As well as in Harry Potter’s school (Hogwarts), the University of Oxford is divided into houses. Hogwarts is divided into Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin, while Oxford has about 40 colleges. All students belong to a house (i.e. college), and each college has its own common room and grounds that cannot be accessed by any other Oxford student. As well as in Harry Potter, you can "say" you want to go to a certain college during your application and the “sorting hat” will take that into consideration. I would say that the "sorting hat" had problems deciding where to put me (hahaha) but I ended up being "sorted" to go to Exeter College (photos and video below), which is one of the oldest (706 years old) and most selective colleges at Oxford. Although Exeter only has 500ish students, we have several highly influential people among our former students, including J. R. R. Tolkien (writer of the Lord of the Rings and the father of modern fantasy literature), Sydney Brenner (the 2002 Nobel Laureate in Medicine for his discoveries on the genetic code), Liaquat Ali Khan (the first prime minister of Pakistan), and John Kufuor (the former President of Ghana). As any Oxonian would say: my college is clearly the best college! Floreat exon!
Oxford: The USA and Great Britain have some of the world's greatest centres of learning, but I propose the motion that Oxford is the world's best university.
Harvard: I oppose the motion on the grounds that Harvard is quite clearly the world's best university. You may be Britain’s best university. LSE: You are not even Britain’s greatest. Oxford:Founded in the 11th century (~1096 A.D.), Oxford was the first university in English speaking countries. Harvard:And... then they built a better one. Established in 1636, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Oxford: Oxford has 11 libraries, and over 11 million volumes housed on 120 miles of shelving, which is why our English dictionary is the dictionary the world uses, i.e. the Oxford Dictionary. Harvard: The Havard Library is the world's largest academic library system, comprising 79 individual libraries holding about 20.4 million items. Harvard's alumni include eight U.S. presidents, 369 Rhodes Scholars, 252 Marshall Scholars, and 11 Mitchell Scholars. Oxford: Oxford has educated a wide range of notable alumni, including 28 prime ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. Of all the post-war prime ministers, only Gordon Brown was educated at a university other than Oxford. LSE: Is that a boast or an apology? Hahah LSE Alumni and staff include 55 past or present heads of state or government and we have the world's largest social and political sciences library. As of 2017, 27% (or 13 out of 49) of all the Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economics have been awarded or jointly awarded to LSE alumni. Out of all European universities, LSE has educated the most billionaires. Oxford: As of October 2020, 72 Nobel Prize laureates, 3 Fields Medalists, and 6 Turing Award winners, have studied, worked, or held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, while our alumni have won 160 Olympic medals. Harvard: As of October 2020, 161 Nobel laureates have been affiliated as students, faculty, or researchers. Harvard students and alumni have founded many notable companies worldwide (such as Microsoft and Facebook), and have also won 10 Academy Awards, 48 Pulitzer Prizes, 108 Olympic medals, and we educated a world record 188 living billionaires. LSE: You mean the dropouts, like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? hahah You are too American focused. A disproportional amount of your students come from your country. You lack diversity. One hundred and fifty-five nationalities are represented amongst the LSE's student body as LSE has the highest percentage of international students (70%) of all world universities. LSE: We educated Juan Manuel Santos who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize "for his resolute efforts to bring […] a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 and displaced close to six million people" to an end, and self-made multi-billionaire George Soros who has donated billions to help minorities around the world, such as black, women, indigenous, and gypsies populations. Former US President John F. Kennedy; Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (the current president of the European Commission); Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger; and academics such as Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, were all students or professors at LSE. Oxford: We educated Bill Clinton, Indira Gandhi, T.E Lawrence, and Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the world wide web). The philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes have spent time at Oxford, as have scientific pioneers such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Adam Smith, and Erwin Schrödinger. Also, the writers Evelyn Waugh, Lewis Carroll, Aldous Huxley, Oscar Wilde, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Graham Greene all studied here. Additionally, we taught the actors Hugh Grant, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Burton, Rowan Atkinson, and Monty Python's Michael Palin and Terry Jones. Harvard:We educated several of the most influential men in history such as John Adams, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama; as well as Hollywood stars Natalie Portman, Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, and Rashida Jones. Several other notable alumni we have include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kamala Harris, Michael Bloomberg, Conan O'Brien, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ray Dalio, Steve Ballmer, among many others. Oxford: I propose... that the motion is tied. LSE: Agreed. Harvard:Agreed. |
AuthorPedro Moraya Barros is the Founder & Owner at Moraya Consulting and Ph.D. Researcher in Foreign Investment and International Taxation Archives
October 2020
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