Oxford 2011 Freshers Chat Thread

How necessary will a dinner suit be?

How necessary will a dinner suit be?

I had a quick look on the website and it said £40 or £50 I think, but that may not have been up to date.
Awesome, I currently have the strength and stamina of of a child, but I'm sure (probably) that I'd be able to hold a pad without falling over

How necessary will a dinner suit be?

From what Incarnadine91 has said, a dinner jacket seems like it gets quite a bit of use. I know at Magdalen there is black tie Formal Hall once a week, and I think that some of the JCR events might be.

His post was only a few pages back, when we were all talking about clothes, it was pretty clear.

Her Yeah, you'll need suitable black tie wear/a decent three-peice suit - apart from being used for sub fusc in your Matriculation, you'll also need it for black tie bops/entz's, formal hall in some colleges, smart dinners, most balls and quite a few society do's. I arrived without a dress to my name and had to rather frantically collect a selection, much to my wallet's dismay. You guys are lucky, you can deal with only the one suit, I can't wear the same dress in the same company twice in a row! Quite a few of my male friends have taken to wearing waistcoats to the more fancy occassions, but that is obviously optional.

Her Yeah, you'll need suitable black tie wear/a decent three-peice suit - apart from being used for sub fusc in your Matriculation, you'll also need it for black tie bops/entz's, formal hall in some colleges, smart dinners, most balls and quite a few society do's. I arrived without a dress to my name and had to rather frantically collect a selection, much to my wallet's dismay. You guys are lucky, you can deal with only the one suit, I can't wear the same dress in the same company twice in a row! Quite a few of my male friends have taken to wearing waistcoats to the more fancy occassions, but that is obviously optional.

So I can get away with one black suit? YES

Woops! I'm a horrible old misogynist who's still confused by the idea of Oxford being co-ed. Thank you again, I'll bring my suits up, no harm in doing so.

Ditto I am not a big binge drinker or anything of that sort. But it seems quite unfair if your entire college is downstairs in the bar and you're forced to sit alone in your room for an entire night.

My sentiments exactly. Socializing after nightfall is going to be somewhat more difficult for us methinks.

do you think is worth attend to the orientation programme?
http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/new/orientation/

, I can't wear the same dress in the same company twice in a row!

I'm not into sports much either... in fact I (as many nerds did) hated PE above all else. However, I also love Lord of the Rings and don't just want to watch action films, I want to be able to take part. I'm also a HUGE HUGE lover of being in nature, and it seems to me that kayaking is the perfect outdoorsy sport. In addition (yeah I've really thought this through), I want to be physically strong and I know that sports societies are a great way to make friends, bond, let off steam from all the studying and make sure that you have something else you care about other than school, or relationships, or career.

I may well pop into the HP society once or twice to see if it's any good - I feel like my surname should get me some sort of honorary status :P (It's Potter). Also, I've heard that my college sorts people into the Hogwarts houses, though that may just be a rumour!

Have a look at the http://www.lang.ox.ac.uk/. I think learning a language is a great idea. It's so fun and fulfilling, and a lot of my friends who have taken up a language at Uni found they learnt much better than they ever did at school. What kind of languages would you be interested in?



Don't worry - this is normal. I got so freaked out when I got my results and was so pissed off at myself (I felt like I was failing myself by accepting the place - a long and not interesting story) that I asked for and took a last-minute gap year.

So as long as it's not that bad, don't worry (and if it is, good on you for knowing what you want). Also, remember you're not going to prison. If you're there and you hate it or can't handle it you can stop, drop out or even just take a year or term out.

One good way not to feel so nervous and overwhelmed is to pick a handful of small things you'll really look forward to - discussing a book on your reading list, joining a particular society, or even just imagining which pictures you'll put on your wall will give you a sense of perspective.

And have a hug, just for good measure

German could be fun, or Russian what about you? And I can't believe your surname's Potter

Is it OK that I find this terrifying?

I'm not a tomboy really by any means but I only own three dresses - one chambray sun dress, one elastic-waistband H&M sun dress and one two-year-old purple knitted cowl-neck.

I was planning on just buying the one fancy dress... like a black one or a blue one, I don't know, I've never had one... But do you think I should get more? Like 3, 4, 5? I don't have that much money, can you recommend some good places to buy 'formal ' and/or 'going-out' clothes? I just don't like things to be too short or tight. Please, help! :O

Yeah, Russian is amazing! I don't think I could ever learn that though, it's so hard!. I'm a linguistic hamster: basically I just stick to the families of languages I know and then try to learn them comprehensively. I'll be studying German sole and I'm bilingual German so I won't be taking a short course in that

I hope I'll get on an LASR course in Spanish for beginners, but if not, I'll use their resources to try to learn Spanish as well as keep up my other languages. If they had taught courses in any Scandinavian languages I'd be there like a shot, but sadly the course choice seems quite traditional!