Oxford: the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Oxford, like other places, isn’t perfect. Here’s a breakdown of what I loved & hated about it.

The Good

Scenery 

Let’s begin with the fact that Oxford is gorgeous. With its sprawling gardens, majestic colleges, and lush, beautiful parks, it seems like a town from a fairy tale. Whenever I needed a short break from my thesis work, I could leave my department, walk for two minutes, and find myself by a serene stream surrounded by ducks and flowers. This tranquil environment is something I have sorely missed since leaving Oxford.

Events 

Oxford abounds with interesting events, talks, and workshops throughout the year. No matter your interests, you’ll likely find an event that piques your curiosity. For music lovers, Oxford is brimming with concerts and choirs, many of which you can also join.

Harry Potter Film Sites 

As a big Harry Potter fan, I loved taking my visiting friends to the filming locations around Oxford. From the staircase where the first years entered the Great Hall to the tree where Mad-Eye Moody turned Malfoy into a ferret, it’s a wonderful place for HP enthusiasts.

Colleges 

Just like at Hogwarts, every university student at Oxford belongs to a “house”, known as a “college”. In your dorms, you will live with people from your college, and you will typically eat in your college cafeteria with your peers. Your college will often host exclusive events such as barbecues or karaoke nights for its members. Similar to the Harry Potter world, many of the sport teams are college specific. In short, your college can make your Oxford experience comforting and intimate, by providing a warm environment where you can get to know a small group of people very well.

The (Slightly) Bad

Unchangeable Colleges 

Despite the benefits of colleges, you might end up in one that doesn’t suit you as well. To use a Harry Potter analogy: imagine being sorted into Ravenclaw, but after a few months, realizing you would rather be in Hufflepuff.

The colleges vary greatly in character. Some colleges are posh and showy, others are more traditional, and the variance in multicultural friendliness is vast as well.

I also met some people who simply didn’t connect as much with the other people in their college. All the friends they became close with happned to be in another college!

If you end up in College A but discover you prefer College B, you’re still stuck in College A. You can’t use College B’s cafeterias, libraries, or attend their events without an invitation, and switching colleges is not possible.

The colleges are intentionally isolated, so if you don’t like your college, you won’t be able to integrate into another one. That’s why it’s crucial to carefully consider which college to apply to, which I’ve written extensively about here.

Academic Dress 

Oxford takes its traditions seriously, and one of these includes wearing an academic dress, known as “sub-fusc.” While I didn’t mind wearing the sub-fusc for commencement and graduation ceremonies, having to wear it for exams was slightly vexing for me. In my undergrad, we typically showed up for exams in sweatpants and baggy sweaters, which I found ideal after several nights of little sleep spent cramming. To put it mildly, on exam mornings at Oxford, I was not enthusiastic about dealing with bows, ties, and an uncomfortable gown. However, it amused me to observe the other students in the exam room: it was easy to spot the British students—they looked graceful and comfortable in their gowns—compared to the foreign students, who were fidgeting awkwardly in their garments with bows tied messily and loosely around their necks.

The Ugly

College Funding Discrepancies 

One thing that really bothered me about Oxford is the vast budget difference between colleges. While Oxford University has its own budget, so do each of the colleges. In fact, the combined wealth of the colleges exceeds the total budget of the university itself!

However, while some colleges posses over half a billion dollars, others have as little as $30 million to their name1. The reasons for this disparity are historical, but the consequences are modern and problematic: different colleges subsidize their students’ dorms, cafeteria food, and textbooks to widely varying degrees. In effect:

1. Two dorm buildings on the same street and similar in quality but owned by different colleges can vary by as much as £200 per month in student rent.
2. Some colleges cover all their students’ textbook fees, while others do not.
3. Without a direct correspondence to food quality, some colleges charge £3 per meal, while others charge up to £6.
4. Some colleges provide free laundry facilities, while others charge up to £3 per load.
5. Some colleges have gyms, while others do not, forcing those students to pay for a private gym in town (which easily costs over £20 per month).

This means that two students enrolled in the same degree but belonging to different colleges can incur a cost difference of several thousand pounds a year simply due to variations in college subsidization. While I was fortunate to have a scholarship, many of my friends were not, and I found it unfair that the financial burdens were so uneven. I sincerely hope this issue will be addressed one day.