pretence

just got served a “how to self-study for an oxford english literature degree” and i know it’s just a clickbait title that’s not literal but it’s pmo like no, you cannot self-study for an english lit degree let alone one from oxford because the whole point of going to university is engaging in conversation and debate with other people over ideas and perspectives — famously, oxford’s tutorials have just two students per tutor and you take turns writing an essay and critiquing it each week. to even invoke oxford in this context is to connote a kind of prestige that makes no sense when it comes to self-studying since the prestige is socially constructed and requires other people to also imbue capital onto an institution