Zoe
3rd year, Geography
I was certain that I wouldn’t be the ‘right fit’ for Oxford. I just wasn’t the ‘Oxbridge type’ – I was a mixed-race girl from a non-selective state school and a low-income household in Croydon. My Geography teacher encouraged me to apply, but I didn’t even entertain the thought at first. Then when my mum booked the Open Day for me, having listened to my teacher’s praise in a parents’ meeting and witnessed my immense passion for geography firsthand, I almost didn’t get on the train because I thought what was the point? Oxford is not a place for people like me.
However, I am so glad that my mum persuaded me to give Oxford the benefit of the doubt and to not self-reject out of fear of the unknown. Because as soon as I set foot in the ‘city of dreaming spires’, I fell completely in love and knew I wanted to do everything I could to secure my place there. While I didn’t actually apply to Teddy Hall in the first instance (I was pooled), I could not imagine completing my degree anywhere else because of all the amazing memories I have made.
It is safe to say that my Oxford experience has been far from conventional. Starting university during the COVID-19 pandemic was intimidating to say the least. But Teddy really went above and beyond to protect our safety and our sanity. From the cheap formal dinners every other night and the big marquees enabling socially-distanced meet-ups, to the seated bops in Trinity term and door-to-door food deliveries and care packages during self-isolation (all the way up the Kelly stairs!) The bonding that occurs within your household bubble when you’re unable to leave your floor is unmatched, and I look back fondly on all shared dinners, movie nights, and games nights we had together.
Come Michaelmas of second year and I felt like I was finally starting to get the Oxford experience I had hoped for – I learnt how to row with the St Edmund Hall Boat Club and competed in my first ever regatta, I earned a spot on the Oxford University Blues Performance Scheme for athletics, and I enjoyed dressing up in black tie for a subject dinner one night and a reindeer onesie for a college bar crawl the next. Life then threw another major curveball and I ended up in hospital with multiple neck fractures after a skiing accident on the Varsity ski trip.
Thankfully, surgery was successful and my prognosis was positive, but I had a long road to recovery ahead of me. One thing I knew for certain was that I did not want to rusticate – I wanted to keep reading the degree I love and be back in Oxford with my friends as quickly as possible. Although they probably all thought I was mad, my friends and tutors were incredibly supportive of this ambition and helped me to get back on my feet (quite literally!) Technology developed during the pandemic facilitated remote learning until I regained enough of my independence to move back into my second year house just in time for Halfway Hall. At this event I celebrated not just being halfway through my degree but life itself and the many, many wonderful people at the Hall who had offered me their love and support during the most difficult time of my life.
Since learning how to walk, run, and swim again, third year has thankfully been far more plain sailing and created some of my most cherished memories! Memories like the charity ceilidh in the Wolfson, writing the first draft of my dissertation in a cottage in the Peak District with some of my fellow Teddy Hall geographers, and running around to different colleges wearing chef hats for a Ratatouille themed W*OTH event. I have also loved being able to delve deeper into topics I’m interested in, like critical development, postcolonial theory, and identity politics, which I never thought would fall within the scope of a Geography degree. If someone would have told me ten years ago that I would now be preparing for my finals at Oxford with an offer to study an MPhil in Development Studies at Cambridge, I would never have believed them.
The people are what make a place, and at Teddy Hall I feel so privileged to have met some of the most amazing, inspiring, and driven people who I know will become life-long friends and major change-makers in their fields. Nowhere is perfect and there have certainly been elements of the Hall that I have wanted to improve for future generations. My purpose will always be to try and leave a place better than I found it and pay it forward because this is how we continue to make prestigious institutions more accessible and inclusive for everyone.