What do you think if someone went to Oxford or Cambridge University?

[ephemeris]

I've been genuinely shocked that some people find it hard to believe that you don't have to be posh to go to Oxford or Cambridge. I went to Oxford for my first degree, where I met dh who was doing a masters course. We then both moved to Cambridge when he did his PhD there.

I'm from a low income household in the NE, went to a shockingly bad state comp, and somehow fluked a place at Oxford in the 90s.

Usually people have no idea what university someone went to, but if it ever comes up and we mention we went to Oxbridge, people are a bit 🤔. I even had a colleague at work once, who told me it was my round at the bar because I must be able to afford it if I went to Oxford.

"Which college were you in?"

DH and I went to a small, lesser known Cambridge college, I'm always interested to see where others went. As DH and I are very different in every way, I have very few preconceived ideas about the "type" who ends up there.

I did a science and I still find teaching way more exhausting than I found university. It’s a different kind of demanding, I suppose - having to make lots of decisions, get lots of things done, and play lots of different roles, rather than having to think really hard about one subject - but it certainly takes more out of me than my degree did.