Tasha Dhanraj looks ahead to pastures new

A month ago I was asked to come for an interview at Oxford University to study Theology. I was unsure if I wanted to go down the Oxbridge route or if I wanted to go to somewhere in London and stay down South, but I knew that I was never going to let an opportunity like this slide. I’d never been to Oxford as it is my general life policy that I never travel further than Middlesex unless I really have to. I was so nervous about my interview that I wanted to hate the city so that I wouldn’t mind when I got rejected.

“Unfortunately, it turns out that Oxford is the most beautiful place on earth.”

It is like a real life Diagon Alley. There are even pubs that sell Harry Potter themed drinks, like butter beer. My college was just like Hogwarts – utterly magical.
I fell in love with it. I realised that by looking at the statistics, chances were high that I wasn’t going to get onto the course. So, I resolved to do everything that I could possibly want to do whilst I was there– sort of like an Oxford specific bucket list.

This included doing something that in my head was hilarious and totes ironic. In the common room at a college in one of the most prestigious universities in the world, I switched on The Jeremy Kyle Show. I wanted all the other Oxford potentials to look at me and sneer, so I could look like the edgy, stupid person. Instead, they all turned their heads and watched it with me. At that moment, I knew that I desperately wanted to spend three years of my life there.

On the day I came back from my interview, I was presented with an envelope from a London university that I had always dreamt about attending. I had been accepted. Instead of jumping around for joy, I was only mildly happy. I wanted to go to Oxford.
Three weeks passed and apart from the daily calls from my grandma asking whether I had heard or not, I tried to put it out of my mind. Then finally, the letter arrived.

I had been given a place at Oxford University. So, from October I will be throwing on those big black gowns and white shirts, I’ll be sitting in libraries with stained glass windows and I’ll be riding a bicycle to all my lectures… actually, that’s a lie. No matter where I go to university, I’m never riding a bike..