Oxford Uni- What I learned from First Year

I started at Oxford University in October 2017, studying Philosophy and German. Whilst I've had a fantastic year, I thought it would be helpful to share some information about what I feel I've learnt on a personal level this year, especially about the harder parts of uni life. We always hear success stories from university. We hear it from parents, who, viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses, insist that uni is 'the best time of your life'. We get it from Instagram, too. As has been said before,  however, people only post photos of themselves having a good time, not at 2 am, mid essay-crisis, drinking cup-a-soup, which is truly the official food of self-hatred. 

That's not to say that university cannot be a great success story, however. I just feel that if I'd known, that, actually, it's quite normal to find uni difficult, then I'd have dealt with the difficult times so much better.  I wouldn't have been wondering if there was something wrong with me for not having fun all the time.

So without further ado, here are three of the most important things I learnt during first year:

1) Hang in there! 
It might take time to feel fully settled, make good friends, to get over impostor syndrome and so on. On reflection, this isn't actually surprising. In my case , I'd been at the same school for seven years before uni. That's nearly a whole decade which had passed in which I hadn't been asked to make so many new friends in such a short space of time. And anyway, when you're 11 you're not living in a whole new place, far away from home. Doing this is actually scary and difficult for most people. Anyone who seems to relish living in a whole new place where they don't know anyone, all the while being expected to get completely plastered every night for an entire week, is either unusually extroverted (good for them if this is the case ) or just pretending. It's also normal for this to go on past fresher's week as well. For me, I actually only just became fully comfortable in my final term. Countless friends describe similar experiences. Just give it your best, and give it time!

2) Your academic ability/ the number of hobbies you do/ how often you go out etc does not define your worth as a person

I think this point is a conflation of several problems I found when I first turned up at uni. Firstly, I don't really like to get drunk, and sometimes people think this makes you boring. This is incorrect, if they think this, it makes them boring. 

A further problem is that when you turn up at university , it's a lot bigger than school. There are a lot of people who are very similar to you and might be equally as fascinated by their subject by you. Rightly or wrongly, this can sometimes be a bit of a problem if your self-worth or identity is hinged on the fact that you really love your subject.  This is where I feel it's handy to have a sense of self-worth independent of any achievements, academic or otherwise.  Personally I find religion helps here, though I'm not a member of any particular religion. Quotes like Psalm 139:14 'I praise you for I am fearfully wonderfully made' remind us that we all have an inherent worth and purpose in life.

3) Learn to be comfortable with uncertainty

After having had going to Oxford as a goal I was super focussed on for so long, I didn't know what to do with myself when I finally achieved this goal.  I think you have to learn to become comfortable with this, and that this will just take time. If you aren't studying a vocational subject and you don't yet know what career you want to do, then your goals aren't going to be as focussed. It's not a case of  having a list like '1) Get good GCSES 2) Get good AS-Levels 3) Do super-curriculars to pass the interview' anymore. But you can look at this as an opportunity. I still like to set goals, but those goals can be so much broader now, such as developing as a person. So I've set goals to do all sorts of things I wasn't doing when I was at school- like writing this blog, for instance.


So those are my three most important lessons from first year. I hope they weren't too depressing! I don't want to make it sound as though I didn't also have a lot of fun:  I met so many new people, I  really enjoyed learning about a whole new subject that I'd never studied before (Philosophy!). I tried so many things; pilates, Zumba, wine-tasting, punting.  My favourite memories are probably the time I  cooked for a group of 10 friends (all by myself!) and  when  in summer term a group of friends barbecued together. But these things are balanced with less great moments, which instead of being totally awful, can be viewed as opportunities to learn; just like the three life lessons I explained above.