While I have nothing but great things to say about my time at university, I always found it comical how grounded they were in their traditions.
Even under lockdown they refuse to record lectures, forcing the student to make sure they attended their 9am Saturday lecture, or miss the lecture and most definitely not understand any future lectures.
This becomes even more comical when you realise the lecturer is just reciting their own lecture notes and writing out the equations on the blackboard (not whiteboard of course!). However, I will always admire Professor Tim Gowers for teaching an entire Analysis course with no lecture notes and coming up with all of the proofs on the spot.
There are some great notes on Mathematics taken from a former student at Cambridge (now doing a PhD at Harvard).
They are ridiculously good quality and lecturers had to ask Dexter to take down notes a term at a time to ensure students weren't skipping lectures.
The notes cover a lot more than what a standard student would do over 3 years undergrad + 1 year graduate (masters).
Oxbridge is very much exam based assessment. With your degree depending only on the exams taken at the end of the final year. So the take-home assessments are there just to make sure that you understand what you're doing and can progress to the next part of the course.
Even under lockdown they refuse to record lectures, forcing the student to make sure they attended their 9am Saturday lecture, or miss the lecture and most definitely not understand any future lectures.
This becomes even more comical when you realise the lecturer is just reciting their own lecture notes and writing out the equations on the blackboard (not whiteboard of course!). However, I will always admire Professor Tim Gowers for teaching an entire Analysis course with no lecture notes and coming up with all of the proofs on the spot.