Kenneth Nodland

Mansfield, BA in Law with senior status

I'm from Norway and the first person in my extended family to attend university. In 2000, I matriculated at Deep Springs College, a two-year college with only 26 male students, located on a ranch in the Californian high mountain desert. After a gap year spent in China and Cambodia, I transferred to the University of Chicago, and graduated with a BA in Anthropology in 2005. I applied to Oxford in 2006.

Oxford offers what is, in effect, the fastest academic law degree that I am aware of: the two-year BA in Jurisprudence with senior status. Anyone considering a second BA should remember that it is an undergraduate degree. There is little room for research, as you are doing three years of work in two years, covering a very broad range of subjects. Scholarship at Oxford, however, is marked by its independence, and within the subjects you cover you have unparalleled control over what you read. And since the level of discourse in tutorials is largely a matter between yourself and your tutor only, the intellectual challenge is very much at a postgraduate level.

Oxford provides, without a doubt, a very good legal education. But what defines the Oxford education is, I think, learning to engage with ideas outside your subject. Most of the lectures that I have attended were not listed on my syllabus. And the chance to audit post-graduate seminars in jurisprudence and constitutional theory have deepened my understanding of the law immensely. Finding the courage and time to take ownership over your own education is something you have to do on your own. But once you do so, Oxford is a beautiful place in which to learn.

Coming from an intellectual tradition that emphasizes close reading, seminar discussion and essay writing, Oxford represents an abrupt change. Successful scholarship in Oxford requires much more concise writing, and a conscious strategy for what to read and how deeply to read it. It may at times feel less intellectually satisfying, but it inculcates an attitude towards learning that is very efficient, and practically more useful. More than anything, my Oxford education has made me a very independent scholar, and I think there's very little I couldn't learn if I only had enough time and access to a good library.

The wealth of ideas circulating in Oxford, and the independent nature of scholarship here, develops in you a sort of intellectual courage. The former provides you with a background of ideas to which you can fruitfully apply that courage.

Being able to attend seminars with some of the world's leading professors of jurisprudence is, for me, an exceptional privilege. I've also had the opportunity to have dinner with two of the UK's law lords, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe and Lord Mance, and to attend a seminar with Lord Bingham.

What I've enjoyed the most, however, is the friendships I've developed here. My three closest friends are DPhil students in theology, international relations, and experimental physics. Although we have different intellectual backgrounds, we all share a similar intellectual curiosity. And I've had some of my most interesting discussions in Oxford with them. It tends very often to be over pints. Discussing faith and composition with a string theorist is something that's hard to describe. But I hope everyone gets a chance to experience it.