A year is a long time: enough to call a place home, enough to strip away the bright facade of newness. I’ve spent my year abroad at this university, unstuck in time. My friends at home have lived a thousand different lives in the interim, and I suppose so have I. But this place is different. It’s somewhere that’s nearly impossible to explain. My friends ask me about how it compares to Brown University, and I find myself at a loss. The differences are manifold; they’re cosmically different, worlds apart. How can I express how I feel about Oxford? How can I capture this rapturous feeling? I cannot hope to explain my world here. And yet, I must try. I love this place, I hate this place, I can’t bear to leave it behind. I don’t think it will ever truly leave me.

I write to tell you all what this place means to me. To tell you what it has been to take a year abroad. 

Michaelmas

Oxford still seemed romantic, a sort of richly brocaded city of dreaming; it was all twisting spires and ancient promises. The city was new, freshly minted in my mind. Things felt heavier: the air, the weight of age, the frantic, feverish rhythm of life. That was particularly significant, the speed at which everything seemed to go. Two months is not a long time. The rate of coursework, essays, and even social activities seemed breakneck. I found myself settling into my modules, grinding out two essays every single week. I would go to the Radcliffe Camera and bask under the elegant arches and soft incandescent light. Work felt special when it was beneath the watchful eye of some marble statue. I rowed in the mornings, and swam on Saturdays. Days were spent dutifully working, nights were consumed by revelry. 

There was something on every single evening. Whether it was formals (such an alien concept, even to students in the UK, I’m sure), college BOPs, club nights, socials, or debate nights, I was meeting new people at a rate which rivalled my own first year of university. Formal dinners were particularly dazzling – dressing up for a three-course meal in a vaulted hall evoked some sort of Public school fantasy – and it’s no surprise I went to as many as I could afford. I involved myself in societies which seemed novel and interesting. I made friends in student politics, and watched with mild amusement as intrigues unfolded on a scale unlike any I’d seen before. It felt very…Oxford. It was somewhat alluring, the draw of the glitz and glamour of an entirely different social world. 

But my disillusionment with student politics came early into the term. One night, sequestered in a college common room, beneath dim lights, I found myself at a hushed afters. The group was discussing one of my friends, saying terrible things. I knew then what I know now: I wanted no part of that world. I resolved to extricate myself. 

Like any new thing, Michaelmas was bright, exciting, and romantic. Underneath the shine, I found that some truths were better left buried. The journey out of darkness was not easy or linear, but it was worth it.

Hilary

Hilary began as it ended, with a sort of incorrigible grey. There was a lightness to it, at some point in the middle, when things fell into place. When the rhythms of life here began to feel as normal as breathing. I wrote so much that term: articles for a student paper, modules on Mesopotamia and Ethnobotany, and pages and pages in my journal. I also took up ice skating. There was something freeing about gliding across that glittering rink. It smiled at me, kissed my cheeks with cool breath, and pushed my feet across frozen ground. I found peace in my solo skates, joy in skating with others. Collapsing into bed, face flushed from the cold, I could not have been happier.

By this point, the glamour of student politics had thoroughly worn off. It seemed more like a tired old thing, full of fatigued people. Yet still, friends found themselves deeper entrenched in the machinery of it. I pulled further and further away as they ran elections and relayed intrigues. 

Working on the student paper was my saving grace, with the Schwarzman becoming an unlikely refuge. We spent long hours below that sun-soaked ceiling, passing the day in leisurely conversation. We discussed the paper, pitched articles, and wrote silly headlines that could never be published. Little work was done, even when dusk came and went. The watchful oculus considered us carefully, as we raced about on rolling chairs under the moonlight. We would stay into the early morning hours, dancing, singing, running around that hollowed-out space. The darkness was warm.

Nights at the Schwarzman melted into afters at one room or another. Twilight spent in fervent conversation, marked by tea or cheese and crackers. I felt so full in these liminal moments. Pink parties, game cafes, and homemade DnD campaigns made my time at college all the brighter. Although the end of Hilary was marked by a particularly nasty bout of pneumonia, I felt satisfied with all I’d done in my grey little term. 

Sometimes, in that mid-year lull, the only thing to do is to keep pressing forward. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. The articles and essays I wrote that term are still some of my favourites.

Trinity

May night was long and dark, a treacherous road twisting round the riverbend. We walked in cold twilight. Moonbeams glanced across my cheek – a quiet beacon in the near black. The neon glow of varsity faded into dawn, slowly. When the sun finally turned Magdalen Tower blushing red, the choir heralded the start of spring. May morning shone just a bit too brightly, full of clamorous noise and clatter. Dancing and merry bells followed me all the way into my belated slumber. 

Oxford was beginning to shimmer beneath the brilliant sunshine. It made everything feel just a bit more hopeful. I was determined to spend the term trying an entirely new set of activities. I shed the politics which made Hilary drag endlessly, and leaned into my renewed joy for writing. I  joined two magazines and a different student paper. These turned out to be such sources of light: full of incredible, creative people, and even more incredible work. Writing articles, performing pieces, editing work, it was all so fulfilling. I looked forward every week to our lay-ins, or planning meetings for events. 

Trinity was a time of great celebration. I attended countless birthdays, including my own. My friends made me such thoughtful cakes; I was laughing long into the night. It was so nice to be with the people who made Oxford special. I turned 21 under the multicoloured lights at the Brasenose Ball. It felt magical, to be able to mark the occasion in such a fairytale manner. I will always remember the purple glow and the soft music in the background as I checked my watch, and hugged my friend tight when the hour hand slid to midnight. 

Ultimately, it was the small moments that made Trinity particularly special: whether it was simply studying with finalists, or watching Eurovision for the first time on my friend’s bed (we ate too many of her snacks and took our bets entirely too seriously). 

I must have done absolutely no revision the second the sun came out. Maybe it was the warmth of the afternoon light on my face at Port Meadow, or the cool depths of Hinksey Lake, but those days passed in such a calm haze. The picture of idyllic summertime. 

Sometimes, letting go is just a chance for a new beginning. 

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Oxford has been so many things. I’ve sought out every hidden place and tried every new activity that I could reasonably fit around my coursework. I’ve met so many important people who have impacted my life in countless ways. It took time to find my place here. There was a significant period of trial and error, but I’ve somehow made it to where I am happiest. I do not regret the experiences I tried which were not quite right for me. I learned from them, they were meaningful, and made for fantastic stories. 

When I return to Brown in the autumn, I will carry all of these experiences with me. I will hold them close to my heart, and I will try, and fail, and try again to explain how much they mean to me. If you are embarking on a year abroad, whether for your third year of Modern Languages, or to Oxford just like me, prepare to try everything. Prepare to change, to experience as many new things as you possibly can. You will return different, but you will be better for it. 

A year is a long time to be away from home. 

An alarm flashes on a phone screen: it’s 5am. A hand reaches out to turn it off, and then there is a freshly-brewed coffee, a session at the gym, a perfectly balanced lunch. Before midday, the creator has done a workout, attended two lectures, completed their to-do list, and managed to film it all. “Day in the life” videos are everywhere. Whether on Instagram reels, TikTok, or even YouTube shorts, every day I am met with a barrage of content showing the perfectly curated lives of their creators. I see things like: “a day in the life as a busy student”, “a productive day in my life”, or “clean girl morning routine”, where in the course of just a minute, we get a glimpse into a person’s life – or at least the version of it that they want to show us. 

These videos can be entertaining, and there is something inherently captivating about watching others live their lives. But they also create the perfect breeding ground for comparison. We watch them while we’re doomscrolling reels, or eating junk food, or procrastinating our essay, and it’s hard not to think: “I should get up earlier”, “I should go to the gym”, or “I’m not revising enough”.

But no one reaches for their camera when they’re exhausted, or eating takeaway in bed. Our mundane days pale in comparison with someone else’s curated highlights – their best moments pulled together under the guise of reality. It’s rare to see an unproductive ‘day in my life’, or videos where their creators seem unmotivated or sad. 

The resulting unrealistic standards for productivity are only exacerbated for Oxford students, who, already in an environment characterised by high expectations and academic pressure, have their own version of these videos to compare themselves to: the “day in the life of an Oxford student”. Between lectures, tutorials, societies, and deadlines, it is already easy to feel like we should be doing more, and an endless stream of videos showcasing students at their most productive, busiest, and most motivated can be somewhat disheartening.

There is also a voyeuristic quality, and with it a genuine safety concern to these videos: there is something undeniably fascinating about watching how others live. With the ever-increasing prevalence of technology and surveillance in our lives, the lack of privacy that comes with it is starting to feel progressively more normal. In the past, a desire to see into the personal lives of others would remain just that, but now we can actually do it. And beyond the pressure, and comparison this encourages, it can also cause genuine dangers – sharing every intimate detail of a routine leaves creators vulnerable. What might seem like a harmless clip of a morning walk can make it surprisingly easy for strangers to work out where someone lives, studies, or spends their time. 

And then there is the “what I eat in a day” content. There are countless videos online of influencers presenting restrictive or disordered eating as wellness. A perfectly arranged smoothie bowl or low-calorie breakfast is not inherently harmful, but for younger, more impressionable viewers, creating standards of what is and isn’t acceptable to eat can lead to their normalising these unrealistic standards, and the construction of unhealthily obsessive mindsets when it comes to food. 

And yet, despite all of this, we continue to watch these videos. They do have an appeal, and that’s why they continue to get so many views: I’ll admit that I myself enjoy this content. It can be as motivating as it is sometimes demoralising, and sometimes, when I’m scrolling TikTok instead of writing an essay, seeing someone else’s eight-hour revision day helps to encourage me.  

There is something undeniably fascinating about watching how others live, and the short length of these videos makes them even more addictive. I also wonder if part of their appeal lies in the fantasy that they show to us: we know that it isn’t realistic, that their creators have chosen which parts of their day to leave in, and which to leave out. We know that it isn’t possible to live like this all the time, and yet we continue to watch. We continue to compare our messy bedroom to the perfectly arranged one on our screen, our procrastination to their productivity, and our ordinary days to their highlights. 

“Day in the life” content isn’t going to disappear, and nor should it (for the most part) – after all, it is genuinely entertaining. I think that is worth remembering, though, when we see these videos, that the reality they present is not actually as real as it seems, and that a life well-lived is not necessarily the one that makes it onto social media.

Last Michaelmas, as my friends and I were going through our photos from a weekend trip to Bristol, Bath, and Cardiff, my friend said: “When I look at these photos, I feel nostalgia for time that isn’t over yet.” This comment stuck with me, and I have found it to ring increasingly true the more time I spend in Oxford. As my camera roll fills up with photos from formals, balls, BOPs, and ordinary days just spent revising with friends, I can’t help but feel a twinge of sadness every time I go through it. Given that I am only a second-year undergraduate, this melancholy feels premature and out of place. While it certainly still lingers during term time, I feel my nostalgia for Oxford truly reached its peak in the last long vacation, and has only grown as my year abroad draws scarily close. Ultimately, this nostalgia is due to a combination of distance and distorted memories, framed through the lens of social media and selected photos. 

We all know the bittersweet end-of-term feeling, when the last essay has been submitted, your room is packed, and you are ready to go home. When you open Instagram, your feed is flooded with digicam ‘photo-dumps’ captioned  “michael-mess”, “hellary”, or “trinifree”. Swiping reveals a series of formals, parties, and general merriment taking place across a variety of friend groups. Your heart swells at the thought of all the fun times you had last term as you prepare your own ‘photo-dump’. I myself am guilty of the overly sentimental, highly curated Instagram post (though they are often nine months late). Through such colourful carousels, we are offered a highlight reel of the term – a glimpse of only the best moments. When I first post, though, my feelings do not necessarily reflect the version of term I present on my social media. Although I already miss the fun times with my friends, I am also exhausted from the previous term, and thoroughly ready for a break. When I look at my highlight reel in this context, all I can see is the absence of all-too-recent essay crises and deadlines passed. 

On reflection, it seems that these types of posts have the greatest impact on me a few weeks into the long vacation. Once the dust has settled, and I have fallen back into my daily routine at home, I find myself spending more and more time staring longingly at my term-time photos. Originally taken in the context of Oxford chaos, they now stand independently, as images of a more exciting time with friends, and the nostalgia this evokes is only exacerbated by the warm, familiar glow of the digicam. These photos look older than the ones taken on my phone (I am a shameless digicam leech in my friend group), and thus, almost feel as if they come from a more distant time. Not only do our digicamposted memories recall the best, hand-picked moments, they do so in a way that covers our experiences in a romantic haze. It is no secret that Oxford lends itself extremely well to romanticisation, and the combination of distance, lack of context, and blurry analogue media only serves to heighten this longing. It seems that, as Oxford becomes more remote, my feelings towards my university experience become less accurate. The breakneck speed of term is forgotten in favour of remembering the times spent ignoring work in favour of more lively pursuits. In short, as soon as August hits, my rose-tinted glasses are decidedly on. 

I have spent some time contemplating this feeling as I prepare to leave Oxford for a year. This looming departure makes this the last term my college wife and I will spend as students together, and my last overlapping term with many of my closest friends. As I feel the same nostalgic emotions swelling up much earlier this time around, I really start to feel that the depiction of Oxford in the photos I post is misleading. I wonder whether, in my preservation of the best parts of Oxford, I have done my real experience an injustice. While I love and cherish the fun and beautiful parts of Oxford, it would be a lie to say that the stress and challenges were any less of a fundamental part of my experience here. When so much of my time is spent at a desk in a library, it almost seems unfair to my past self to forget those moments. The rose-tinted glasses seem to have selective blinders attached to them. 

Yet I think the solution to my problem might come in the form of better documentation. While my camera roll provides ample material for yearning, my saved snaps with my sister offer a very different version of the term. There, I can observe a museum of library sessions, essay crises, and the generalised academic chaos that accompanies the term. Without concern for external perception, these photos are taken live, and offer far better contextualisation for the ups and downs of Oxford. Although I sometimes expect to be brought down by the resurfacing of such memories, the resulting feeling is surprisingly much more optimistic. In forgetting the chaos of term, I think we tend to also forget our achievements within the eight-week period. The sudden shift in circumstance, environment, and sometimes even time zones can often distract from the challenges that we each managed to overcome, and the projects we’ve completed within such a short period of time. Distance from these varied experiences, combined with a more accurate recollection of them, has allowed me to appreciate what I have learned, and achieved, throughout my time here. I can cherish my weekend trip to Wales with my friends, recall the stressful week of catch-up that ensued, and appreciate the increase in my writing speed that I gained as a result. Thinking about all the times I have scrambled to finish writing before going out for the evening has allowed me to value the balancing act of managing work and fun that Oxford demands, and makes me excited to continue this in my final year. 

Of course, this isn’t to say that compilations of happy memories stored on digicams or posted online are always harmful to us. As I mentioned, I love to dump digicam photos of myself at balls on my Instagram (what else is the app for?). However, I do think that recontextualising my nostalgia, and reflecting on the more challenging times of term, when I have more space and time, has been incredibly beneficial to my relationship with Oxford. As I look forward to the last two weeks of term before I set off on a year abroad, I want to preserve these slightly challenging and conflicting feelings. I think they are what allow us to cherish our true experience of Oxford.