Current Oxbridge students - new year, new thread

[TenSheds]

Fresh new thread for Oxbridge parents group therapy! With freshers moving in and existing students returning, reckoned someone ought to take the initiative so there's a home for all the news, blues and reviews.

The last continuation thread filled up before anyone set up a new one so hopefully existing and new Oxbridge parents find this one.

It was only a little over 4 years ago that I suggested one Saturday morning that it was time for DS to solidify his ambition for C. As we are nearby and it was a lovely mid-spring day it was a good time to look around. That did it; he knew what he had in mind. To me, yesterday.

I’m a lurker on this thread but I did introduce myself almost four years ago when my son was about to start his integrated masters degree at Oxford. I wasn’t convinced that Oxford was right for him but he’s embraced it fully and has enjoyed every moment.
He found out this week that he’s got his First and so now we’re all looking forward to Graduation in August. I couldn’t be prouder. Oxford has been the making of him and he’s grown into the most exceptional young man.
For any parent lurking like I did, worried that Oxford isn’t right for their child, encourage them to give it a go. My daughter has now followed my son there so we’ve got another two years of visiting the beautiful city.

@JulietSierra congratulations to your DS! It’s great that he thrived at Oxford - it really does suit some students very well - and you must be so proud of him.

What a lovely update @JulietSierra and huge congratulations to your DS!

We had such a fabulous day in Cambridge yesterday...it was magical being 'in the moment' and sharing the joy, unencumbered by any worries about chemo, illness and fading parental health. And now we are home, car was all packed up by 0830 this morning and we are now done...unless DC4 decides he'd like to have a go at Oxbridge (The middle two really weren't interested despite being capable of a shot!).

Hope you also had a super day yesterday @PettsWoodParadise😊

Thank you @Panicmode1 we had a lovely day. It was awful however to hear of students who had no parents there as Cambridge train station was completely out by a freak electrical fault.

So glad you had a lovely day too.

We were on the side of Senate house which means DH and I (and about 30 others) were in the background of photos of every single person graduating from DD’s college. 😂

Oh NO! I didn't hear that. How awful 😞 😞

So glad you had a brilliant day. Congratulations to your DD 🎓

Similar lurker, with a DC whose C experience has involved 2 extra years and a wide variety of the more obscure sections of the disability guidance…..

Extraordinarily proud of their bravery and resilience in completing their degree, doing particularly brilliantly in the final years when they had the right adaptations in place.

It's lovely reading the graduation stories - ds has just finished year one and I can't believe how quickly that has gone, and I imagine the next two will be the same.

I have quite a niche question for anyone who might have knowledge of medieval history at Oxford and/or Latin. DS wants to specialise in medieval history and (bearing in mind prelim results are as yet unknown) he has had some very positive feedback from tutors based on collections etc and they have started mentioning postgrad study. However, they have said to do a Masters specialising in medieval history he would need Latin and would also preferably have Latin to do an undergrad dissertation in this area, which is what he thinks he would like to do. They have emailed him details of a two week online course for the summer (college will pay for this, fortunately) and have recommended a book, which ds has bought. How realistic is it for ds to get to the required standard within the time he has is my question. He did do French A level if that's relevant...

What’s the level of the online course? If they recommend it then presumably it’s sufficient.
yes having done French (presumably competently) will help.
I’m not remotely expert in this area but think that Latin is not too hard for someone motivated and methodical/ logical. Same alphabet and not really any pronunciation to worry about.

I trailed off, rather. I meant to say: To me yesterday, I was pleased to find that, unusually, some fatherly advice was timely and effective. Other than that, my partner's 8 weeks of chemo started yesterday. On top of that, planning for attending my firstborn's wedding in Autumn. Meeting her fiance next weekend for the first time.

@pinotnow Archaeologist here with DC studying classics. He will need to be able to read medieval Latin, rather than classical, with the relevant ecclesiastical, legal and vernacular language. Latin is quite logical if you have that sort of brain and romance language will help, but a two week course is just a taster. Oxford expect it to take a year to get up to A-level standard, learning intensively from scratch. So his two remaining years are enough to get him there, bearing in mind for actual research you can always have your trusty dictionary to hand; but I would suggest it will need quite a bit of extra study to attempt by himself and he might want to look into options for taught Latin support. He will also need to be able to read medieval writing - I don't know if manuscript study is already part of his degree. It is perfectly possible to research medieval history without Latin, but you're reliant on secondary sources.

Thank you - sounds like it's quite an undertaking, which was my initial thought when he told me. Trust him to make it difficult - it was all about Napoleon and that era before he went to Oxford but now it has completely switched.