The M.St. in Oriental Studies at Oxford aims to provide tailor-made courses for training graduate students at the beginning of their research in different areas of Oriental Studies. This course is available only in consultation with the teachers in the area to be studied. Some sections of the Faculty offer fixed M.St. courses, which they expect most or all of their graduate students to follow.

The course is designed for students who have graduated in the same field that they mean to pursue at advanced level or in a closely related one. Thus, most students who wish to offer Arabic for this M.St. will have either a BA in Arabic or one in which Arabic has been a majority of the course. The decision on whether a candidate's BA qualifies her/him for the course is taken by the Faculty Board. The Faculty ordinarily expects a candidate to achieve a good honours degree (an upper second or above) or an equivalent degree from an overseas university.

The precise content of the course followed by each student is fixed by the supervisor in consultation with each student in order to provide the most useful training for that student. The course content is in each case designed to advance the student's progress towards a research degree after the completion of the M.St. The student may therefore be required by the supervisor, under the direction of the Faculty Board, to attend lecture courses, seminars, language classes and tutorials, and also to write more extended pieces of written work.