Peter Surr

Peter Surr

Graduated 2008, Philosophy, Politics & Economics (PPE)

I always knew I wanted to study an arts subject at University but was torn between Law, English and PPE. I chose PPE because of the breadth of the course over a range of disciplines with the option to specialise in my second and third years if I so wished.

In the first year, all students study all three branches. In Univ, students take a range of courses including formal logic (sounds a bit daunting at first, but isn’t really!), British and American political institutions, macro and microeconomics, maths and introductionary “general” philosophy. The course is delivered through both classes and tutorials depending on the subject matter. You have slightly more contact with tutors in your first year than in subsequent years, but still the majority of your time is spent reading on your own. The Social Sciences Library in Oxford is where I spend a lot of my time, it is very well stocked with books and you can almost always find what you want there.

In the second and third years you have much more flexibility. You can specialise in two subjects, or continue with all three. Within the subject areas, there is also considerable flexibility. There are a few ‘core’ papers that everyone must take, but aside from that there is considerable variation. I’ve specialised into economics and politics and studied – among other things – Russian Politics, The Theory of Politics and Microeconomics. Everyone has two tutorials a week and we work towards producing one essay for each tutorial.

Univ is an excellent place to study PPE. The tutors are excellent – both in terms of their academic credentials but also their willingness to support students and address the various concerns which we might have. The Library is well stocked for PPEists. Moreover, as Univ admits a large number of PPEists there are plenty of opportunities to cooperate among each other. In the first year, we regularly met up informally to discuss our week’s work – it really helped us settle in but also clarify our thoughts on specific topics. As you go on through the course, other PPEists at your college are a great support.

Outside of your course, there are plenty of extracurricular activities to get involved in. In fact, PPEists are quite renowned for pursing a range of non-academic interests. Some are related to your degree – the Oxford Union Debating Society, for instance. But PPEists at Univ have got involved in a range of things for sports, to student politics to journalism.

With such a wide offering here – both academically and outside of your degree – almost everyone finds something that captures their interests.