A week in Oxford

In June 2024, I spent a week attending an in-person summer course in Oxford. It was part of the Continued Education department at the University, which runs one week courses in summer on different topics, for people who have finished their education but still want to pursue learning.

Brasenose College

During this week, I lived and studied in a college in Oxford, just like students do. It was something I had always wanted to do, and finally I got to experience it😃. It felt amazing going back to school after so long, and that too in such a stimulating environment. I learnt and discussed a lot. The weather played spoilsport though, it was cold and rainy the whole week, definitely not how I had imagined the week to be like. But I still enjoyed my stay there, attending psychology classes in the mornings and exploring around town in the evenings.


Getting there

I flew from Amsterdam to Heathrow and took the Oxford Tube from the airport, a very convenient bus that leaves every hour from the airport to this old seat of learning. During the drive, there was a diversion and we got to drive through some gorgeous Cotswold countryside, where everything was a lovely summer green. And then Oxford appeared - this old town with grand yellow sandstone buildings, with a story to tell in every nook and cranny. It felt like such an old and storied place. Just the feeling of being there felt uplifting.

Radcliffe Library

In my first five mins in Oxford, I saw sights that would not be the norm elsewhere. I first walked by a Rhodes statue, of the famous philanthropist and imperialist. It had a plaque below it stating that the college does not support how he got his money but for certain reasons they cannot remove his statue from there. And they also asked the passers-by to consider that history has to be balanced with what was acceptable at that time. So they are requested not to deface or try to destroy it.

Evening meetings

And then right after, in front of Brasenose College was the famous Radcliffe Library, the centre of many of the town’s activities. I saw a lot of tents pitched outside and students protesting against Israel, for Palestine. These students had been living in those tents for a few months by now. In the evening, I saw a group of students sitting outside next to each other and conducting a prayer meeting for Palestine. Just seeing all this made me realise that it's at a place like Oxford that we can see students doing whatever they can for causes they believe in. It's only at places like this, student towns, that this can happen. (In cities, we are too busy earning a living, to care about spending so much time on protests). It just felt very liberating and heart warming to see this.


Studying in Oxford

Brasenose Quad

The one week course was run by the Continued Education Department. It was very well planned and organised. Our course was being run in Brasenose College, which is where we would be living for the next week. After I arrived, I checked into my accommodations, one of the student rooms at the college. It felt so simple, yet so cosy. And in the afternoon, we got an orientation tour around the College. 

Dinner Hall

It was a stunning place, with three gorgeous lawns in the courtyard (called Quads). We checked out its library, chapel and the dinner hall. The dinner hall was the most impressive - with three long tables for the students and a high table at the end for the faculty, all set up for a formal dinner. All around the room were paintings of notable alumni, as well as teachers from the college. We were then told the rules to be followed while having dinner in the hall. It all sounded so formal (and it was). We ate our dinner daily in the dinner hall and even had our gala closing dinner there. It was always fun. And I felt then that I had entered a different era, like I was in a Harry Potter movie. 

Then we were told all the other plans for our stay. The mornings and afternoons were generally quite packed. Every day we had lectures on our chosen topic from 9 am to 12 noon. And after that we would have a lecture for the entire cohort by a professor from the University on topics not linked to our chosen subjects. They were all so interesting that I attended and enjoyed each of them. Like on ‘whether EU foreign policy is dead’, ‘the history of teacups (and porcelain)’ and one about the author, CS Lewis.

Brasenose College

After lunch we would get some time to relax, and then every evening, we could join any of the organised events. I joined two of them, a literary walk through Oxford and a trip to Waddesdon Manor. But I missed a few others too, an evening of punting in the river (in the rain 😅), a Shakespeare play in the park (again in the rain), the Chapel concert and playing croquet in the Quad.

Studying in Oxford had been a dream of mine. And actually being there felt so exciting, just like the feeling on the first day of going back to school. In fact, on the day of the orientation, all the tutors gave an introduction to the course they were going to take that week. And I wanted to take all of them 😇. Especially the course on “the fourth dimension - time” sounded so interesting. The physics, philosophy and literature of it. I had chosen a different course already, and could not change at the last minute. But maybe someday later, I could try out another interesting one. Also interestingly, some of these topics may not have inspired me in my 20s when I was actually studying. But now they do. Still, I did manage to chat with the “fourth dimension” professor, one of the evenings in the dinner hall. And he sounded quite eccentric.

Over the next week, being with people from different walks of life, with differing life experiences, varied interests and unique views led to very interesting discussions on very varied topics. Such discussions were just so common here, they just happened all the time. You can learn so much from each other in such an environment. Only an eclectic university like Oxford can offer you an experience like this.

The lunches and dinners in the dinner hall always felt so short, there was never enough time to exchange thoughts with fellow students, on and beyond our course topics. For example, during one such dinner, I spoke to a professor who had moved to New Zealand for the last couple of years, to research Tolkien. Just like that. And the whole dinner, we spoke about Tolkien, his philosophy, the life events that impacted him and his literature, and so on. How I wish I could be in such inspiring company more often.

I had another very interesting discussion with a professor when we were talking about psychology, the topic I was studying. He was quite surprised that they're teaching psychology because he said that Oxford is very slow to accept new topics. I commented that psychology is not a new topic, it has been around for awhile. Then he asked me, 'just look around yourself in this dinner hall. Other than the lights, is there anything that you see that is less than 300 years old 😂’. Everything in Oxford has a different timeframe, in terms of what is new and what is ‘old'. I found that comment really funny.

During the week, I also learnt a lot about Oxford through all these chats. For one, Oxford seems to be quite self-absorbed with Oxford . Everyone talks about the town a lot, almost all the time. And many make a big deal of anything and everything about the city. It is almost like a bubble they all have lived in for long, and they don't know (or want to know) a lot about things from outside. For example the three authors that originated from here turn in up in almost every second conversation - Tolkien, CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll.

Also, there is quite a lot of rivalry between colleges. They talk about each other quite a lot, about which ones are richer, which are not, which are good at what and which not, and so on. It is interesting though to know that all the professors know each other and visit each other's colleges even if they talk competitively about them. Also, the college felt quite British, given most of the tutors were locals. I heard so much British English around me, I realised I hadn’t been in such situations a lot recently 😆.

The weather had been so unpredictable that week in July, that everyone was very cold, the professors AND the students. It was really funny to see. Everyone was freezing but couldn't do much about it, especially the ones who had come from abroad for the course. They had been expecting British summers and so hadn't brought any jumpers with them!! It's understandable give it was July, but still it was very funny to see. (Thankfully I was warm enough as I had (unwillingly) brought a jumper along with me)


Around Oxford

On my first afternoon, after quickly checking in at the college, I left for a quick tour around town. I first had lunch in a covered market nearby, which felt more like a food court than a market. It also felt like a student hangout place, with many types of food available for very little 😆. And later I learnt that there are tunnels connecting each of the colleges to the covered market. So it was definitely popular with the students.

Around Oxford

Then I walked around the colleges. Something I tried to do daily, even in the bad weather, with cold and rain. They were all so grand, so magnificent, so charming. Each college has its own history and character. Some are purely for research (like All Souls College), and some accept students. Some are focused on the arts, some on science. Some are a lot richer than the others. Most have some famous professors and writers associated with them. Each of them has a chapel and a dinner hall. The University has quite an interesting setup for studies. Students live in the colleges, are friends with other students there, have tutorials there while their lectures are held all together across Oxford University departments.

Christ Church College

One of the days, I joined an organised walk through town, called the Oxford Literature Walk (or maybe it was the history walk, but both are so intermixed always that you never know). The guide took us to the main colleges and libraries in town, giving us an overview of its history as we walked. Christ Church is one of the grandest and richest of the colleges, its buildings and gardens were impressive. The most famous authors from Oxford are CS Lewis, Tolkien and Lewis Carroll. And they were mentioned on the walk many times, their names adorning many plaques around town. In fact there were a few tours taking tourists around the University, talking about these authors and what inspired them to write their novels.

Punting in Oxford

The whole town was full of grand buildings - the university departments, churches and museums, famous libraries and so on. And so many parks in between. And then there were small streams and rivers around, with scenic bridges on them. They were all so impressive and grand to walk by, standing tall in their yellow sandstone. And there was so much history all around. It was always fun to walk around.

Christianity and religion were present everywhere. There were so many churches in town. And all college chapels had their own choirs, with concerts being organised regularly. That being said, it was interesting to know that the Vatican did not allow Catholics to come to Oxford until the 1800s! Only Anglicans were allowed before that.

Oxford

The city centre was always full of tourists during the day, crowding all the main sights. It was actually overwhelming to deal with all the tours going on. And there were so many events happening around, parties, concerts, lectures and so on, just students getting together and doing things. The real beauty of the town could only be seen either away from the centre or in the evening, when all the tourists had left. It felt quieter and cosier then.

So during the day, I would walk away from the centre. One day, I walked to a restaurant outside the main hub and saw a different side to the town. The road was lined with University departments. And there was a lot of greenery and parks (with no crowds!). It felt so different from the main Oxford university area, quieter, with no crowds. It felt like a nice place to live, I enjoyed my walk there.

Another day when I walked away from the university hub, I saw that the town has nice canals and beautiful residential areas. There was even some punting going on in the canals. Also as I walked out more away from the centre, there were newer colleges which were clearly less rich than the others. And this area was full of new buildings. It felt so different, like I had switched centuries within a 10 mins walk.


Waddesdon Manor

For one of the evenings, the organisers had planned a day out to a surprise location. So after our lectures, we got onto a bus and were on our way. We drove through the beautiful Cotswold countryside in summer, a vibrant green, dotted with small stone villages. And the destination turned out to be Waddesdon Manor - a huge manor house built by the Rothschilds (and later donated to the UK National Trust). Generally I am not a ‘buildings tour’ kind of person, but this was an enjoyable experience for me.

A dinner room

It was raining when we got there, and our tour wasn't to start till much later. So we hung out in the cafe, admiring the rain outside (just kidding!) till we could start our tour. And we were mind-blown. Every room was decorated with paintings from great masters, expensive carpets, exquisite furniture, vases, ceramics, silver, jewels and so much more. There were multiple dining rooms laid out with elaborate silverware. There were displays of antiquities as well as modern equipment from that time, including never-seen-before machines of that era. There was a jewel room with displays of some of the famous and expensive stones owned by the family. It was a huge place, and every room was full of such displays, it was tough to leave it to move to the next room. And it took us a few hours just to see the whole place.

A living room

It was just astounding to imagine how much money the Rothschilds would have had, to create a place like this. The Manor felt more like a museum, with a collection vast enough to challenge any museum. And that was true. This Manor was never a home, the family did not live here. It was not even an old country house of some British titled family. It had been built much later in the 1800s, by the Rothschilds, a business family, purely for the purpose of entertaining rich and successful people, networking as we call it now 😃. So it had been commissioned and decorated with art pieces sourced from across the world, with the single aim of impressing their rich guests. Later on, I read about the Rothschilds and was even more intrigued - the family that stays quiet but is said to be so rich and powerful that they are said to still be behind many economic and political decisions taken across the world. Interesting!

Gardens outside

Also, this Manor is the location where the famous introductory scene of Shah Rukh Khan in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was shot - when he steps out from a helicopter and runs toward the home where his mother is waiting. We enacted that scene for our Instagram reels, that was fun 😂.

The Stables

The gardens were even more spectacular. Just behind the house were some well landscaped gardens full of colourful flowers. And when I walked around the estate, I came across some stables, art houses and a lot more. But sadly, we didn't have enough time to explore it all. So after our tour, we headed back to Oxford, through some stunning scenery again. 

Ashmolean Museum

I had kept half a day free on my last day to walk around town and enjoy the (sometimes) nice British summer. But it ended up raining the whole day. So I did what I generally don't, go to a museum, the Ashmolean in this case. And what a revelation that was! It turned out to be a big one, with about half a million objects displayed over four floors. So I spent the next 3 hours in the museum admiring art from around the world, ending with a quick snack at the rooftop restaurant.

In the art section, the Ashmolean houses paintings, sculptures and ceramics but given the limited time I had, I walked around only the Post-Renaissance paintings section. And it was an absolute pleasure to explore it. I saw pieces from some new artists that I was drawn to - Panini, Canaletto, Joshua Reynolds, Courbet, Edward Lear and Thomas Moran (his painting reminded me of my favourite painting from Thyssen).

And then of course, there were the pieces from the greats. There is something about these legends - their art always draws you. 70% of the paintings I stopped at turned out to be painted by greats, like Constable, Guardi and Renoir. And clearly I was improving in my art appreciation given how I noticed them 😀. My favourites as usual were their landscape oil paintings and sketches.

I also did a quick tour in the world cultures section, exploring some of the Indian stone sculptures and textiles, Greek sculptures, Chinese ceramics and textiles, and Japanese paintings. There were just so many interesting things here from around the world. The pieces from the Arabic world, linked to their architecture, were impressive. And I realised that the Gupta period architecture defined a lot of how Indian architecture evolved into what it is today. Also, exhibits from Egypt are always so fascinating. But I wasn’t able to explore that section much, so next time.

But seriously, the UK has so much of global artefacts and treasures, they can have museums spread across the country and still not be able to display all they have. As usual, most of the stuff in the museum was from around the world. And in between some British things were kept to indicate 'we also had some history and culture .

My last day in Oxford was also “Alice Day” a day when people dress up as characters from Alice in Wonderland and join in parades throughout Oxford (as Lewis Carroll was also from Oxford). As it was raining, it seemed like the event was cancelled but while going back from the Ashmolean, I saw some people on the street dressed up as characters from the novel. But alas I had to run, so wasn't able to join the festivities at all.


And as I always end my articles, till another time. I enjoyed my stay in Oxford, learning so much, from the course I had signed up for but beyond that too. And I would suggest these summer courses to anyone looking to learn again, they are totally worth it.