insight
工程技術，地產投資，信仰家園，時尚生活
我好多年沒回過牛津大學(Oxford)了，因此最近故地重遊時，我有一種時光交錯的感覺。四處走動時，我不斷回想起25年前的同一個月份，還是個本科生的我第一次來到牛津大學時的情形。我禁不住想到：“我居然能走在基督堂草坪(Christ Church Meadow)上查郵件！”我上大學的時候，學生宿舍裏甚至連電話都沒有裝。
牛 津大學努力讓自己亙古不變。晚上站在大多數學院的方庭裏，環顧四周，你無法確定此時是1613年還是2013年。但事實上，牛津已經變了，變化得非常快。 我所知道的那個牛津大學，充斥著性騷擾、種族主義、偽文藝和雪莉酒。那個牛津已不見蹤影，如今的牛津非常專業，並且開始關心金錢。
在我讀書 的年代，考進牛津並不是太難，因為無論是私立學校還是公立學校，幾乎所有考上的學生都來自英國少數上層或中上層家庭。此外，那時幾乎沒有女生。盡管當時的 錄取流程隨意性頗強，但要通過還是需要一點好運的。比如，我所知道的一名導師就理直氣壯地青睞畢業於公學的淺發色的高個學生。
一旦被錄取， 沒人期望你會努力學習。你踏實地知道，你的簡曆上將永遠掛著“牛津”的名字，接下來的3年裏你要做的就是好好享受這個神奇的地方。我所知道的大多數學生把 精力用於成長、交朋友、喝啤酒、運動和尋找愛情。當時的一項調查顯示，本科生在學期內平均每周用於學習的時間是20小時，而一年中兩個學期加起來的時間僅 為24周。
一 周的全部作業一般也不過是寫一篇短小的文章（這對做專欄作家倒是一種不錯的訓練）。我的有些作業寫得太差勁了，結果我在期末考試前重讀它們的時候，簡直想 寫信向我那些老導師致歉。許多導師反正也不在乎。他們中有些人在要求不太嚴格的日子（那種日子早已成為過去）獲得了這份教職，沒有博士學位(PhD)，也 從未發表過學術論文，終日飲酒。導師一對一指導學生的製度給了他們很大的自由決定權。我所在的學院有一名導師，據說曾在一些學生麵前暴露下體，還曾試圖招 募另一些學生為情報機構工作。還有一名導師騷擾了太多女生，導致校方最終采取了行動：禁止他一對一指導女生。
那時候，“政治正確”的觀念還 不太盛行。在本科生公共休息室(JCR)會議上，如果一名女生試圖發言，男生通常會起哄：“把咪咪露出來給爺們看看！”一名信仰錫克教(Sikh)的學生 則會引來這樣的叫喊（而不會遭到抗議）：“現在他們連裹頭佬兒都招進來了！”反同性戀被視作正常現象。隻要對這些傳統做法提出抗議，就會被視為缺乏幽默 感。這一切聽上去也許像是老黃曆了，但如今英國政壇的許多人物，都是與我同時代、或接近同時代的牛津畢業生，比如戴維•卡梅倫(David Cameron)、埃德•米利班德(Ed Miliband)、邁克爾•戈夫(Michael Gove)和喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)。
那時的牛津大學是隔絕於現代世界之外的永恒象牙塔。這所亙古不變的大學，培養出了劉易斯•卡羅爾(Lewis Carroll)、C•S•劉易斯 (CS Lewis)和J•R•R•托爾金(JRR Tolkien)這樣的作家，他們的作品經久不衰。在最理想的情況下，這所大學還幫助自己的學生過上了自由思 考、不受當代熱點問題和潮流侵擾的生活。馬克思主義和後現代主義的影響幾乎絲毫未滲入牛津。有關約翰•斯圖亞特•穆勒(John Stuart Mill)的課程討論完全圍繞穆勒本身，而沒有演變成一場有關撒切爾主義的爭論。牛津培養出了撒切爾（Thatcher，以及英國近代其他大多數首相），但這所大學本身卻不關心政治。
牛津的教學體係時不時展現奇效。與一名優秀的思想家談話一小時，會讓你對問題產生嶄新的理解。而在我那個年代，從牛津出來的學生可能不學無術、隻學會了如何自信地忽悠，也可能受益於全世界最高的師生比例、從此脫胎換骨。
如 今的牛津更正經八百了。上個月，我在原來就讀的學院溜達時，樓梯旁一個個中國人、俄羅斯和德國人的姓氏讓我大為驚訝。牛津在知識上日益國際化。如今，牛津 更難考了，於是考進來的學生往往把牛津當做職業生涯第一站。許多學生第一學期就去就業服務處谘詢，而在我那個年代，許多人在期末考試幾天後還帶著宿醉、東 倒西歪地四處瞎晃。
一切都變得更專業了。如今的牛津招聘的大多是著名學者，而很少再招聘酒鬼。另一個重要變化是，牛津開始關心金錢了。 1988年10月，我入學的時候，牛津發起了一場名為“支持牛津”(Campaign for Oxford)的籌款活動。當時的許多老師覺得那活動簡直庸俗至極。而如今，牛津正忙著籌集30億英鎊。
這個地方如今四處是錢的味道。一下火車，你幾乎首先就看到賽德商學院(Saïd Business School)。 在我那個年代，這所商學院還沒有成立，博格布洛克科技園(Begbroke Science Park)那些高科技企業也還無影無蹤，更別提牛津互聯網學院(Oxford Internet Institute)了。如今的熱門本科課程經濟學和管理，在我那個時候還沒有開設。
在這種變化中，牛津也許失落了某種東西，那就是永恒性。如今的學生再也沒那麽多工夫到莫德林鹿院(Magdalen Deer Park)閑逛、在暴露糟糕板球技藝的同時交到一輩子的朋友，也沒有那麽大的勁頭在清晨5點揣摩自創的歌曲。但如今的牛津大學確實更優秀了。Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c337a5b0-3c38-11e3-b85f-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2k8530gqO
October 25, 2013 1:09 pm
My return to Oxford
©Luis GrañenaI hadn’t been to Oxford in years, so when I visited recently I felt like a time-traveller. Walking around, I kept recalling the university I had first encountered as an undergraduate 25 years ago this month. I found myself thinking things like, “I’m walking through Christ Church Meadow checking my emails!” Back in the day, students didn’t even have telephones in their rooms.
Oxford works hard to look timeless. If you stand in the average college quad at night, you can’t tell by looking around whether the year is 1613 or 2013. Yet in fact the university has changed, quite quickly. The Oxford I knew – shot through with sexual harassment, racism, dilettantism and sherry – has been replaced by something quite professional and money-conscious.
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It wasn’t very hard to get into Oxford in my day, as almost all students – whether from private or state schools – were drawn from the small British upper and upper-middle class. Moreover, most were men. Still, we’d all needed luck to survive the rather random admissions process. For instance, one tutor I knew unapologetically favoured tall, blond public school types.
Once you’d got in, little effort was expected. Safe in the knowledge that you could put Oxford on your CV for ever, you had three years to enjoy this magical place. Most students I knew spent their energy trying to grow up, make friends, drink beer, play sport and find love. A survey in my time showed that the average undergraduate worked 20 hours a week during term-time – which meant just 24 weeks a year.
Often an entire week’s workload consisted of writing one shortish essay (good preparation for being a columnist). Some of my essays were so shoddy that when I reread them before my final exams, I almost wrote to my old tutors to apologise. Many tutors didn’t care anyway. Some had got their jobs in bygone amateur days, didn’t have a PhD, never published academic papers and lived off sherry. The one-on-one tutorials allowed them great discretion. A tutor in my college was known for exposing himself to some students, and trying to recruit others to the intelligence services. Another harassed so many female students that finally action was taken: he was banned from tutoring women one-on-one.
Political correctness was not rampant then. At meetings of the undergraduate junior common room, if a woman tried to speak, it was customary for men to chant: “Get your tits out for the lads!” A Sikh student elicited the cry (which nobody challenged): “They’re letting in towelheads now!” Homophobia was taken for granted. Any complaints about these traditions were treated as evidence of humourlessness. All this might seem like ancient history, except that many of today’s British politicians – David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Michael Gove, George Osborne – were Oxford contemporaries or near-contemporaries of mine.
Oxford was an ivory tower then, a timeless place, removed from the modern world. This timelessness had engendered timeless authors such as Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. At its best, it also encouraged a life of the mind free of contemporary concerns or fads. Marxism and postmodernism barely penetrated Oxford. A tutorial about John Stuart Mill was entirely about Mill, and not an argument about Thatcherism. Oxford had educated Thatcher (and most other recent British prime ministers) and yet it felt apolitical.
Every now and then, the tutorial system worked brilliantly: an hour’s conversation with a wonderful thinker from which you emerged with new understanding. You could leave Oxford in my day having learnt nothing except how to bluff your way in a plausible accent while underinformed; or you could leave transformed by the best student-to-staff ratio on earth.
Things are more serious now. Wandering around my old college last month, I marvelled at the Chinese, Russian and German surnames at the bottom of the staircases: Oxford is being intellectually globalised. Today’s students work harder to get in, and then tend to treat Oxford as the first stage of their working lives. Many visit the careers service in their first term, rather than just toddling along hungover a few days after final exams.
Everything has become more professional. Oxford now mostly recruits star academics, seldom alcoholics. Crucially, too, the university has discovered money. In the month I arrived, October 1988, Oxford launched the fundraising “Campaign for Oxford”. Many dons thought this impossibly vulgar. Now the university is busy raising £3bn.
The place smells of money. Practically the first building you see after getting off the train is the Saïd Business School. It wasn’t there in my day. Nor were the high-tech companies at the Begbroke Science Park, let alone the Oxford Internet Institute. Economics and management, a massively oversubscribed undergraduate course today, didn’t exist in my time.
Possibly something has been lost in the change. Oxford isn’t timeless any more. Today’s students have less time to mooch around Magdalen Deer Park, or to build life-long friendships while playing bad cricket or dissecting indie songs at 5am. But it’s surely a better university now.
simon.kuper@ft.com; Twitter @KuperSimon
