Oxford is a unique place – for many of us here, it was a place we dreamed about for years. If I stop and think for a while, I become completely overwhelmed reminiscing about the application process, the utter fear I felt that day in January opening my emails. There are two types of people in Oxford: those who never actually thought they’d be here, and those who never had a doubt. I am glad to be part of the former group.
It’s terrifying how quickly we adjust. It took less than a term for Oxford to become my home. When I’m here, I struggle to believe that life even exists outside of Oxford. I’ve got into several situations where I get home and realise just how many people I’ve been essentially ignoring for eight weeks.
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the Oxford bubble. It is really nice to be in an environment like this: so purely academic, spending my life focusing on studies and attending talks followed by wine and cheese, meeting the best academics in the field. I love being within a half hour’s walk of anywhere I could possibly want to go – despite growing up in London, I have no desire to be in a big city. That said, Oxford is very sheltered compared to other universities. As much as I appreciate never having to live in student housing, I will graduate in 2026 having never properly rented. Some people will graduate from Oxford having relied on scouts to do all of their cleaning – and in some colleges, laundry – for the previous three or four years. The Oxford bubble has kept me distracted from the wider world: all of my thoughts seem to stem from Oxford. I sometimes doubt whether I’m actually an individual, or just a stock student. Another student destined to get a 2:1 and then spend the rest of her dull life reminiscing on the good old days.
I’ve come to take Oxford for granted. I’ve been organising a talk at my college with an academic whom I have always admired, and it’s become little more than a chore. It wasn’t until I took a second to breathe that I could fully appreciate it: one of the coolest historians I’ve ever met, someone whose work is a key text for several of my papers, is coming to talk at my college, just because I emailed and asked. We had a history society at my sixth form – I think the coolest person we had come to speak was a DPhil student at Oxford. In Michaelmas, I had tutorials with her supervisor.
The moment that shocked me out of the Oxford bubble wasn’t one I’d expect. I was walking through Teddy Hall, on my way up a thousand flights of stairs to a tute, and the thought holy shit, I’m an Oxford student hit me like a tidal wave. I ended up being a couple minutes late because I just had to sit with that information.
Holy shit, I’m an Oxford student.
I’d dreamt about getting into Oxford for years. For years, I was told that the utter boredom of school would be worth it by the time I got to university. For years, I was told that my essay writing would make me a great student, just at a higher level. For years, I was told “it gets better once you leave home.” And here I am. At university. At my dream university,
It is the most natural thing in the world for a student to complain about their workload. To be fair, we have about ten times the amount of work compared to other universities. I used to believe that complaining was fun – that it made my day feel easier. But what’s proven to be even better is self-reflection. Thinking about who I used to be, and who I am now.
I’m still a fairly average person. I don’t claim to be unique, or special, or different in any real way. But what’s even better than being unique is being someone your old self would be proud of. There’s a lot about me that my younger self would be appalled at, but almost all of that would be overshadowed by the fact that I’m here. I think my younger self would be slightly disappointed that I’m still not a published author, but she would be very impressed at how much history I know (and she’d probably start yapping to me about Horrible Histories).
I think, in a way, a lot of what I do is trying to impress several previous versions of myself. That’s where I get a lot of my motivation from. When I’m tired, or feeling burnt out, it’s the hundreds and hundreds of different versions of me – past and future – that keep me going.
I forget who I am and why I’m here far too often. It’s easy to forget all the tiny things that I love about this city and this university, and why it’s such a privilege to study here. I forget how hard previous versions of myself worked to get here. And then, I remember.
Every essay, every late night, every minute spent in the library is what I wanted. It’s what I dreamt about for years. Every long walk to a tutorial or thesis supervision allows me to see the beautiful city that I once would have sold my soul to be a part of. When I’m stuck behind an excruciatingly slow group of tourists, when I’m caught in the rain, when I’m almost killed by a cyclist, when I am tired and want to be in bed and find myself hating this god-forsaken place and everyone in it, I remember who I used to be. How much I longed for this: longed for the mundane inconveniences that I’d share with other Oxonians, longed for the hard work, longed for the dreary rain-swept city of dreaming spires. Acknowledgement of who you are, and who you used to be, how far you’ve come – perhaps this is the most essential key to happiness.