Oxford and Cambridge current students - discussion thread for anyone with daughters, sons etc there for Michaelmas 2020 (and not just freshers!)

[DadDadDad]

A continuation thread for those attending Oxbridge for the first time this term, but it makes sense to throw it open to anyone with a DC there (or other family member, or maybe you're a student yourself or teach / work there - all welcome!) Share your thoughts and questions on college life, courses, etc. A certain virus has made it a bit different for everyone this year...

I have a DS who is a fresher at a small Oxford college in a small subject. We will be taking him there in just over a week.

Hoghyni, I'm so sorry to hear about your mum and also so many challenges for your family. I hope you're OK and that your DD is managing to cope. It must all feel like too much to manage right now. Your DD is an absolute star to be dealing with all this and also life as a Fresher in the midst of a pandemic. I hope that things get better for you and family very soon and it puts my very trivial concerns about DS1 well into perspective.

Hogh I am sorry, life really has it in for you at the moment. Wishing your Mum a full and swift recovery.

That is just awful news Hogh. Sending best wishes to your Mum for a speedy recovery and to you for having so much to cope with right now.

Very sorry @Hoghgyni and hope you and your family are coping somehow.

So sorry about your mum Hoghygni I hope she’s recovering well. And I hope your DD is bearing up, a lot of hard things to deal with for her.

Sorry to read that @Hoghgyni what a tough time you're having.....

Thanks all. It's crap, but it is what it is. Mum is making progress, but she really doesn't like being poorly. We're going to send DD back to Oxford after the funeral with a Percy Pig Christmas tree.

Sorry to hear about your Mum @Hoghgyni . Percy Pig sounds like an excellent idea. I'd send Colin in as well for moral support.

No word from DS1 on what the 'evacuation' plan is but I see Oxford have updated their website to say they'll update their website 😂

To be honest I can't see it will make much different to DS1 plans given the fact that the end of term falls into the 'leave now' window.

I'd just been saying to D1 that at least travelling home for Xmas wouldn't be too bad as they finish two weeks earlier than most universities, now it looks like the whole student population will be moving around the country in the space of a few days. She was just about to buy her train ticket, but thinks she ought to hang on and see if they get any other information. Having had a virus last week, she'd been sent for a covid test (neg) and blood tests, but now she's got to s/i as someone in the next household has tested positive. Just in time for the dreaded 5th week blues - I've sent emergency brownies.

Flight home already arranged for DS on the last day of term. I hope students are not really given ‘windows’ when they are allowed to leave.

I'm glad your mum is making progress Hoghgyni and all the very best to your and your family and especially your very brave DD.

Sandybayley, DS2 (O) has had to request a slightly later than usual departure date otherwise it clashes with DS1's (C) pick up date and it seems - so far - as if the college is acting as if the end of term/travel date would be as expected. I guess we'll only know for sure when official instructions are issued however.

DS1's college has now informed everyone that there's going to be a Zoom online Formal Dinner at the end of term! You've just got to laugh really! There's no special menu and you're expected to sit alone in your room, in a suit (if you want), eating alone from your takeaway plastic tray with plastic utensils, whilst on your webcam. So business as normal then, for his college - but on camera.

He and most others don't think they'll bother and it feels - to me (though he's not saying this, I hasten to add) really sad that even with one of the largest dining halls in the whole of C, his college can't do staggered face to face proper Formal Dinners, a few households at a time (all socially distanced of course) even once, for Freshers.

Two people from his household of 7 have already gone home for the rest of term and the rest barely leave their rooms.

By comparison, DS2's college (O) has plans to arrange small group, face to face Formal Dinners for each household in the dining hall and will do what they can to make this work well with a nice menu too.....Worlds apart....

DS2 (O) is already discussing with his friends room ballots for next year so they can share a household.

DS1 (C) hasn't even met enough people at his college to be at that stage and I hope they don't have to think about that yet, as you do in other universities and that he'll have more time to meet people with whom he'd like to share a household.

Am I right in thinking that this won't need to be thought about till the third term or do some Cambridge colleges not even give students any choice of who's in the same household, for the second year?

Sorry you've so much to deal with Hoghgyni. I hope you're geographically close to your parents - especially tough if you're not.

Thinking of you @Hoghgyni and hoping your mum's recovery is straightforward.

@mutterphore, it does seem a bit odd at DS1's college. My DD at C but presumably in a different college had a "floor formal" a couple of weeks ago. Each person was responsible for a different course or part of the meal. They had to be pretty inventive as the gyp/kitchen has no oven, just a microwave & 2 rings on the hob. They all dressed up and DD said it was great fun and just what they needed. However, as a 4th year, she has known them for 3 years and they do get along pretty well. I don't know whether your DS has any sort of catering facilities to try something similar perhaps. Alternatively, can he contact the JCR people to suggest something?

Covid has been stalking the freshers at my DS's college (in Oxford) and he phoned today to say he thinks he's got it. Test booked for tomorrow...

DadDadDad, I'm sorry to hear about your DS and hope that he's OK. Many students who have had it seem to have a very mild version and of course it might just be that it's a different virus in any case. Good luck while you wait for his test results.

Malbecfan, that 'floor formal' idea sounds great. I'm not sure anything similar would be possible for DS1 as of the 5 remaining people in his household, who haven't yet gone home, other than DS1, they seems to stay in their rooms a lot of the time and the gyp/kitchen is so tiny that I think only one person can fit in at a time. There'd also be nowhere to eat together except sitting on the floor of the corridor as the rooms are tiny.

However, there has been some thoughts about a mini informal Bridgmas celebration with others along the corridor - though I don't know what might be intended nor what could be possible, given lockdown.

It's a pity students can't move households and corridors for next term to try out a different set of people, although I presume others may well have bonded well with their households. It's very much the luck of the draw.

Hopefully, before the end of the first year, there might be the possibility of mixing again with other colleges and that clubs/societies might be able to meet in person.

DS1 has found out that his subject Tripos seems to have changed recently and only involves, in the third year, one exam and one dissertation. Surely that can't be correct? I did a different subject, albeit at O and decades ago now but had ten, three hour exams, across one week, two long extended essays and a huge research dissertation for my finals. I guess back then of course we didn't have to deal with a pandemic, so anything that makes life a bit easier is all to the good.

Hope they're not dumbing down.

The maths tripos is always 4x3 hour exams and an optional set of computational projects. Seems a brutal way to decide a degree.

@OhYouBadBadKitten

The maths tripos is always 4x3 hour exams and an optional set of computational projects. Seems a brutal way to decide a degree.

With those 4 exams taking place in two consecutive days (morning and afternoon). They (in my day) each covered the same syllabus, so it wasn't as if you had to revise separately for each (basically each paper had loads of questions - one for each course - and you answered as many as you could on the courses you had studied).

I seem to recall that the final paper had "essay" questions - explaining the theory rather than solving problems. Mathmos writing essays!

My finals (Oxford, mid-1990s) were nine papers over four and a half days. We sat a three-hour paper in the morning and another in the afternoon. No other assessment at all. Really no room to have a bad couple of days! People did survive though.

DS's subject (not maths tripos) is 4x3 four hours exams plus two projects (not sure if they are optional though).

Its not quite as harsh now in terms of timing I think DadDadDad, I'll have to ask dd about if there are any essays.

You take two compulsory papers:
• Practical Criticism and Critical Practice II
• Tragedy, which ranges from ancient Greek drama to contemporary writing
You also write a compulsory dissertation (of 6,000-7,500 words) and either submit a second dissertation (of 6,000-7,500 words) and take one optional paper, or choose two optional papers. The optional papers change regularly, and the following are available in 2018-19:
• Chaucer;
• Medieval English Literature 1066-1500: The Medieval Supernatural;
• Early Modern Drama 1588-1642;
• Material Renaissance;
• Lyric;
• Special Period of English Literature 1847-72;
• Modernism and the Short Story;
• Contemporary Writing in English;
• Postcolonial and Related Literatures;
• American Literature;
• The Ethical Imagination;
• History and Theory of Literary Criticism;
• Literature and Visual Culture.

Faculty webpage for your DS1 English, am I right?

With respect to room ballots, afaik, DD college is one of the few that retain points for exam achievement. They also usually give points for participation in societies, obviously going to be a challenge this year ! Maybe they’ll run negative points for portering/deaning! Agree tough to pick a household having done the term they have so far, regardless of usual arrangements. Personally think herding kids to choose this term has always felt too soon, such fluid friendship groups .

www.varsity.co.uk/violet/20137.

Not sure if this link will work @mutterphore, but a nice reflection on the tricky issue of friends, your DS1 is not alone ...

Thanks Hobbema, that's very helpful. DS1 said his DOS had made this recent declaration about the 'new' Tripos being a dissertation and one exam but it may be his DOS was referring only to the part of the Tripos that he oversees with his students - or DS1 has misinterpreted things. It certainly seemed to demand a lot less than expected!

So is it really the case that students have to choose their room/household allocation for the second year this term? DS1 and many others will have spent only 2 weeks of the whole term not in isolation and not in lockdown. That seems far too soon to select 'friends' even for those who've been luckier with their household. He'd be happy enough with some of them but it would be familiarity rather than having things in common. That Varsity article says it all really and of course for Freshers, it's been even harder this year to meet and get to know anyone at all.