so I never actually made a "review" video
of my undergraduate degree and that's basically
because I thought all the videos I made and
the instagram posts and whatever were a pretty
fair representation of my time yeah I mean
it would have undoubtedly got me views but
it would've been a bit pointless because I
just didn't really have much to say like I
had a fantastic three years my department
was everything I hoped it would be and more
to be honest I felt incredibly encouraged
and supported the entire time I was at Lancaster
which is where I did my undergrad and like
yeah there were minor adjustments I'd make
to the syllabus there were definitely some
modules that I enjoyed less than others but
by and large I guess I felt like I came out
of it as a well-rounded physicist with a good
solid knowledge and understanding of all the
topics I'd covered yeah I was just very happy
with the quality of my education now this
year I wouldn't necessarily say that my videos
have been a fair representation not because
I've been intentionally hiding things literally
just because I haven't made many videos I'm
never going to be the most regular "youtuber"
in the world like this is literally just a
side hobby for me but anyway I think it's
important that I make this video so that I
don't accidentally misconstrue my experience
Masters are expensive if you're not on a scholarship
and it makes me a little bit nervous when
I get comments from people saying I've inspired
them to apply to this course because while
I don't regret the year I also wouldn't necessarily
recommend it either and I just want to kind
of chat about why that is obviously this is
just my personal experience and how I personally
got on like if you asked anyone else on my
course they'd tell you something completely
different because we're all individuals and
it is also obviously worth bearing in mind
that I had a very atypical experience because
of the pandemic and I think that's definitely
made me feel more negatively about the course
as a whole but with all those disclaimers
this is honestly what I think so I'm going
to start off my talking about the course in-depth
and if you're not studying physics or maths
you might want to skip this bit because it's
probably going to be quite technical so it
might end up being quite boring a brief summary
if you don't want to hear about it in detail
would be that the course wasn't as good as
I hoped it would be when I started the year
and that I kind of felt very alone and unsupported
if you want to skip the details on that go
to this timestamp that I'll put here alright
so a very basic summary of how my Masters
worked is that you had to take at least ten
units from this whole list that I'll put here
and there are no restrictions at all on what
combinations of modules you can take some
modules have pre-requisites but they're not
strict pre-requisites so they might say something
like you should've taken an undergraduate
fluid mechanics course to be able to take
geophysical fluid dynamics but they won't
like check that you've done that it will just
be a case of they'll expect you to catch up
in your own time if you haven't which is a
lot of *extra work and I know because I did
exactly that with fluid dynamics and geophysical
fluid dynamics anyway the thing that first
attracted me to this Masters was this wide
variety of modules on offer because they give
you the ability to specialise in theoretical
physics and specific areas of theoretical
physics to a much greater extent than you
can do in the fourth year of an integrated
Masters degree because integrated Masters
degrees while they are the same level because
they're undergraduate degrees they'll often
have um they'll still have some compulsory
modules but anyway having now finished the
Masters I can say that this array of modules
at least in my opinion isn't as good as it
might first seem for kind of three main reasons
so the first one is a lot of these modules
aren't actually bespoke modules for this degree
loads of them are borrowed from fourth year
maths and from fourth year physics which means
that the lecture sizes are huge much bigger
than in my undergrad at least and it also
means that the modules aren't tailored to
what's important for a theoretical physicist
to know so for example one of the modules
I took was numerical linear algebra which
is basically a module about how we can use
matrix methods to create efficient computer
algorithms to solve various mathematical problems
and it was really interesting but it was a
module borrowed from the maths department
and it was mostly taken by students on the
MSc mathematical modelling course so the syllabus
didn't focus on the topics or algorithms that
it would be most important for a theoretical
physicist to know essentially I guess the
degree just isn't as unique of tailored as
it might first appear it's quite a new Masters
and it kind of feels like it's been made by
creating a few new modules specifically for
this degree but then padding it out with a
lot of existing modules from the maths department
and from the physics department and because
of that it essentially ends up functioning
like a joint honours maths and physics degree
and joint honours degrees as I'm sure anyone
else who's ever done one can attest to are
a massive pain logistically they just kind
of never seem to work out different departments
have different conventions so you're always
trying to juggle the two a classic example
I have is mid-afternoon on the first Friday
of second term we got an email forwarded to
us with all the maths department deadlines
for that term and there had been a couple
of days between the maths students getting
this email and it eventually being forwarded
onto us so those of us on the mathematical
and theoretical physics Masters so I opened
this pdf as soon as the email came through
which was after lunchtime on Friday and scrolling
through the deadlines I realised that I'd
already missed a deadline because the first
deadline I had was apparently 9am on that
Friday but I just hadn't been told about it
so that was great anyway the second reason
why the array of modules isn't as good as
it might first appear is because they might
not be accessible with your academic background
you can come onto my degree with either a
bachelor's degree in maths or a bachelor's
degree in physics mine was in theoretical
physics so I'd always been taught in a physics
department before and if you come from a physics
background like I did there are some maths
modules that you're just not going to be able
to take I was really interested in geometric
group theory for example but after downloading
the lecture notes and looking through them
I just realised I would be miles out of my
depth like it would take me way too long to
catch up to speed on the notation that was
being used the style of proofs that were being
used the style of exam questions that were
used like you can't go from third year of
a physics degree and jump straight into pure
graduate level mathematics modules the third
reason why this array of modules didn't turn
out to be as great form me as I expected it
to be is because I very much think it's designed
for depth rather than breadth by which I mean
if you want to specialise in theoretical particle
physics or theoretical astrophysics I think
you would be fine because you can go very
deep in these specific areas but I came onto
the course wanted to specialise in condensed
matter physics theoretical condensed matter
physics and there aren't as many condensed
matter options which I knew like I knew that
when I applied I looked through the module
list I was very aware of that but the thing
I didn't anticipate which ended up screwing
me over was that I took quantum field theory
in first term which is QFT for short and I
expected to really enjoy that but I just didn't
really enjoy it at all I much preferred advanced
quantum theory which is kind of like another
module that compliments QFT um and this was
a problem because I didn't really want to
do more QFT so that ruled out a lot of modules
in later terms that I was banking on taking
such as advanced QFT or QFT in curved spacetime
so after like ruling out the advanced QFT
modules and also after ruling out the pure
mathematics modules that I really thought
you know I'm not going to be able to cope
with these because I don't fulfill the pre-requisites
and I don't have unlimited time to kind of
catch up for all of my modules there actually
wasn't that much choice as to what I could
take I would still say that I managed to specialise
in theoretical condensed matter physics but
I had a really weird mix of modules a lot
of which I definitely wasn't planning on taking
at the start of the course to be fair there
was some good that came out of this like some
of the modules that I ended up taking that
I never anticipated taking were actually super
interesting soft matter physics for example
if I hadn't have been stretched for module
choices I don't think I'd have ever tried
that one out but it was so cool anyway this
is a list of the modules I ended up taking
ordered from top to bottom as to how much
I enjoyed them and this is a list of how well
I did in them ordered from best to worst not
all of the modules are there because some
of them are just pass fail so I didn't get
a mark for them I also want to say because
I think it's only fair that I mention this
that I did have the option to switch one of
the ten units out for a dissertation instead
with hindsight I wish I had done the reason
why I didn't choose a dissertation at the
time is because the deadline for choosing
a dissertation topic and for sorting out a
dissertation supervisor basically really nicely
coincided with me having a massive crisis
about what I wanted to do with my life which
I've talked about in another video so I won't
go into depth but yeah it just wasn't a good
time for me there were many small things like
going wrong I wasn't enjoying QFT I was struggling
with the workload because I took way too many
modules in first term so yeah I decided not
to do a dissertation in the end because I
think it would've been too much for me at
the time but I think if had've taken a dissertation
I think that might have made it a little bit
better anyway moving on from the choice of
modules another thing that didn't really live
up to my expectations was the sense of community
on the degree so um don't get me wrong like
the people on the degree were lovely er and
I'm not just saying that there are a few people
in my year who've gone out of their way to
reach out to me during lockdown despite the
fact we didn't really talk much at uni and
that meant a lot to me when I was really struggling
by myself with the degree in my home bedroom
there are a few small things I can think of
that just spring to mind when I think about
the people on my course so something that
springs to mind is on the induction day someone
on my Masters who'd been to Oxford for his
undergrad so he'd been there for three years
went out of his way to find a group of us
that were new and he showed us round some
of the colleges at lunchtime and showed us
a really nice place to get lunch and he saw
I had like a cycling jumper on so he gave
me advice about cycling round Oxford and I
know it's going to sound really small but
that made a big difference to me when I was
in this new city where I didn't know anyone
also we had a course rep so like someone in
my year who was like nominated to be our representative
and she wrote an email the night before our
first January exam with a good luck message
and it was one of the sweetest good luck messages
I've ever read so yeah it's not that the people
on my course weren't nice the people were
nice but I didn't really feel an overarching
sense of community and I think this is because
we shared a lot of modules with fourth year
maths and with fourth year physics and also
because I took quite an eclectic mix of modules
in the end I never really er found a I guess
a tight friendship group in my year in the
same way that I had one at undergrad I did
have friends in particular modules but they
weren't necessarily people on the same Masters
as me like some of them were fourth year mathematicians
and to be fair in first term I did get to
know a really nice group of people on my course
and we used to go and do problem sheets together
for one of my modules but I didn't end up
doing any of the same modules as them in second
term which was really sad so yeah that ended
at the end of first term I do realise by the
way that not having many friends on your course
might sound like a bit of a trivial problem
but in physics I really do think one of the
best ways of learning is collaboratively particularly
with really difficult exercises and problem
sheets it can be really helpful to see how
other people approach the question you can
learn a lot from your peers and I don't think
I quite realised until I started my Masters
and I didn't have my old kind of network anyway
how much of my resilience in the face of the
huge university workload came from the fact
that I had a lot of friends who were doing
the same thing as me at the same time so we
just kind of knew that we'd make it through
together again in the interest of fairness
I do want to quickly say that the person who
was in charge of the kind of administrative
and welfare things for my course was so lovely
and went above and beyond to help us out and
in second term I think it was her that set
this up but they started doing free lunches
every Friday for people on my Masters to try
and facilitate us being able to meet each
other and get to know each other so I so I
do think they realised there was a kind of
like problem with the lack of community and
support you felt if you weren't taking the
very standard set of modules so I never actually
managed to go to any of those Friday lunchtime
sessions because I was busy but I did really
appreciate the idea there were also a few
admin things that were only like small problems
but if they'd have been fixed it would've
just made life so much easier so one of those
is the fact that Oxford don't make personal
timetables instead of the university giving
you your own timetable you have to download
one pdf from the maths department and write
down when all your maths modules are and then
you have to download another one from the
physics department and copy down all of the
relevant modules from that one and then throughout
the term you had to keep an eye on your email
account in case there were any changes in
lecture times or locations and again because
the university doesn't have personal timetables
that means they don't know when you're free
so you have to sign up to classes and stuff
yourself using a doodlepoll to say all the
times you're free except maths who used a
form instead and the options would be something
like 1-2pm on Friday of week 2 and 5:30-6:30pm
on Tuesday of week 5 so it wasn't even a simple
day of the week type thing and I know it might
seem like a really stupid thing to complain
about but honestly like shoving all of these
different dates in your timetable and trying
to make sure that you had copied everything
down you hadn't lost any emails you hadn't
lost any class times or anything it was just
so time-consuming and stressful and like a
lot of unnecessary extra effort it took me
about half a day to sort it out before the
start of each term like I had to block aside
like four hours where I'd just sit down and
go through everything and make sure I did
have all of the times in my google calendar
it just seems ridiculous that it's something
that we have to do individually when if you
think about it from a programming point of
view it's something that can be some easily
automated like just click if you're taking
this module and then it will produce the timetable
for you like I don't know why they haven't
got the IT department to make that another
frustrating thing is that there's no central
university system for accessing all your lecture
notes if you go to a university that uses
Moodle or that uses Blackboard you log in
and then there'll be a tab for each of your
modules and if you click on the module name
you'll be able to see all of the resources
there so all of the lecture notes all of the
announcements all of the deadlines all of
the problem sheets all in one place very easy
to find Oxford don't do that I mean of course
they don't it was such a weird mix of what
they did so some of my modules had lecture
notes on the maths website as in the maths
department website some of my lecturers made
their own course websites one of my lecturers
used Canvas some didn't have any website at
all they literally just emailed stuff out
and it was so hard to keep track of what was
stored where what was due in when again it
just meant you had to spend so much time on
admin tasks that would've been much better
off used as learning time another tiny thing
that actually made a big difference was we
weren't given a map of all the buildings and
as far as I know there isn't a map that you
can find because the timetables would say
something like the Martin Wood lecture theatre
in the department of physics that's fine but
the department of physics in Oxford is made
up of more than one building in separate locations
so being told something is in the department
of physics is not helpful even if you guess
the building right you have no idea where
the lecture theatre actually is particularly
some of the smaller ones took me like a long
time to find there was also no set results
day this is the uni policy which is not fun
to be waiting in limbo with no idea of how
long it will be all of this stuff is basically
just the university not having a good enough
IT system for students which yeah like it
might sound like it's a small thing but particularly
when you have a university like Oxford that's
devolved across like 40-something different
colleges I just think if there was some central
website platform where you could log on and
you could see your timetable you could see
all of your notes you could maybe see your
email you could maybe see some kind of university
news I think it would make it feel much more
like one whole university because at the moment
I would say I felt like a theoretical physics
student and I would say I felt like a Keble
student Keble is my college but I wouldn't
necessarily say I felt like an Oxford university
student I didn't really feel any sense of
kind of university identity or belonging like
the only thing that made me feel like an Oxford
student was varsity cross-country and duathlon
and then also BUCS cross-country okay so another
big thing that I can't really make this video
without talking about is the pandemic and
how that affected my year so because of Oxford
only having eight week terms we had broken
up for Easter before everything basically
want to shit so I had a really normal last
week of second term actually including a meal
out for my friend's birthday a relay race
and my boyfriend came up to visit which are
three things that seemed so normal at the
time but obviously with hindsight I wish I'd
have appreciated them more but yeah so for
me and for all Oxford students the pandemic
only really affected from the start of the
Easter holidays onwards so the Easter holidays
third term and my summer exams so I do know
from social media that a lot of people weren't
particularly happy with how the university
handled third term by putting it online but
I wasn't that fussed by that to be honest
I was pretty happy with their response all
things considered the pandemic is shit for
all of us including the uni administrative
staff who would've had to make these like
huge decisions about whether or not to shut
the university libraries whether or not to
send students home whether or not to commit
to putting all lectures online you know these
are real people too and they were dealing
with very very little government guidance
I also know that quite a few people were disappointed
that they had to do third term online and
there was no option to kind of drop out for
a year and then do third term in 2021 which
like I get it I was really disappointed too
it really sucks to lose a whole term of your
uni experience particularly if you're only
somewhere for three terms like I'm never going
to have a summer term in Oxford but at the
same time again it's one of those things that
sucks but I do kind of think was fair enough
as in I think it was fair enough that they
didn't let home students defer unless they
had um extenuating circumstances because if
a load of people defer for a year which a
lot of people wanted to do there would be
no space for next year's intake and what are
Oxford meant to say to new postgrads or to
this year's year 13s like sorry our university
is full you know you can't come however while
I think the only option the university had
was to put lectures online whether or not
they were still good value for money is a
different question I'm not convinced they
were very luckily er which I'm very grateful
for I was on a scholarship but if I wasn't
I don't think I would have been happy about
being charged full fees and I particularly
feel for international students I think they
were very much ripped off so yeah lectures
and classes online fair enough but the way
my course and some other courses put exams
online was in my opinion absolutely ridiculous
we didn't have a safety net and I mean you
can't implement a safety on a one year course
so that's fine but we also weren't given the
option of deferring our exams to a later exam
season whether at the end of the summer holidays
or deferring them to summer term exams in
2021 we literally had two choices the first
one was to not sit our exams and then we could
apply for something called DDM which stands
for declared to have deserved Masters which
is basically a certificate recognising and
explaining the extenuating circumstances as
if everyone doesn't know about the pandemic
already but it is not a Masters degree so
our second option was to sit our exams "as
normal" but from home so essentially if you
wanted a Masters degree you had no choice
but to suck it up and sit your exams in June
regardless of what was going on in your life
so we had exactly the same exam papers we
would normally have we had exactly the same
time limits for exams that we would normally
have and we had to start the exam at the same
time as we normally would have done if we
were sitting them in the exam halls so that
was either 9 O'clock or half two depending
on if it was a morning or an afternoon exam
and we were marked to the same standards we
would normally be marked to literally the
only difference was that they added a little
bit of time to the end of each of our exams
to give us time to like scan our answers you
had to like scan it with your phone and turn
it into a pdf and then upload the pdf and
like I'm sorry but that's not fair I was in
a very fortunate situation that I could move
back to my family home I have my own bedroom
in my family home I was able to buy a desk
and a nice desk lamp so I did have somewhere
like nice to study and sit my exams but even
I found it really really hard especially since
if you remember this was back in the period
of lockdown where you could only leave the
house once a day and you weren't allowed to
meet up with anyone outside of your household
so like if I think back to my third year exams
the thing that got me through was being able
to revise in big groups with my friends and
then like any time we ended up stuck on something
or we were getting upset we'd just go out
for like a little walk round campus and like
obviously none of that was possible this year
and just because I think it's so important
to stress like I was one of the most fortunate
students on my course in terms of the circumstances
I found myself in there were students in so
much worse er situations than me so to just
like charge ahead for the sake of "academic
rigour" which is an literal quote um is ridiculous
especially since you know how I said we shared
a lot of modules with fourth year maths and
fourth year physics so fourth year physics
had all of their exams cancelled and fourth
year maths had the number of exams they had
to sit halved to kind of lessen the burden
in the middle of the pandemic and Oxford scale
exam marks they use like a normal distribution
so for those of us who'd taken er maths modules
which is most people on my course we're being
directly compared to the maths students who'd
taken half as many exams as us they have half
as much stuff to revise for and when we pointed
out that this wasn't particularly fair we
got told it was fine because our Masters had
higher entrance requirements also in third
term I had this issue with this lecturer refusing
to send me lecture which um happened in the
one video that I filmed so I'll insert that
footage here because I think it gives a much
clearer kind of indication of how upset I
was by this at the time this was about a month
before my exams started by the way so I didn't
get as much done as I wanted to yesterday
this is a very long story cut short but basically
I moved out in a panic at the start of lockdown
because I didn't want to get trapped in Oxford
um and in moving out I forgot to clear out
one of the drawers in my room which had like
in amongst other things some charging leads
but also a couple of notebooks that I used
for my rough class notes wasn't a problem
because my college very kindly offered to
store it for me which was very nice but it's
become a problem in that one of my lecturers
uses the kind of um lecture note style where
he's got the full notes um but the copies
we get have blank spaces in them to kind of
force us to turn up to lectures and make a
note of things and the notes I made were in
one of these notebooks that I left behind
in Oxford so I didn't really wanna ask for
help so I've been trying to fill in all the
gaps by myself but I was finding it really
difficult because basically there's just a
gap in the notes it doesn't say what's meant
to go there it's just completely blank so
I was like you know what I'll just email the
lecturer and ask for the full copies with
all the derivations in um so I did that last
night and I've basically had an email back
saying no which really upset me because Oxford
in my opinion have no dealt with the pandemic
particularly well unlike some other universities
I realise other universities have been this
shit as well um but basically I just have
to sit all of my summer exams as normal just
uploading pdfs rather than sitting them in
exam halls without a safety or anything um
and that was hard enough but if they're just
not doing something as simple as emailing
us lecture pdfs for no reason like their reasoning
was basically just any other year we wouldn't
give them out so this year we're not going
to give them out either it's like any other
year I wouldn't have left my notes in Oxford
or I would be back in Oxford anyway basically
that just really upset me because I'm struggling
to concentrate anyway and I just feel like
instead of our lecturers helping us it just
feels like at this point to be honest like
they're making things more difficult for the
sake of it and I don't get it then to top
things off while I was just generally having
a really shit time trying to do university
from home and also my grandpa had just passed
away I got an email saying that graduation
had been cancelled and if we wanted our certificate
posted to us we had to agree not to go to
any graduation at all and even then the university
will only post us our certificate out to us
once the next in-person graduation has happened
so if there aren't any in-person graduations
ceremonies at Oxford until 2021 I can't get
my certificate until 2021 which is one of
the most stupid things I've ever heard of
it's literally like a sheet of paper right
that's all a degree certificate is you don't
need to bless it in Latin or whatever other
weird crap they're doing that means that they
can't just post them out now for context for
just how ridiculous this is my friends from
Lancaster who are graduating this year got
their degree certificates in the post before
I even found out if I'd passed my Masters
and if I decide I do want to go to a graduation
in person I'm not allowed to pick up my certificate
until the day of the ceremony which could
be and I quote here two or more years from
now in the meantime we can order a letter
from the university which is a pdf that they
email out to us which basically er we can
show to an employer or we can show to another
university to confirm that we have done this
degree but his letter it's literally a pdf
that they email out takes over a month to
arrive after you order it there are many many
more things I could critique but I'm guessing
you're probably getting bored by now so I'm
going to move onto more positive things about
the year because there were positive things
yeah let's start by talking about the college
system you probably know this already but
Oxford university is made up of 44 I think
individual colleges and permanent private
halls so everyone at Oxford is a member of
a college and there are two types of colleges
that you can join when you join Oxford as
a postgrad there are postgrad only colleges
and then there are mixed undergrad and postgraduate
colleges the main downside to being in a postgrad
only college is that it can be a bit dead
and they tend to be a lot newer than the mixed
colleges so they don't tend to have as much
money for scholarships and stuff but the main
downside to being in a mixed undergrad and
postgrad college is that normally all of the
accommodation on the main college site is
used for undergrads so postgrads have to live
out of college either in private accommodation
or in houses the college owns they might be
a long way away from the college site so there
isn't the same kind of sense of community
as when all the postgrads are in the same
place so I ended up choosing Keble as my college
this is a photo of Keble and I chose it because
it is a mixed undergrad and postgrad college
but it has a graduate campus near the main
college site which is known as the HB Allen
Centre or HBAC for short and that's where
the majority of the postgrads live so it meant
that I didn't have to choose between like
living off site or living in a postgrad only
college I also thought to be completely honest
that the buildings looked cool er I liked
the fact that it didn't look like your ordinary
Oxford college anyway in terms of facilities
the main college site for Keble has a library
although I didn't use it much because it was
a bit dark and a bit intimidating and just
a bit scary I prefer like modern light libraries
my favourite Oxford library was the Vere Harmsworth
institute library which these huge glass walls
and ceilings so it kind of feels like you're
outside even though you're inside anyway so
Keble has it's own bar and it has common rooms
for the undergrads and common rooms for the
postgrads and it has a dining hall you know
how for certain places there's like a fact
that everyone knows about it so Big Ben like
the fact that everybody seems to know about
Big Ben is that the *tower isn't actually
called Big Ben so the fact like that about
Keble is that apparently it has the longest
dining hall in Oxford I've never fact checked
that but that's something that everyone always
I yeah I get quite a few questions about formal
halls so just to chat about them quickly essentially
they're completely optional and as a postgrad
at Keble you can just live like a normal student
so HBAC is made up of just modern student
flats essentially hall is just like literally
just if you want a meal out you can go to
hall if you want to so I guess the best analogy
I have for it is that at undergrad if me and
my friends just wanted to like meet out meet
up for a cheap meal and a catch-up we'd go
to Spoons at postgrad hall kind of became
the equivalent of Spoons I guess I know that's
a weird comparison but it's like similar prices
and like it's a similar kind of vibe as in
like you go down with your friends there's
a bit more Latin than Spoons though so I didn't
actually go that much I went a couple of times
in freshers week because it was free there
were some welcome dinners and then I also
went for my birthday with my flatmates that
was like week one of term or maybe that was
freshers week actually but it was very early
on anyway I went once when er two of my flatmates'
girlfriends came up to visit I went once for
Chinese new year there was like a special
formal so um I went with my flatmate and his
friends and I went once when one of my friends
from undergrad came down to visit so yeah
I think I went four times I also went to two
black tie dinners they're basically the same
as formals but you wear fancy clothes and
also the puddings are much nicer so I went
to the black tie sciences formal and I also
went to the Christmas meal I'm pretty sure
formal hall cost £7 I might be wrong but
it was somewhere in that region anyway HBAC
which like I said is the graduate is basically
just across the road from the main college
site it's like no more than five minutes walk
away including the time it takes to wait to
cross the road and HBAC has a common room
with er televisions a kind of kitchen counter
thing a table tennis table a lot of sofas
and beanbags board games there's a guitar
there's a piano there's just a lot of stuff
like that so it's like a nice place to hang
out and then there's also a quiet common room
and that just has like desks and workspaces
and sofas kind of like a library but without
the books I guess there's also a gym er but
to be honest I didn't buy membership because
I didn't think it was a very good gym and
I didn't think it was very good value for
money and also it's in the basement which
is a bit creepy and obviously there's a laundrette
as well and that's in the basement as well
which is great and there's also a terrace
you can go on on the roof er but that gets
shut over winter and by the time it had reopened
COVID had happened so um yeah sadly never
got to use the terrace but it does exist the
best thing about my college was the sense
of community among the postgrad students who
are collectively known as the MCR which stands
for middle common room but it just means the
postgrad students at the college the MCR committee
who are like the exec committee er they're
postgrad students you kind of vote in to run
events for you they put on loads of events
there was pretty much something to do every
night of the week and that's not an exaggeration
some examples I can think of off the top of
my head are every week we had a welfare brunch
which was just like a brunch with free food
where people could meet up and chat there
were BOPs which are er like big college parties
I guess if you went to Lancaster they're kind
of like extravs but they're spread out across
the year rather than all being in one week
there are potlucks where everyone cooked a
dish and brought it down actually those were
ace between 2/3 of Oxford postgrads that's
the actual statistic aren't from the UK so
there was always like a huge range of dishes
you got to chat about different cultures that
was really cool that was actually one of the
coolest things about being an Oxford student
I think err at postgrad level because Oxford
have like shittons more money than most unis
while I don't agree with that distribution
of money across the higher education system
what it does mean is that Oxford has a lot
of money for postgraduate scholarships so
there are people from literally all over the
world there aren't just students from the
UK and Europe like you might predominantly
find at other universities anyway there were
also art events there were events where we
got the chocolate fountains out the MCR owned
a couple of chocolate fountains they were
always fun there were also evenings where
research students so either MPhil students
or DPhil students which is the Oxford PhD
would give um brief summaries of their work
they were always really interesting but one
that was super interesting was halfway through
second term someone um was giving a talk on
the coronavirus research that was going on
there was just so much stuff in terms of accommodation
fees Oxford is a phenomenally expensive city
to live in during my undergraduate degree
I er because I did some internships over the
summer I ended up staying in 5 different types
of student accommodation so I stayed in halls
on campus I stayed in three different yeah
three different private houses that I rented
and I also stayed in one lot of private like
halls private flat type things and I never
was charged more than £100 per week for rent
um all inclusive so that includes all of my
bills by far the most expensive contract I
had was £97 per week and that's when I was
living on campus and I wasn't like deliberately
sourcing out cheap accommodation either that
was just like the average price that you paid
in that city I know a lot of people who were
on £85 per week all inclusive contracts by
contrast Oxford whether you live in college
or out of college is very expensive for student
accommodation the university have a webpage
you can go on where they basically tell you
what you should be budgeting for while you're
living in Oxford and on this webpage they
estimate that the absolute minimum you can
expect to spend on accommodation is £630
per month which is £150 per week my rent
was er nearer the minimum than the maximum
it was £653 per month for a seven bedroom
flat to be fair the flats were ridiculously
fancy for student flats it looked like a hotel
the accommodation block we had like induction
hobs and we had a George Foreman in the kitchen
so like objectively it probably good value
for money but if there had been a cheaper
I would definitely have taken it because it
was just like a bit unnecessary and on top
of these accommodation fees some colleges
also have "college fees" which aren't optional
they're like compulsory fees that you have
to pay to college particularly for international
students but luckily Keble doesn't do that
also the way they deal with college charges
is so weird you can use your um student so
like your library card to pay for meals in
college so either formal hall which is like
a three course meal or just canteen food like
a sandwich or whatever and your um your accommodation
go on this account as well and then at the
end of term they issue you with a statement
of how much you owe them retrospectively so
once the term in done um you have to pay it
off it's something they call "Battels" but
because they do this retrospectively they've
essentially given every single student like
an unlimited credit card for food it seems
a really unhealthy way to deal with money
because the way it works is you rack up debt
for a term and then you pay it off at the
start of the next term which is like obviously
fine until you get to the point when you're
graduating because then you have one payment
to go and you don't have any loan coming in
and if you're in debt to the university you
can't graduate anyway a quick point on Oxford
traditions at undergrad level I think it's
more college dependent but at postgrad level
if you don't wanna get involved in any of
the weird traditional stuff you by and large
like you don't have to now I'm someone who
really isn't a fan of traditions for tradition's
sake like matriculation to me just seemed
completely pointless matriculation by the
way is where you dress up um and then you
walk down to this building called the Sheldonian
Theatre and the Vice Chancellor says something
in Latin and then it's like wow you're now
a member of the university but our matriculation
day was a really sunny Saturday and I spent
the whole time I remember just wishing I was
out on a bike ride rather than having to like
have someone talk Latin at me but like that's
just my personal opinion and I do recognise
that a lot of people do enjoy these kind of
tradition things obviously that's fine if
you do there are a lot of chances to get involved
in them but if you don't like me you can just
skip most of them but anyway there were some
things that I actually thought were really
nice like varsity cross-country so that's
held in Wimbledon every year and it has been
for you know like years and years and years
and ex students come back to watch it and
there's an alumni race and it's just really
nice there's also Oxmas that's another tradition
that I liked which is um it's just celebrating
Christmas but on the 25th of November because
the Oxford term ends so early so like we had
a Christmas meal with our flatmates I love
Christmas like the chance to have two Christmas
meals was good er then there were some traditions
like I said that to me seem a bit pointless
so like I said matriculation but then there
are also some traditions which I very strongly
and fundamentally disagree with one of these
is the wearing of gowns which I think is horrible
because the undergrads have two types of gowns
there's one you wear if you get a first in
first year which is called a Scholar's gown
and then there's one which you wear if you
don't which and I wish I was joking here but
I'm not is called a commoner's gown and then
the graduate student gown is different again
and I just hate the fact that if people are
wearing gowns which you have to for matriculation,
for exams, for graduation and for formal dinners
you can immediately tell what academic level
someone is at by looking at them and it feels
like it's kind of ranking people's importance
based on their qualifications which is some
horribly elitist stuff but now onto extra
curricular stuff while I wouldn't necessarily
say that my year at Oxford was good overall
and the academic stuff like I said really
wasn't great the extra curricular is basically
why I still don't regret the year and why
I did still have some good times I actually
cannot imagine having made it through the
Masters without being a member of OUCCC which
is the Oxford University cross-country club
when I say I spent most of the year that's
not an exaggeration especially in first term
I guess I felt very lost and I felt very alone
the lack of support I felt on my degree combined
with the fact I was having this huge crisis
about what I wanted to do with my life whether
or not I wanted to stay in academia alongside
other personal stuff I was dealing with it
just made things really hard if I was gonna
draw kind of a graph of how much I was enjoying
my time at Oxford it would look something
like this I really hit rock bottom just before
we broke up for Christmas I like I didn't
quite realise how highly strung I was and
how difficult I was finding things until about
a week before we broke up for Christmas I
was cycling back from the sports centre and
all of a sudden my bike just stopped shifting
gears and like I love my bike a lot but it
does break all the time and most of the time
I'd just sigh I'd probably swear I'd be like
frustrated sure but you know it wouldn't be
a big deal I'd just fix it or if I couldn't
fix it I'd get someone else to fix it and
then it would be done it would be dealt but
this time my bike stopped shifting and I just
kind of burst into tears and I was completely
inconsolable and it was so weird because like
most of me was consumed by being drastically
upset but there was like a tiny part of my
brain that kind of felt like it was detached
and looking on and just thinking wow like
you are not okay it is ridiculous to be this
upset over something so small there are a
lot of other examples I have of me getting
like disproportionately over small stuff and
I think it's just because I was struggling
a lot and the whole term it kind of felt like
I was at a kind of level where even like the
smallest thing would just push me over the
edge and the cross-country kind of ended up
being the one place that felt like a refuge
from how um bad I was feeling a lot of the
time and having the club runs and having drills
to look forward to every week was the thing
that got me through first term to be completely
honest I think we all know that Oxford as
an institution has a lot of issues but I feel
like the cross-country club is a shining example
of the best things about the university um
and contains some of the like warmest kindest
in the city and through I found like such
a strong sense of community and belonging
which meant a lot to me when um I didn't have
that kind of feeling on the degree one of
the things I'm most grateful for in a weird
way that it was third term that I missed rather
than any other terms is the fact that obviously
cross-country's a winter sport so I still
got to do all the races even though I was
injured and not training much all season so
we started off with the inter-college cross-country
and then there was the milton keynes cross-challenge
there was varsity cross-country and there
was BUCS cross-country which is the er inter-university
cross-country championships that was in Edinburgh
it was one of the most beautiful courses I've
ever ran round and anyway from BUCS cross-country
onwards which was week one of second term
things started really looking up for me and
I started having a much better and I would
say from week one of second term onwards I
started actually enjoying myself I think that
I just kind of accepted that my degree wasn't
gonna be as good as I hoped it would be and
I started trying to make the most of everything
else there was to do in the city it's really
weird like looking back now because obviously
I basically don't do anything in a day at
the moment because of the pandemic and there
not being much that you can do but it amazes
me how much I used to get done in a single
day or in a week like there are things in
Oxford that I didn't get the chance to do
because I wasn't there for third term but
at the same time I'm so grateful that I did
manage to pack so much stuff into second term
that like I feel like I've missed out on some
things but I'm very grateful that I kind of
made an effort to do as much as I could in
second term I guess and yeah like things just
kept getting better week by week until like
the last week of second term I was living
my best life I was having a great time and
er we broke up for Easter and I was really
excited to come back for summer term I had
all these things I was looking forward to
like varsity triathlon BUCS triathlon the
summer balls like picnics in the park going
swimming in the lake near Oxford all this
stuff I wanted to do and then obviously we
didn't go back like I said it's a weird year
to try and summarise in one single video and
this is going to be ridiculously long but
I think this chat is the best I can do of
it it's the most I've made sense of it in
my head anyway it was a very very um polarised
year there were some real lows for but there
were also some real highs I had a great time
to be honest with all the extra curricular
stuff and the college stuff which you can
if you watch one second every day video you'll
see the kind of stuff I was doing but there
were er a lot of lows most notably the course
um and also the fact that I never got a third
term at the end of the day er I don't regret
it and that's because completely by chance
I managed to find an area of physics which
I really love and I'm extremely lucky to have
got a graduate job in that field I also made
some good friends um I learnt a lot of in
terms of sport and if nothing else I'm definitely
more resilient now than I was at the start
of the year I mean there are many many more
things I could say but this is gonna be by
far the longest and densest video I've made
so I'm just gonna leave it here er yeah it's
been quite cathartic to get to talk it through
because like I said it was such a weird year
for me um but yeah it's now time to draw a
line under the Oxford chapter and move on
to new things which is exciting anyway I'll
see whenever I next make a video
