Benefits of learning in small interdisciplinary academic communities

New scientific and social challenges are appearing more often than predicted and all those problems are complex in the modern world and only to be solved by interdisciplinary teams. Interdisciplinarity and the ability to think originally are highly valuable hard skills that universities should have always in mind. Strong philosophical background and the focus on essays and original thinking in Oxford tutorials might be a possible student-centered solution. The program for young university teachers offered in our newly formed teaching and learning centre at Comenius University partially focuses on the Socratic method and Oxford tutorials among many other methodologies. The learning system used in Oxford and Cambridge is also crucial in what makes their graduates exceptional. The student experience there differs mainly in two things in comparison with most global universities, the college system and tutorial teaching method used across all academic fields. Its successful application surely depends also on budget and tradition, but key benefits of this approach could be identified and applied also in the context of every other higher education institution. I think it is important to start a discussion between good European universities about how could we be inspired by Oxford and Cambridge’s success in training original thinkers and creating a vivid academic environment. In addition, the college system promotes interdisciplinarity simply by creating interdisciplinary student communities, and active learning through tutorials enhances reasoning, critical and analytical thinking, which are highly valued in today’s society. Moreover, participating in such a community improves students’ and tutors’ well-being. All this is applied in a pre-college program of Comenius College which works as an independent program cooperating with the Comenius University in Bratislava. Pandemics significantly slowed the introduction of a program but so far, the first positive results were observed even in the primarily online environment during the pandemic.