Do people find it hard to adjust to life after Oxbridge?

[TsaritsaAlexandrinaPapanicholous]

Do you think it’s harder than normal to adjust to life after university if you want to Oxbridge?

The system and way of life is very different to other places. The bubble amongst very bright and driven people isn’t found elsewhere (other universities sure). Getting to live in beautiful buildings and go for dinners etc.

Unless you graduate and move into a high paying job, it seems hard to come down from especially if you’re not from a rich/posh family.

I didn't find it hard really. Terms are so short that you spend more time at home than in college. I never really bought into all the pomp too - formal dinners were very occasional and most of the time, I ate a bowl pasta in my room and spent my evenings in a shitty nightclub. Plus a lot of my fellow students were knobs. I was pleased to leave and start my real life.

I think a lot of non Oxbridge students find life after graduating a bit of an anticlimax.

It is a bubble and different but I think if you think it is normal then you will have an issue with life in general later on.
I got a good job, not a super graduate high earning job. I lived in a nice rental. I think I ended with a better life than I thought I would.
But I never assumed going to Oxford would set me off on some sort of special path.

A close friend of my DS really struggled after working so hard and graduating with a first from Cambridge (apparently gaining the highest mark seen at her college for her dissertation). She took her life a couple of months afterwards. Totally devastating .

People make a massive fuss about Oxbridge and the academic ability that got you in/through. But then it turns out, in the real world, success depends on a whole load of personal qualities that you might or might not have. I think that can be a shock to some Oxbridge graduates.

I assume they just work in London in well paying jobs.

There's an "Oxford and Cambridge" members only club in London.

I can’t imagine why. Most of my peers went onto PhDs at a range of universities and then onto the ‘real’ world. Don’t get me wrong, there are things I still really miss but life is good!

No not really

And an awful lot of people go to london and stay in the same bubble..

This is very sad, but not really a general indication of anything

No not at all. Also not sure why the question is only about Oxbridge- lots of universities have beautiful buildings and clever students.

Most of the people who I know who went to Oxbridge went there from normal state schools and found it didn’t really live up to expectations set by the likes of Brideshead Revisited and the Riot Club.

Lots of them hoped they’d find a society of intellectual equals, spend their time talking about philosophy on punts and end up working as a curator or for a big bank or for the government thanks to the connections they’d made.

The reality (for them) was that the really really beautiful collages largely admitted kids from private schools (back then anyway) so most of them were at the newer, uglier colleges. Most other students were from private schools, grammars or top London state schools who were not actually smarter than them but who had been better prepared, already had mates and were much more confident and knew the right way to talk in seminars. So they mostly went from being top of their school academically to feeling like they were bottom and having to struggle very hard and work all hours to gain some confidence. So not much time for punting.

And the connections they came out with were other smart kids from comps, as the Eton lot tended to stick together and get each others parents to help them into the top jobs.

They all came out having worked very hard and with some mates and being able to put Oxbridge on their CV which helps with a first job, but most of them found it to be a bit of a let down and couldn’t wait to rejoin the real world.

My DD and her friends (graduated a couple of years ago so 24/25 now) seem fine. Their Cambridge experience was a bit less than idyllic because of covid impacting their 3rd and 4th years, I suppose. She and and her BF found decent jobs in the area, she's actually got a bit more free time than when she was studying so she's now involved in a sport she very much enjoys, in both the uni and town clubs.

Her friends at uni and now after are from a mix of backgrounds - state school, private inc one 'top school' type, overseas....just like most ex students I'd imagine?

In short, they seem to have had no problem adjusting to life after uni.

Did you got to school in Victorian times? That's really not how it works.

Recruiters at big banks and law firms don't go "oh he was at Eton, let's not use our artificial intelligence recruitment system in this instance because I know his mom so let's give him a 50k a year starting salary. He might be absolutely useless but who cares about merit in our absolutely ruthless cut throat industry, let's just give him a job because he went to Eton it doesn't matter that we need the best candidates for the job and let's hope internal audit will be cool that we have ignored our corporate guidelines". They have ESG metrics and actively seeks candidates from diverse backgrounds. Yes parents might help you know how to dress and behave but the old boys network is largely dead.

I only found it hard to adjust in the sense that getting into Oxbridge had been my singular goal while I was a teenager, then doing well was my goal while there, but I didn’t have any particular career that I wanted to go into so didn’t have a goal to replace it with. Since graduating I’ve been a bit rudderless and struggled to come up with other goals for my life that I want as much and can work towards. I have a good professional job but I’m just coasting really.

Nope. It’s pretty easy. You just leave and find yourself, like everyone else leaving any Uni , working out what to do next.

I agree with this. My friends who went to Eton were actually the ones who struggled to get a good job after graduating.

The thought of going to a school or uni for "contacts" is nauseating.

That's a good point @Carleslireis - probably applies more widely but particularly to oxbridge, if people go there as an end in itself rather than just one step along a path then it probably is harder to adjust to life after uni. For both DD and her BF their main goal was to become engineers of different types.

DH was at one of the beautiful old Cambridge colleges. He found his tribe and had fun with them but overall found the place a bit precious. He turned down the offer of a funded PhD from Cambridge in favour of a red brick and he’s had an excellent career.

I found the first year of working full time with only 25 days holiday while living in London in a shitty flat and being totally skint a bit hard to adjust to... but surely everyone feels like this, I don't think it's Oxbridge specific.

I went to Oxford decades ago and it always amazes me that despite Oxbridge having done a certain amount since then to improve accessibility for a much more diverse group of people, the tendency to regard it as dramatically 'different', a 'bubble' etc seems to have insensified massively. Makes me think that ome people feel much too invested in the idea of its difference.

That"s so sad, sorry to hear that.

Agree, i think if you are very happy with a great group of friends at uni it is hard to leave. i've had many happy times since but still look at my Manchester uni days in the early 90s as halcyon days

A friend of mine (who I love to pieces) does still seem to hang a fair bit of her self-esteem on having been at Oxford.

She's the only person I know who still (at 38) regularly refers to where she went to uni in conversation, particularly when she feels unsure of herself or with new people.

She's so funny and sweet and good-hearted, it makes me a little sad that so much of her identity hinges on her academic achievements as a young'un; I wish she could see that it was a great achievement then, and she's so much more than that, too.

that's part of the issues with mixing with other intellectuals, and then getting mixed with the rest of society, its certainly a dilution of different intellectuals.

it also depends on if you want to be mixing with the best and brightest in x company or in many cases settle for average conversations and or work, with average interlectuals