Freshers’ Guide: An A to Z of Oxford

A ball in Worcester

A is for A Ball: Over-dressing, self-importance and lavish spending – College Balls are actually quite good analogies for Oxford in general.

Go to at least one, with lots of friends, where you can pretend you’re important by putting on black tie in a big quad and sip champagne. By 4am you will have Noodle Nation down your shirt, vodka in your stomach and Claudia will have rejected your advances. But it’s still fun.

A Catz Bop

B is for Bops: A Bop is a college party (‘big open party’). For people who don’t like leaving their college, they’re a great source of cheap fun, cheesy music and college gossip. “You saw Beaky and Henrietta doing what?”

Your first bop is probably when you have your first (Oxford…) kiss, and if you’re one of those, the first time you take your clothes off in front of your peers.

Some colleges are too small to host bops on site so you’re outsourced to a bad club; if so, try to go to one of the bigger bops (St Catz, St Peters or Christcurch). Just don’t wear anything you don’t mind seeing torn off you.

Teddy Hall playing….someone

C is for College Sport: College sport is amazing.

University sport entails early morning training, and a social scene of blazers, coloured chinos and horrible PG-13 nights out.

College sport on the other hand is open to any level of talent and commitment, with leagues, kit, pitches and opposition all organised for you. How good is that!

And if you have too much work, a quick ultimate frisbee match versus Corpus Christi for example is perfect for giving you a break, and working off a hangover.

Arcadia, a student production on in 1st week

D is for Drama: Oxford has lots of it. Get involved, even if you’ve never done anything like this before. Societies like the Oxford University Drama Society or the Oxford Film Fund are excellently resourced and well funded. Sign up at the freshers’ fair and if you forget, don’t be afraid to send emails.

Pop some Paracetamol and get on with it, dude!

E is for Extended holidays: Three lots of eight-week terms make 28 (Twenty-eight!) weeks of ‘holiday’ time each year. That turn the terms into 100 miles-per-hour, hectic blurs. Writing off whole days because you are hungover will leave you floundering behind your less socially preoccupied peers. Learning to do important shit on a hangover is the main skill you will learn here.

F is for Fifth Week Blues: Forget how good living with friends and drinking four nights a week is – you may get sad in Oxford. Luckily, Oxford allots you a time to do this: 5th week, when the self-enforcing cliché of FWB happens.

If you’re unhappy any other time forget about it; the nurse’s office is closed and people will be having such a fucking good time that you won’t even be noticed. But in fifth week, all that changes. In fifth week everyone wallows in self-pity and cries ‘I WISH I’D GONE TO BRISTOL IT LOOKS SO MUCH FUN.’

People eating ice cream just because it’s there

G is for G & D’s: It’s the quite famous ice cream shop opposite Christchurch and in Cowley. It does quite good ice cream, but unless you’re on a date you shouldn’t really be eating ice cream in perennially cold Oxford. In fact, why are you eating ice cream at all? You’re not eight years old. We already regret including this in our A to Z.

Hassan’s: -3 of your 5 a day

H is for Hassan’s: Just so you know, eating a plate of chips at 2.30am is totally fine now. Even a plate of cheesy chips in a kebab with beans, homous and very suspect doner meat is OK, apparently.

While there is Ahmed’s, Hussein’s and Branos, Hassan’s on Broad Street is probably the most popular kebab van (if you start nitpicking over which serves better food, stop it, you’re boring).

One of the few Kebab vans in the country to actually have been reviewed on Yelp (4.5 star) , if you’re going there on a night-in, maybe have a long, hard look in the mirror. And if you want to stop going there after a night out? Start getting with people. No walk back is made more romantic by a halloumi wrap.

This is the river Isis, not the magazine btw

I is for Isis: Isis is Oxford’s premier highbrow magazine for politics and culture. By which we mean it’s ludicrously pretentious, but also nicely produced. George Osborne edited it, which is more than can be said for The Tab.

Write for them if you want, but take into account that nobody reads it because it’s completely inaccessible. Your piece on the left wing in Britain will probably be forgotten about in favour of one on Pentecostal Christianity in Burnley.

It’s also a river.

Your Junior Deans look nothing like this

J is for Junior Deans: If you’re a super-cool type you’ll be seeing a lot of these. You’ll encounter these graduate students (who are in charge of keeping order at your college) if you’re caught smoking where you shouldn’t, twerking at the Fellow during Hall or smashing a pint over your head at a Bop.

They’re so powerful, they can report you to the Dean! If you’ve done something really bad, said Dean will probably give you an ironic punishment (10 hours of community twerking, taking a twerking class etc.).

K is for Ketamine Krushing self-doubt: Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Sometimes, the incessant intensity of continuous social interaction in the first few weeks becomes painful. 

Just remember to take it all with a pinch of salt because the intensity dies down after freshers’ week. Also try to modify your stock questions for different people; you don’t want to start absent-mindedly asking people at your own college what college they go to (NB: the author has actually done this).

Lectures? Lec-chores more like!

L is for Lectures: Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh wait, you do science? Yeah you should probably go to these then.

Part 2 will arrive on The Tab shortly! Want to write stories, take photos or make videos for the Tab? We’d love to get you involved, email [email protected].