A Very Warm Welcome to St John’s College and
to the Department of Computer Science!
I’m writing to you as your college tutor in Computer Science. Many congratulations on receiving an offer to study in Oxford. I’m very much looking forward to meeting you again in October.
It would be useful preparation if you play around with the programming language Haskell, which will be important in the Functional Programming course in the first term. I would recommend the tutorial at http://learnyouahaskell.com/ and installing a Haskell environment <https://www.haskell.org/downloads/> and trying it out.
You might want to look at the reading list that the department has compiled.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at stekie@cs.ox.ac.uk at any time. See you in October!
Stefan Kiefer
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Fellow of St John’s College
Computer Science Joint Schools
If you hold an offer for Maths and Computer Science, you can find the Maths materials via the links below.
Virtual Open Day
Study skills for incoming undergraduates
As an Oxford student, you have many great opportunities ahead, but studying here can also be very challenging. To help you prepare for this, we have put together some resources that will help you develop your study skills before you start at Oxford, no matter your subject.
Starting at Oxford
Starting a course at Oxford can be very daunting, but there are many resources out there to help you succeed! Here are some useful guides from across the University that you might want to check out:
- Study skills and training: Here you can find advice on academic good practice including avoiding plagiarism, managing your time, reading, note taking, referencing and revision.
- Student life: It’s not all about academics at Oxford; here you can find out about the range of other opportunities available to you as a student, as well as tips on how to navigate student life with your workload. If you prefer podcasts, much of this information is available in that form here!
- Managing the cost: Undergraduate students Helena, Joe and Dan, have teamed up with the University’s Undergraduate Admissions team to discuss the financial support available to students and how they manage the cost of studying at Oxford.
Useful contacts
If you have any questions that aren’t answered on this page, you can get in touch with the following people:
| Contact | Questions they can answer |
| Admissions Office: Sarah Jones | Anything to do with offers, visas, UCAS issues, reading lists and preparatory materials |
| Accommodation Office | Accommodation, what to bring, insurance, electoral roll issues |
| Bursary | All things financial |
| College Office | Practical arrangements, bank letters, etc. |
| Disability enquiries: Elaine Eastgate | Any issues relating to disability or special requirements |