After student registration, selection organized by the School of Law, and a series of preparatory work, the Study Tour to Oxford University in 2019 Summer Vacation was officially launched recently by the School of Law of HUST. Before departure, the School of Law held a pre-trip training session to arrange related work and emphasize safety discipline.
Gu Xinjiang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Law, emphasized three disciplines, namely, study discipline, life discipline and safety discipline. He urged all members to study hard and complete the research task with high quality, obey the organizational arrangements, understand rules and discipline, pay attention to their behaviors, improve safety awareness, so as to ensure a safe, smooth and meaningful study trip. Finally, Zheng Wei and Wan Zihao, the teachers leading the study tour team, also exchanged with the team members the details about the process of study tour.
The team started off in Wuhan on July 20 and passed by Beijing, Doha and London. The team members have experienced a series of annoying incidents, such as aircraft power system failure, delay in taking connecting flights, team members’ being separated into two parts to fly to Britain. On the morning of July 22, the team finally arrived at its destination and began a two-week study tour at Oxford University which is well known in the world and admired for a long time.
It was in the evening when the team arrived at Oxford University. After having a quick glimpse of the world's top university in deep sleep, the team members fell asleep quickly because of tiredness. On the next early morning, the sun shined in through the window, awakening the team members, also arousing their curiosity of exploration.
The study tour life began with delicious food. The breakfast offered by Oxford University was very rich. The University elaborately prepared the traditional English breakfast with bright color, good taste and rich nutrition. Sitting in an arched dining room in which the windows are carved with colorful patterns and three long tables equipped with high stools, the team members felt as if they were elegant gentlemen in the 16th century or wizards enjoying a feast at Hogwarts School.
The staff of Oxford University's Oriel College held a welcome party for us, and introduced all aspects of clothing, food, housing and transportation in detail, helping students to live there with ease, so as to reduce difficulties they encountered in foreign countries. Under the arrangement of the College, the volunteers led us to visit Oxford University. Following the volunteers' steps, the team members had a panoramic view of Oxford University. The grass and trees were full of vitality, the birds in the garden were singing, the students in the library were concentrating on study, the streets were crowded with people; the bricks and tiles showed the long history of the university, many buildings with gray stone walls have a history of 700 or 800 years, show unified style characterized by primitive simplicity, solemn atmosphere, and exquisite details. With the combination of vitality and history, a strong sense of history adds to the school's connotation, and the gathering of talents makes it famous. At Oxford University, through the ages, the things are still there, but men are no more the same ones. However, the value pursuit of constantly injecting fresh blood and constantly recognizing and transforming the world has never changed.
In the afternoon, they entered the most important part of the trip - course learning. All the students in this team must have mixed feeling of longing and anxiety. They were not only excited about appreciating the charm of professors in this world-class university, but also worried about whether their English proficiency could keep up with unfamiliar class contents. Most of the students in the team chose the course of “International Trade and Maritime Law”. The teacher, who was kind and young, explained the course content in detail, but the teacher spoke fast, coupled with the short pronunciation of British English, during the communication, the students were somewhat confused about how to understand and follow the teacher. Fortunately, the teacher was very kind and patient, and communicated with his students at any time, so that they had a smooth class.
In the course of “International Trade and Maritime Law”, the teacher attached great importance to interaction with students and encouraged them to speak and ask questions enthusiastically. In addition to the traditional one-way teaching mode, each lesson is arranged with students' autonomous learning link. On the first day of the course, the teacher handed out a large number of English materials, which required students to write our own opinions according to the literature. Although the literature was not very long, it was full of professional vocabularies and long difficult sentences which was hard to pronounce, students tried their best to accumulate bit by bit to made progress slowly. In the next day's class, the students worked in groups to simulate the appeals of different countries in the WTO based on various treaties. What "new tricks" would test us in the coming days? Let's wait and see.
In the same bright moonlight, students were ten thousand miles away from home, but their fresh feeling and curiosity never faded. Despite of the difficulties such as diet differences, learning and communication barriers and so on, the happiness of learning is nothing but to explore step by step to overcome these difficulties, and then to experience the moment of sudden enlightenment after walking out of the long tunnel? With braving the wind and waves, the study tour team of School of Law of HUST will continue to seek merry dream at Oxford University which is ten thousand miles away from their hometowns.
