12 Matriculate Matriculate and Matriculash
Learn to survive alone...
Matriculation is an odd Latin ceremony which all new students must undergo in order to officially become part of the university. Equally compulsory is the ritual which follows it: matriculash. The city will be full of drunken students in subfusc, with the first colleges to go through hitting the pubs from 10am.
Learn to use that washing machine/ iron/ oven/ bike NOW. The more weeks that go by the more awkward it will be when you’re forced to admit you still don’t know how to clean your sheets.
Visit every pub in our guide Doubtless one of the greatest accolades an Oxford student can achieve. Not recommended the day before a 9am lecture, highly recommended at any other time.
Get involved in some activism 21st century students got a taste of the seventies spirit during the student fee protests Hey its worth a go. You never know, last year and we rather the residual dinosaur knowledge liked it. Find a cause you from that socially awkward phase in really care about, grab your childhood might finally come a placard and get out there. in handy. Besides, anyone who’s anyone has been made a fool of by Jeremy Paxman on national television.
Audition for University Challenge
Be a tourist
You’re never gonna beat ’em so you might as well join ’em once in a while. Take the day off from work, go to a museum, admire some architecture and take far too many photos.
Earn some money
Have sex in a library
This is something of a rite of passage. For beginners the college library is probably your best bet, and no doubt second and third years will have some helpful tips (CCTV blind spots etc.)
Take on a tutor
Hear someone amazing at the Union
Love it or hate it you can’t deny the Union gets some incredible guests. Recent highlights have included Sir Ian Mckellan, Lang Lang, Bill Nighy and Johnny Depp.
Celebrate Oxmas
In order to fit in some festivities before everyone buggers off home around the 3rd of December, Oxford students give Asda a run for their money in the Christmas keenness stakes. Just go with it: Oxmas is just like Christmas - only with lower budgets and even higher alcohol consumption.
There’s not exactly a lot of time You’re getting pretty good at this left over for earning your fortune. academic stuff now, you’ve learnt a But money making at Oxford isn’t lot in the last two years and you really completely impossible: look out for think you’re right this time. So go for shifts in college bars and at balls, it! Tell her what’s what! You can take the chance to become a club rep, her, right? Wrong. Your tutor is right. local tutoring or - if you’re feeling Just stand there in your wrongness lucky - there’s always opportunities and be wrong. (It was worth a try). to rent out your body or mind in the name of medical research.
Order a ridiculous book from the Bod The Bod has all of the books: Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens... Mills and Boon, The Famous Five, 50 Shades of Gray, Spot the Dog’s Sticker Adventure...
Venture further afield
Go on a formal-hall-crawl An excuse to get dressed up, drunk, well-fed and nosy in a load of other colleges - what’s not to like?
Survive finals
Coming up to Oxford can do strange Just before I came up I met a things to your distance percepwoman in a bookshop who told tion: within weeks of arriving you’ll me that her Classics finals at consider attending a tute at St Oxford had been more painful Hugh’s akin to trekking across the than the birth of her first child. Siberian Wastelands. Nevertheless, But don’t let that worry you breaking out of the bubble is worth finals are a LONG way off and it. There’s some great village pubs you’ll get through them: with within easy reach. friends, caffeine and determination, and - failing that - an epidural.