDIT: I can't find anything from Oxford that is as detailed as the Cambridge page. The best I've been able to find is that if you need to break the residence requirements for any reason, whatever you do during that time cannot count toward your degree. So, in theory, you could do three terms (a year) at Oxford, take a leave of absence to do a year/a Masters/'whatever you want,' and then simply pick back up with your degree at Oxford when needed.

Edited November 28, 2014 by xypathos

[Averroes MD]

Thanks!

[mdiv2014]

king's college and many others have 6 year part time phd

[Averroes MD]

On November 27, 2015 at 2:06:40 AM, drugazi said:

I realize this is old now, but for other readers, it's actually very common to study abroad in grad school in Europe. I'm not sure why the other commenter said differently... Look into the "Erasmus" exchange program. When getting my MA in Belgium there were countless MA and PhD students there on Erasmus.

 

Thanks for your input. I will actually apply next year for PhD/Dphil. Hoping for the best!

[staplerinjello]

You could do so much better than Cambridge, unless you are going there for Tony Street. 

[Averroes MD]

7 hours ago, staplerinjello said:

You could do so much better than Cambridge, unless you are going there for Tony Street. 

Why do you say that? Didn't like Cambridge?

[staplerinjello]

It was horrible. There's no real community of Islamic Studies scholars, Tim Winter has very little time and even less guidance to offer, and Islamic Studies is a ghetto in a department that takes theology and philosophy of religion as its core thing. You don't get the benefit of any coursework other than attending the undergrad lectures which are fine for very basic stuff, and that's about all it has to offer. If you wanna study Medieval Islamic philosophy with Tony, that'd be great because he is brilliant, responsive, available, sweet, all of that. If you wanna work outside the div fac, I can't say anything about that. But within the Div Fac, Islamic Studies isn't really a serious thing. Neither are religious traditions other than Christianity more generally. All non-Christian traditions have been study under the idiotic and outdated label world religions. Tim Winter takes on students but I wasn't happy when he supervised me in my MPhil and I know a PhD graduate who feels he didn't really get much from him either; maybe if you wanna work on Sufism he might be interested in you. But I never felt that he came close to being a mentor, or seriously interested in my work despite claiming to find it interesting. You might do better at Oxford with Afifi Al-Akiti. Tariq Ramadan has no time either and isn't interested in taking students. But really, I walked away very disillusioned with British postgraduate education. After an MA at an American school and a Cambridge MPhil, I'd say there's no comparison between a British education and an American one.

[staplerinjello]

And as for your original question, you come probably become a visiting scholar at some other university during a Cambridge PhD, because I knew we took visiting PhDs from the United States, and I'm sure you could make a stronger case if you were working on manuscripts elsewhere. 

[Averroes MD]

Very helpful input. Thank you.