Posts Tagged ‘places’
Oxford University open day
On Tuesday evening, following logistical setbacks involving a toothbrush, my grandfather and I headed down to Oxford for the open day yesterday. I’d booked into Balliol College for the morning where general information was to be given and to have lunch there, but the whole university including departments was open to be explored. A small group of people from Silverdale went down via coach too and I met up with one for a part of the day to look at the course I am interested in, that is Maths and Philosophy. My conclusion from the day was that I am now pretty much set with my Oxford research: I would like to do said course at said college, and thus I can now concentrate on finding a second choice, for of course only a quarter of applicants manage to get in to Oxbridge. At this point I am concerned about how dissapointed I will be if I fail to get in. I have been building this up for years, and have long had it as a goal and something that I am aiming for, the next step on the staircase. Rationally it is not the end of the world and does not make me a failure if I don’t get in, but I’m not sure the version of Sean after a rejection will be able to think quite so clearly. On the plus side, I have no idea about my chances of getting in besides the fact that it is definately worth applying. Hopefully I can console myself with this.
At the beginning of the day, I was put in touch with a third year student in Maths and Philosophy to discuss the course, and my list of questions (in my highly-coveted commonplace book of collected notes) was swiftly answered. I then ended up having lunch with the admissions secretary, the third year, a second year in the subject and another prospective applicant for it from Germany. It seems that the first year of the course is somewhat maths focussed, or it at least appears to be like that, because the philosophy side is composed of maths-like topics such as logic. However, after this year there is considerably more flexibility. There is no applied maths, plenty of pure and the flexibility to do other philosophical topics such as ethics or political philosophy, which is good: I was afraid of finding the course primarily taken up by mathematical philosophy and the like but this is not the case after the first year. This is thus a fantastic option: I love both subjects and really wouldn’t want to give either up, and they do of course complement each other very well. The other choice in applying is then college. For those who aren’t aware, Oxford is a collegiate university meaning that you live and have a tutor in one of thirty colleges, but go to lectures organised by institutes or faculties. I’ve looked through all the colleges in the prospectus and basically there are none that stood out aside from Baliol for being lefty-liberal, so there is no real reason not to go there. It’s also a very good place for my subject choice. In any case, 20% of successful applicants don’t go to their first choice college so it is important not to place too much stock in this. So my Oxford choices and research are pretty much wrapped up nicely.
At this point there are then a number of things that I need to be doing with regard to university application. I need to draft, redraft and get read my personal statement, which is a difficult document because it has to cover all five of the places one applies to and for different courses if this is done. I need to get some more philosophy background reading done over the summer but this is hardly a chore as some of these other things are. And more importantly I need another few places to apply to, one of which is a firm second choice with an open day visit if I haven’t missed it already. My school run lots of nonsense for those applying to Oxbridge so I should be able to get all this done pretty efficiently. Then, of course, comes the hardest part: the interview. Oxbridge interviews are unlike any other. They aim to find something new that the candidate hasn’t seen and attempt to see how they think. Scary stuff, but I’m trying to remain reasonably confident by not considering my chances either way, and just going in and trying my best. And hoping I don’t have a headache which are becoming increasingly frequent of late.
A few other nice things happened worth recording here. Firstly, we met a mother and son on the train who were also going to the open day, and got talking about philosophy. Then the wonders of how well the Internet has been got going and used in recent years came in: I merely handed him an arrogant business card and he has since got in touch on Facebook, and on Wednesday morning he texted me an involved conclusion to one of the thought experiments I posed. Secondly, I got my picture taken outside the Oxford Union, the intellectual debating powerhouse that really is an international centre for it all. I am very much letting that go to my head. Cambridge may be a significantly prettier city, but the Union would be a major bonus to going to Oxford, in addition to a lot of variety of ringing.
This post is very decisive and it seems to suggest a clear direction. This is great: I can apply myself to this and attempt to make it work, not thinking too hard about the outcome and not considering whether I am putting too much focus into one thing. But really this has been what I have been using to force myself through GCSEs and some aspects of A levels, and I remain concerned about what will happen if I fail. Despite the fact I am told by others that I have a very reasonable shot at it. I keep telling myself that this is not what my life is defined by and is all about, and repeat to myself what someone who went said to my grandfather: it’s very easy to forget you’re not in the centre of the thinking world.
An intellectual’s habitat
An inexorably dull post follows. Just look at the pretty pictures and ignore the text if you want. Reading it, I’m sounding like even more of a geek than usual.
I’m quite keen on finality so over the past few days as exams (and in one case a subject) come to a close I’ve been shifting this year’s work from my usual day-to-day ring binders to my heavy-duty long term storage lever-arch folders. After making a neat stack of this on my desk I stood back with a combination of pride and awe (yes, I’m very sad) and decided to take a photo of the pile, in combination with most of my textbooks for the year, to record the sheer amount of paper involved in it all. I’ve barely used the computer for school this year aside from communication relating to that which has been plentiful, and most of my computerised work has been printed off anyway and added to the folders. Now, I don’t take photos very often, so while I had my mother’s camera to hand I started snapping the rest of my room – hence the title of this post. Inspired by a friend’s recent blog post then, thus presented is a look around my bedroom at my mother’s house where I spend 50% of my time spent in bedrooms, if that makes sense (my parents have been split up for years).
Here are the folders of this year’s work, plus the majority of my textbooks and exam papers. Some maths textbooks have been handed in after doing exams in January and because I’m organised. There are a few exercise books in the pile but I go through so many in maths they are kept elsewhere. The top folder is philosophy, and it’s thin because we in doing the course in so few hours we used printed hand outs from a wiki, and didn’t do much homework. I’ve got a fair number of philosophy essays in my dark blue exercise book too. The next folder is the hated history. I could barely fit everything into this folder and it doesn’t shut properly, but I did want it all in one place. History means some printed hand outs, lots of notes and lots of answered questions. It’s nice to finally shut that subject away in that folder; however much I like it studying it for AS has spoilt that, as I’ve moaned about on this blog before now. Below that is Physics, a hearty selection of copied notes, printed notes (not too many of those) and neatly written out calculations. There are also a thick wedge of plastic folders containing flattened A5 copies of past exam papers. At the bottom is good old maths, and interestingly that folder is the equivalent of a whole A level rather than just an AS level (which is half) as all the other folders are. Mechanics feeds me annoying copied notes, but maths is all about everything connecting up into a easy whole, so most of that folder is exercises handed in which can thus not be done in exercise books. The books on the right are mainly history (of which I have six), plus some maths, one physics and one philosophy. There are also some maths past papers there to be given back in.
Here then we have a general view of my room. I’m not fantastic at photography so could probably have got more in, but in this attic bedroom my desk is to the left and my bed it to the right. Silly picture of tulips on the wall is due to my mother’s refusal to allow me to put interesting things up, like posters or quotations printed in huge letters. The mess on the floor with things lying around is not normal as I am usually far tidier; see everything else but this particular area. This is because I have old school stuff everywhere that needs sorting into more sensible locations. More on that flag later.
This is my whole desk, still complete with the piles of stuff. That monitor is my amazing 21″ CRT that cost only £21 off eBay, the only drawback of its amazingness is the fact that it is so huge and immovable. I’ve grown used to having a bit less desk space and usually manage. The keyboard and mouse shove up under the edge of the screen, I have bits of paper all over the place, and a trusty desk lamp. The blind down over the window is usually permanently down and closed because otherwise I can’t see properly during certain times of the day and I never bother to open it afterwards. In the summer this room becomes like a furnace so I just leave the window permanently open so the blind stops any wasps and things getting in too. If it’s windy though it starts knocking the pile of ink cartridges I have on the windowsill over me and I get showered 
What’s on the screen, by the way, is my very messy inbox. Underneath the desk on the left you can see Zephyr, two boxes full of games, and on the right just the cables coming out of the back of spw and the household router.
Moving round clockwise we have my main bookshelf and my recently acquired Soviet flag. A friend at school made this as part of his GCSE art project but as a staunch capitalist himself, and after seeing my delight in carrying the flag for our recent annual left. vs. right debate he decided to give it to me on a semi-permanent loan. So I’ve displayed it proudly upon my attic beam. I don’t like the representation of the USSR which was of course a non-communist society (yes, the USSR brand of communism wasn’t communism, but that’s a different debate) but I do like it being red and the hammer and sickle are of course still representative of general socialist ideals. Also visible here is my terribly consumerist CD/radio thing, and my pile of spare lined paper with a few philosophy books piled on top. I have a problem with lack of space to store books and periodically my mother makes attempts to throw or give some away which I hate I have a huge amount of respect for books.
Finally this would be my bed which I just snapped to show off my Dr Who quilt cover and pillow case (which has nothing on Lucy’s ‘Pokélair’ sign). You can see Arthur and Angel nestled there. On the board behind the bed are a combination of Guardian centre pages, which is a big photo everyday so I collect nice ones and pile them up on top of each other there, quick references for computing stuff and good quotes, such as that curling Socrates one, my favourite ever I think, which I picked up at the open day for Philosophy AS this year. On my bedside table you can see a trusty alarm clock as well as the interned Millennium from when my sister and I were very much into Beanie Babies. She’s remained virtually untouched as I was hoping she would increase in value – this is *not* something I would do today as I realise now how nasty and capitalist it was. Anyway I could never sell her, I’m too sentimental with my cuddle toys, more of which can be seen on the bottom shelf of that table. On the middle (or top, debatable) shelf of that same table are more books; books I am yet to read are usually put there. Embarrassingly at the back there are books there from several years ago I keep forgetting about. Also in this picture one can observe my wardrobe of sorts to the left, which is merely a alcove covered with a see-through curtain. Also stores family suitcases, fold-out bed and boxes for Zephyr’s parts.
Right well that took me about half an hour to write and I’m rather embarrassed at how consumerist, middle-class and capitalist it now all looks. The flag hopefully negates that (or makes me look like a champagne socialist) and what matters is that my desk is the centre of most of my life these days. That’s where the thought occurs and the school work gets done, that’s where most of this blog gets written from. So if you got this far well done, that wasn’t terribly exciting.