I have said again and again that this column is about seeing the good in things. Finding joy in everyday life. Finding love in every corner of the dingy hallway I live in.
This column has been my escape. There are as many unpublished Love Letters as there are published. This column has also made me fall so intensely and deeply in love with Oxford.
I never really thought I’d be here. It was always a dream, and I guess I assumed it would stay a dream. Oxford didn’t feel like a real place. Wanting to go to Oxford felt like wanting to go to Hogwarts when you were 11. It was a flicker of hope in a very distant future.
And then I had my interviews. And then I received my offer – an incredibly stressful thing to receive in a sixth form geared towards churning out Oxbridge students and medics. I’d applied for History and English, with more of a love for English than History. I read my offer for a BA in History, and, surrounded by people who’d just received rejections, I had to hide any uncertainty I felt. I should clarify: I was not complaining. I felt, and still feel, incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to attend this university and slightly baffled that I got in, above people who seemed far more qualified.
But my dream was to study English. My dream was to be at an old college, built at least before the Tudors came to power, but I was pooled to a college built in 1879. My dream was to spend long hours in libraries, but after A-Levels, I was so burnt out that the prospect of university terrified me a little. No one tells you that sometimes you achieve your dream and it wasn’t what you thought it would be.
I was rubbish at A-Level history, as my teacher would attest. I’d been top of my year at secondary school and hadn’t been prepared for the switch to a far more academic school for sixth form. I felt leagues behind everyone else in my class. I was so bad at history that, during the summer after year 13, I saw my history teacher and he asked what I’d be studying at university. Only four of his students had applied for history at Oxford, and he’d helped us all with applications.
I think he was genuinely shocked I’d got in. I couldn’t believe that I’d somehow managed to get high enough grades to get in, having been ill during A-Levels. Even my mum, in all her maternal love, regularly tells me how shocked she is that I got in.
It was under these circumstances that I started university. I’d felt inadequate at sixth form: how was I going to feel at Oxford? I thank God daily that I got pooled to Somerville: they would have eaten me alive at Merton. But Somerville was so welcoming. People were so friendly and down to earth. My previous experience with Oxbridge students had been either literal child geniuses or people who spent every second studying, so it was a pleasant surprise to find ‘normal’ friends who I could actually enjoy Freshers’ Week with.
I loved all the silly little traditions at Oxford. Matriculation didn’t quite feel real: sitting in an immense, magnificent building, with Emma Watson in the same room; hearing Latin that I couldn’t understand; and wearing a gown which I couldn’t figure out how to wear properly. I loved formals – I loved dressing up and eating food which I could never have imagined eating. I even used to love telling people I was at Oxford and seeing their shocked faces (I’ve grown out of that now, thank God).
But the imposter syndrome never went away. I felt like every tute essay was a test, like every collection could get me kicked out. I kept waiting for someone to tell me I didn’t belong.
It never came. I made it through first year and no-one came to call me a fraud. I took my Prelims, and with the results came undeniable proof that I deserved to be here. I waited all summer for them to tell me that they’d mixed up my papers with someone else’s, or made a typo with my grade. That never came either.
And so I was left with the equally terrifying realisation that I am meant to be here. What does that make me?
As debilitating as it could be, however, I will always appreciate my imposter syndrome. It made me love this city like nothing else ever could or would. Every tute, every class, every lecture (even 9 A.M.s) felt like a gift.
Collections at the beginning of Hilary felt like a test again. I felt like I could get my Prelims grade revoked when they realised it was all a fluke. I became physically ill with anxiety. I couldn’t sleep. I could barely eat. But it was fine.
It was a few weeks later that I had the idea for my thesis. And despite wanting to drop out just a few weeks earlier, I was over the moon again. Oxford became brighter, essays became easier, even bops became more fun.
I don’t think I will ever rid myself of imposter syndrome. But if it makes me scared and anxious, it also makes me feel incredibly lucky. Lucky to be here, lucky to receive this education, lucky to have made such amazing friends and met such amazing people, lucky to have the strength to survive those low points.
I never thought I’d be here. Perhaps that’s why I’m so determined to make the most of it, and to see the good in every aspect. I’ve fallen utterly in love with Oxford, and I can attribute that to my imposter syndrome.