So, we’re at the end of the third official week of term (Oxford terms are eight weeks long, but we
have what is called ‘0th week’ at the start of term in which you move back into college, try and madly
do all the work you were supposed to do over the vacation, and probably sit ‘collections’ which are
like informal mock exams on the papers you studied in the previous term) and it feels like so much
has happened already! As my tutor put it the other day “it feels like we’ve been here for months”
Don’t worry, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Here’s a little flavour of what life has been like for
me, a second year French and Philosophy student, over the past three weeks…
(Just so you know, there is usually a ‘bop’- a party in the college bar- at the end of 0th week, so
everyone can recover from collections. This year’s was ‘dungeons and dragons’ themed which
resulted in some interesting fancy dress and large quantities of mead. We literally go to Hogwarts.)
To be perfectly honest the majority of my time is spent doing work. This was a bit of a shock to the
system after the Christmas vacation which consisted of three weeks of eating mince pies on the sofa,
shouting at the TV. Christmas vacations are five weeks long but I stayed for two weeks after term to
help out over the interviews process, which I would definitely recommend. However, I’ve been going
to some really great lectures: the philosophy of the mind lectures given by Magdalen’s own amazing
Lizzie Fricker; the later Wittgenstein lectures, given by a lecturer from Univ College who somehow
manages to make Wittgenstein intelligible; Sartre lectures; and modern French literary theory
lectures, which make me feel like I am working extra hard because they are given in French.
I typically have four tutorials and an oral class each week; doing dual honours, especially with a
language, means that you get a fantastic amount of contact time. It also means lots of work to hand
in for those tutorials, but you get very good at churning out decent work at a fast pace (I like to think
so anyway, maybe I’m just kidding myself). This term I’ve been having tutorials on the philosophy of
mind paper, which is really exciting because all the reading is from the psychology section of the
library (I’m such a geek), and for the modern French literature paper which is great because you get
to read so many books in French but also slightly daunting because you have ALL THESE BOOKS TO
READ IN FRENCH. We also have tutorials on translation, which is my personal favourite.
I do also have fun, sometimes. Granted, I spent most of my free time in 1st week finishing my
application to study at a university in France during my year abroad (it was definitely worth it
though, since I’ll be studying for a term at the Sorbonne in September; I’m unbelievably excited, but
also slightly daunted because I now need to find an internship for the other half of my year abroad.
Who knows how to write a decent CV in French?!) My mum came to visit at the end of second week,
and we went for a spa at the Randolph hotel; this may sound like a ridiculously decadent ‘Oxford’
thing to do, but it’s pretty cheap to use the spa in the evenings and you get a free glass of wine. I
also took advantage of the car to do a food shop (exciting, I know). We went down Cowley road and I
got all excited about the unusual food in the little delis- Cowley is one of my favourite parts of
Oxford, it doesn’t have the same polished feel as the rest of the city and there’s a great variety of
shops and restaurants. My dad came to visit too and took me out for dinner at the Turl Street
Kitchen, which has everything I look for in a restaurant: good food, big portions, student discount.
It’s also a not-for-profit business whose profit is put back into funding student-led charities which
can use the building for meetings etc.
I went out for cocktails for a friend’s birthday at All Bar One- we were going to go to House, because
they do a discount for Oxford Union members, but they were hosting a function. There is also a
really cute cocktail bar on Iffley road call the Mad Hatters, which serves cocktails in suitcases and
which is disguised as an old boarded-up pub, but they’re only open a couple of evenings a week. I
also went to a night called ‘Holy Funk’ at Freud in Jericho- which looked to me like it used to be a deconsecrated Church, but I may be completely wrong- which was pretty sweet; who doesn’t love live
sax in a club? A brilliant event which I went to this week was a networking event with female alumni
from Magdalen. To be honest it was just nice to go to London and go out for dinner, but the event
itself was really interesting. It was so nice to talk to, and get advice from, women who used to be in
the same position as me and who are now doing a huge variety of exciting and fulfilling jobs. The
college funded our travel and are hoping to host more networking events with female alumni, which
I will definitely be taking advantage of.