Disadvantages of being an Oxbridge student

You take my views with a pinch of salt? Hmm, that's a little harsh. I started this thread by saying that when people who don't go to Oxford find out that I do, they start saying my opinions are patronising and don't mean anything and that they take them with a pinch of salt. Now someone who is at Oxbridge is saying the same - because I'm a postgrad! I just can't win, can I?

I don't tend to talk about my life as an undergrad at Oxford, because I wasn't one; but I am entitled to discuss my experience of Oxford on here - it's still a student's experience, and being a postgrad doesn't make my opinions about Oxford AS A UNIVERSITY any less valid. It is a research university, after all - there are a good few postgrads there, and does their experience of the place not count?

-Collegiate status is good for making friends within college, but makes it harder to make friends at other colleges unless you actually try. Most of my friends at other colleges are, I have to admit, from TSR; some others are from various clubs and societies. Depending on the subject, it would be easy to have very few if any friends at other colleges.

-Stress. Yes, I am an historian, and yes we're stressed less than other subjects, but on the whole the culture of eight-week terms leads to a frantic pace of life and utter exhaustion. Everyone tries to fit in several different things, and a workload that would make people at other universities blanche. I have a friend at Warwick who wrote two essays a term for History; I wrote one a week. I spend about 15 hours a week plus on the river coxing, because it's very enjoyable- but it takes away a slice of my life.

The Cambridge Bubble- unless you try, it's really hard to get to know what's happening in the world outside. In my first year especially I felt very cut off, but now make an effort to read the papers and watch the news to know what's going on. I also make an efforty occasionally to escape the bubble and go to other places, or I would go mad.

-Social things- people make a judgement of me and the kind of person I am if I tell them that I'm at Cambridge. As the first few pages stated from various people, we encounter reverse snobbery and just derision, or just feel terribly awkward- how do you reply to the question, "so you're really clever, then?" without seeming arrogant? I don't dislike being at this universtiy- in fact I'm proud- I just dislike people's reactions to it.

-Work- my degree is, basically, teaching me to blag and bull****. I'm given a week to read up to 20 different books and journal articles, and then expected to come up with something original. I'm expected to argue against and disprove professors who have spent their lives working on the topic after maybe 10 or 15 hours of reading (it should be 20, but never is). Essentially, my degree is teaching me to be arrogant and assertive, and I don't like it.

-Loneliness- yes, even surrounded by 20,000 other people, you can feel lonely. My degree is very solitary- even the other historians never do the same topic, so it's very lonely, with no-one to compare yourself to or anything.

-Inability to form normal social relationships- everything you do is compressed into a shorter period of time, and this includes relationships- I don't see my girlfriend as often as we both would like, and rarely if ever during the day, because of work and boring stuff like that.

-The essay grind- not necesserily so applicable for science students, but doing an essay a week every week really takes it out of you. You can rarely if ever be completly satisfied with your work, and there came a point last term when the last thing I wanted to do was to sit down and write another week's essay- but had to

Everyone has to try to make friends in wider social circles. It's not something to dislike about Cambridge in particular.

The payoff will outweigh the stress. If it was that bad, you'd have left. Tbh, I don't think Oxbridge students should complain about it. That said, the workload is pretty pointless, so I take your points there. As you have said below in the "work" section, it doesn't make you any smarter.

This is probably a corollary of the workload. It's not just at Oxbridge though. It happens everywhere.That said I don't see the difficulty of turning the radio on in the morning from 6-9am.

I'm sorry but I view counter snobbery as nonsense. It reminds me of those people who say that white people are becoming oppressed in Britain. I think it's your perception. The kind of people I deal with don't give a rats ass about where I went to university. It's about me as a person.

I think Oxbridge students take the word "original" to mean re-inventing the wheel. You are not supposed to be mini-Niall Fergusons and rewrite history. Merely create a cogent argument with evidence of your own emphasis. It's not easy, but I think you may be putting too much pressure on yourself to produce a magnum opus every week.

Come on man, are you a man or a mouse? Everyone has this, it's nothing to do with Cambrdige specifically.

Again, this is universal.

You applied for it, you never expected it to be easy. It's part and parcel of where you are.

OK, I'm a Cambridge undergrad and this is what I dislike about the university:

-Collegiate status is good for making friends within college, but makes it harder to make friends at other colleges unless you actually try. Most of my friends at other colleges are, I have to admit, from TSR; some others are from various clubs and societies. Depending on the subject, it would be easy to have very few if any friends at other colleges.

-Stress. Yes, I am an historian, and yes we're stressed less than other subjects, but on the whole the culture of eight-week terms leads to a frantic pace of life and utter exhaustion. Everyone tries to fit in several different things, and a workload that would make people at other universities blanche. I have a friend at Warwick who wrote two essays a term for History; I wrote one a week. I spend about 15 hours a week plus on the river coxing, because it's very enjoyable- but it takes away a slice of my life.

-The Cambridge Bubble- unless you try, it's really hard to get to know what's happening in the world outside. In my first year especially I felt very cut off, but now make an effort to read the papers and watch the news to know what's going on. I also make an efforty occasionally to escape the bubble and go to other places, or I would go mad.

-Social things- people make a judgement of me and the kind of person I am if I tell them that I'm at Cambridge. As the first few pages stated from various people, we encounter reverse snobbery and just derision, or just feel terribly awkward- how do you reply to the question, "so you're really clever, then?" without seeming arrogant? I don't dislike being at this universtiy- in fact I'm proud- I just dislike people's reactions to it.

-Work- my degree is, basically, teaching me to blag and bull****. I'm given a week to read up to 20 different books and journal articles, and then expected to come up with something original. I'm expected to argue against and disprove professors who have spent their lives working on the topic after maybe 10 or 15 hours of reading (it should be 20, but never is). Essentially, my degree is teaching me to be arrogant and assertive, and I don't like it.

-Loneliness- yes, even surrounded by 20,000 other people, you can feel lonely. My degree is very solitary- even the other historians never do the same topic, so it's very lonely, with no-one to compare yourself to or anything.

-Inability to form normal social relationships- everything you do is compressed into a shorter period of time, and this includes relationships- I don't see my girlfriend as often as we both would like, and rarely if ever during the day, because of work and boring stuff like that.

-The essay grind- not necesserily so applicable for science students, but doing an essay a week every week really takes it out of you. You can rarely if ever be completly satisfied with your work, and there came a point last term when the last thing I wanted to do was to sit down and write another week's essay- but had to.

-Exams- yes, they're just as bad elsewhere I'm sure, but here the degrees are very traditional and not modular, so Finals count for a lot. Plus everyone is, basically, a geek or worse so there's a massive culture of panic and stress about exams. I'm quite stressed myself, though I've not shown it, to the point of being ill from stress.

-Elitism and "rah"-ism - unfortunately, it does exist. Yes it's never as blatent or offensive as I believed before I came up, but it does exist. People who've been to public school generally have an ineffable air of confidence and superiority about them, and are generally lucid and argumentative. Then there's just the odd people who get a termly cheque from Daddy, or a weekly allowance. It's going into Ede and Ravenscroft and being told that a suit, for me, is £600, and knowing that there's people who could easily afford it. Or people who have facebook albums of their holidays in Greece or wherever. Then there's just the occasional braying twit. Chip on my shoulder? Me? Never!

Pernell I think you don't seem to understand some of James' points. Just because everyone gets lonely at times doesn't mean its any easier to deal with. If you're feeling lonely, combined with the constant stress of work pressure its easy to get you down, and you can't just afford to go out with mates and forget about it for a few days because the deadlines are on such a short timescale.

since you are all aware of disadvantages, do any of you regret going? Do you wish you were somewhere else, or rather, do you feel the disadvantages outweigh the benefits?

Hmm well I rowed with Magdalen for about a month (had to stop b/c I had a class trip to Germany during Summer Eights!), and the girls were NEVER friendly. I used to try really hard to talk to them as well; they would always walk away after the gym/erg sessions in a group and leave the Americans behind. My friend played on the basketball team and I met some people through him. Overall though, the people who tended to talk to me were either other visiting students or postgrads.

Yes, there were Stanford girls who dated while at Oxford, but I don't think I should be unable to get into the social scene simply because I didn't see very many fit guys while I was there!

See, I view this completely differently. At other unis, as you said, you have friends based in res, and in classes you have, and in clubs etc. At Oxford, for arts subjects anway, THESE ARE ALL THE SAME PEOPLE. You get to know the people in college great, but trying to meet anyone on the same course as you from another college in, say, lectures is damn near impossible. Unless you stalk them. And that's just silly.

Stress. Yes, I am an historian, and yes we're stressed less than other subjects, but on the whole the culture of eight-week terms leads to a frantic pace of life and utter exhaustion. Everyone tries to fit in several different things, and a workload that would make people at other universities blanche. I have a friend at Warwick who wrote two essays a term for History; I wrote one a week.