Matriculation

Two weeks ago we participated in one of Oxford’s most eccentric traditions (which is saying a lot!), it was Matriculation. The historical origin of Matriculation stems from the fact that Oxford is so old, in the early days there was no standardised school system and so it was somewhat random who was accepted to ‘come up to Oxford to read’. Matriculation was an entrance exam which sought to prove that potential students were of high enough academic standard. When school leaving exams were standardised the need for the test disappeared, but because this is Oxford they decided to continue with the weird tradition.

Gareth and Me

St Anne's students in front of EPH

Bethany and Me

These days Matriculation is a fun and symbolic day. It starts with getting dressed up in sub fusc, which is the Oxford academic dress. As far as I know sub fusc is Latin for dark clothes or something.  (They told us at orientation that a lot of what goes on here doesn’t make sense and that if you ever ask yourself why on earth all these strange things happen, the answer is always ‘because it made sense in the 1200’s!’) So after figuring out how to tie our ribbons and other sub fusc excitement everyone went to register with their college and then joined a long procession to the Sheldonian theatre in the centre of Oxford. The Sheldonian was built in the 1600’s for university ceremonies and events. The procession was fun (and luckily we had good weather) everyone looked like weirdos and the tourists took photos! The procession eventually ended up at the Sheldonian and queued outside before being ushered up into the gallery of the theatre. Once everyone was seated some Latin was exchanged and the Chancellor agreed to admit us into the university. The whole ceremony was very quick, but it felt important!

Bethany and Karen the way to the Sheldonian, Natural History Museum in the background 

The procession 

St Anne's queuing outside the Sheldonian, the bridge of sighs in the background  

Liam

Alicia and Rhyannon

The Sheldonian (and Me)

The Chancellor 

Inside the Sheldonian

After the ceremony we all headed back to St Anne’s for brunch and the college photo. The photo took ages; it was for all the freshers, including what felt like millions of undergrads. You can only Matriculate once at Oxford, so all the people who do their undergrad here cant Matriculate again as grads. After the photo some of us went punting (similar to the gondolas in Venice and the mokoros in the Okavango), as important a rite of passage as Matriculation! We went in our sub fusc and drank wine from the bottle. Very classy!

Punts

 

The colleges all throw parties, called bops and several colleges had a Matriculation bop. We went to the one at St Cross college (My friend Gabby goes there), and the theme was ‘sexy sub fusc’. This basically means wearing a shorter skirt and unbuttoning your top a little, or for the guys ditching their shirts but keeping their white bow-ties on! Bops have cheap alcohol and are only for students, I don’t think I really need to explain further… Needless to say, it was a late night and not much work was done the next day! 

Gabby, Luke, Leigh and Bethany pre-boping (Gabby's photo)

Phil, Andy, Adrien, Gabby and Bethany

Bethany saying something naughty, Christian, Phil, Adrien

Phil, Andy, Adrien, Gabby and Bethany

St Anne's

Oxford had a complicated collegiate system which means that the University is made up of 38 colleges. The colleges are run independently of the university but for post grads all teaching is done in the university departments, not in the colleges. I am at St Anne’s college which is one of the newer colleges in Oxford; it was started in 1879 and was originally women only. They do a lot of funding for my course which is how I ended up here! The college is in a good location in North Oxford, close to my classes and I am one of the 13 students out of 100 that managed to get on-site accommodation. Living on-site is fantastic because I am very close to the college dining hall, bar, coffee shop and the St Anne’s library. I am also across the road from University Parks which may be my favourite place in Oxford and only 800m by road from class. I am also very centrally located in terms of where all my friends live!

Google map of Oxford showing St Anne's and the Geography building

Bike storage area in St Anne's

The building I live in is called Eleanor Plumer House (EPH), on the ground floor is has the computer room, a kitchen, Middle Common Room (MCR) for graduate social activities and the pigeon holes for all St Anne’s grad students.  Everything on the ground floor is shared between all 100 graduates but on the floors above there are thirteen bedrooms, a kitchen and three bathrooms, which are just for us.

Upstairs kitchen (13 people share one fridge!)

One of the bathrooms, the shower is to the left

EPH (My room is to the left of the photo, in the tree)

EPH (my room is the the right of the photo, in the tree)

The rooms in EPH vary hugely in size and number of windows, mine is probably a little above average for EPH but well above average for student accommodation in Oxford. The windows face south and east, but there are loads of trees around the building so it’s still quite dark in here. It’s warm though, the central heating works really well.

My desk and notice board

Bed and cupboard 

My tea area!

The view from my windows

The tree that blocks the sun!

A few years ago our dining hall was redone, and although it doesn’t look anything like Hogwarts, I love it. It has huge windows and a great vibe and I spend more time in there than I should! It is canteen style and there are usually two or three choices for meals, dinner is more elaborate and you would usually have a starter as well. There are three meals a day during the week but just a long brunch on the weekend. Meals range between £ 2 and £ 4, which is very cheap compared to eating anywhere in Oxford.

Some Stanner's (St Anne's peeps) in the dining hall

Bethany in the dining hall at our graduate dinner

The dining hall from outside

We have a great vibe in EPH and get along really well, we have started a tradition of Sunday take away nights together in the MCR and on Monday night we had an impromptu cake night. Of the thirteen of us, only three are girls. There is a huge mix of nationalities in the house, as with everywhere in Oxford!

Some of my house mates at our cake party (Po-Hsaing's photo)

Come and visit me and I’ll show you around St Anne’s!

Field Trip to Swanage:

A field trip to Swanage was organised for the 28^th – 30^th of September with the intention of the class getting to know one another and it did so perfectly. We had also connected on Facebook weeks before, allowing an unhealthy amount of stalking! The bus trip was three hours and we arrived on Friday afternoon. Friday evening was spent doing show-and-tell with items that represented the reasons we have all chosen to do this course (MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management). Items ranged from a bottle of melted glacier collected in Antarctica to a pair of well-loved hiking boots. I read to story that I made up when I was six about a rhino and a hippo, the illustrations were the highlight! Unsurprisingly, after the show-and-tell we landed up in a pub, this happens a lot in England!

On Saturday we got our first taste of national parks in England. First we went to Arne RSPB Nature Reserve which is a heathland environment and also has salt marshes and boggy areas; we saw some alien deer, many birds, a giant ant mound and the extremely rare smooth snake. After Arne we went to Studland Bay National Trust Nature Reserve which is home to a very popular beach as well as large areas of heathland. We ate lunch at Corfe Castle, which is ruined and mostly sliding off the hill in pieces! We also did a cliff walk which culminated in a massive concrete globe, I'm sure you can imagine my excitement…

 Our guide explaining conservation at Arne

 Experimenting on the impact of deer on heathland

 Ponds and bogs at Arne

 The smooth snake, England's rarest reptile

 Corfe Castle

Class mates dressed up

 Studland beach

 Crazy classmates, it was cold!

 Cliff walk wildlife

 The giant globe!

Saturday night also involved a pub, some hilarious dancing and some dangerous darts. It was great fun as we were all starting to get to know one another. We landed up in a park on both nights, the park had some fantastic equipment, including a bowl swing big enough for two and a spinning disc. On Sunday we went to New Forest National Park which is a fantastic mix of heathland, bog and forest. It is a very popular dog walking place and I really loved it. Traditionally a group of people live inside the forest, called commoners, and as it is crown land they are allowed to stay. They have wild ponies that live in the forest and have adapted to a very hard life.

New forest ponies

New Forest

The field trip was very interesting from a conservation point of view; heathland is a man-made environment that was a consequence of farming practices in the area. Conservationists here spend a huge amount of money and energy protecting the heathland from forest encroachment, which seems insane to many of us because the forest is natural and the heathland isn't  This highlighted a fundamental difference between conservation here and at home, conservation here is for people (particularly locals) to have access to and enjoy; for example dog walking was allowed in all of the parks. In contrast, South African protected areas aim to conserve natural environments as they were before human influence and access is often seen as a necessary evil, particularly local access. Although many of us found it bizarre to conserve a man-made environment that has very little biodiversity, the parks are extremely popular and have huge public support. If access to parks was more free in South Africa they would have greater local support and probably fewer problems with poaching and human-wildlife conflict.

Very interesting field trip that gave us lots to think about!

A Note:

Dear Family and Friends,

I am settling into my new life in Oxford and learning to navigate the strange customs of the University. It is very overwhelming and confusing at times (I am even more afraid of failing than I was before I came!), but I have already made good friends and fallen in love with Oxford. I know that you are all very interested in how things are going and I know I have been useless at keeping in touch with most of you. I have therefore decided to write a blog so that I can update you more regularly. Having never blogged before I don’t know how it will go, but I am going to give it a try. Some of you are very interested in everything that’s going on (including the kitchen and bathroom facilities and the decorations in my room) and for the rest of you I am sorry that I will be including the mundane, just cover your eyes for the boring bits!

Post about my field trip to Swanage to follow soon…

I miss you all!