Because Theoretical Physics expects you to know how to do contour integration. Which I’ve never even looked at.

Because Particle Physics is only easy when compared to Theoretical Physics.

Because I’ve written 12,000 words on my thesis, and need to kick it up to 15,000. And include a LOT more references.

Because I’ve been trying, and failed, to get a PhD offer. Don’t get me started…

Because I’m now desperately searching for something to do next year, even though I really need to get back to reading Russell’s attack on Causation…

Because, if I’m lucky, I might finally get some guitar lessons next week…

Because I had to cox a boat with a broken rudder line in Torpids. That was fun. Come to Summer Eights!

Sinfest: The Webcomic To End all Webcomics

This one is probably the simplest. You don’t need any special knowledge, or to stay up to date with the comics.

Giant In the Playground Games

ErfWorld

These two are running storylines, so some reading will be required if you want to catch up. You’d also benefit from some knowledge of D&D and other RPG games.

Questionable Content: New comics every Monday through Friday

Running story arc, but you won’t lose much by skipping it. This guy has been slowly improving ever since he started, and every day he gets a little bit better.

Schlock Mercenary, by Howard Tayler

One of the longest running stories on the net, this will keep you entertained for months if you start from scratch. Good artwork and storyline.

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe

My favourite, and without a running story arc, but does require a lot of background knowledge of science, maths, programming, and general geek culture.

Enjoy!

I’ve now got into a nice routine, which is pretty essential this year. At Uni, you can, if you want, work whenever you feel like it and play whenever you want, and so long as you get the work done no one cares. But that doesn’t make it a good idea.It’s pretty much what I was doing last year, and the two years before that, and unless you’re insanely self-disciplined, it just doesn’t work.

So this year I’m sticking to a schedule. Up at seven thirty, lectures in the morning, work in the library until five pm, with an hour for lunch and two half hour breaks during the day. And it’s working. I means I can stick to a sensible sleeping pattern, get a reasonable amount of work done, and relax in the evenings and weekends without feeling guilty that I haven’t done enough work.

I’ll probably break down around exam season, but hopefully I’ll have put the work in by then so it won’t matter.

Speaking of which, this year’s work is particle physics, theoretical physics, and a thesis in philosophy of physics. I’m looking at causation in physical models, or the absence thereof, and I think I’m going to conclude that causation is a misunderstanding of something deeper. But you’ll have to read it to find out about it. In the meantime, I’m loving doing my own thing, researching and coming up with ideas that I can call my own and feel proud of. Tempered with a certain respect for my elders’ work of course. But coupled with a healthy scepticism.

Skim read at least two books on theoretical physics, and two on particle physics.

Complete the introductory problem sheets for those two courses.

Research and read at least half a dozen books for my philosophy thesis.

Write an article for the college magazine.

Start researching and planning my PhD applications.

Go over last year’s notes.

Get my student finance.

Try and visit my grandparents, whom I haven’t had much time for. Because of the above.

And I’m lucky: I can afford not to take a summer job.

I used to be much more involved in the Oxford University Fencing Club. At one point, when I was feeling young and overly ambitious, I asked about the possibility of being beginners’ secretary. The position was usually an elected one, but since it hadn’t been filled, the committee leaped on me before I had a chance to protest.

I don’t think I did a bad job, but I was hardly anything to write home about. However, I got very lucky. At the start of the year, the club president forwarded me an email from a guy coming over from Cambridge, who was apparently a coach. We were desperate for extra coaches, so after a few brief meetings to check that the guy wasn’t a complete nutter, I happily handed him a class of fifty or so ‘interested’s. These are the guys that turn up at the start of the year, often for just the taster session. We try to hang on to as many of them as possible.

He gave a brilliant lesson to them, and I was only mildly surprised to see that most of them came back the following week. Their numbers slowly trickled down, but at the end of the year, there was still over twenty of them, and they had learnt a lot. This guy was worth his weight in gold as a coach.

And more so. Because he hadn’t just coached them, and coached them well, but he’d also kept them interested. He’d made sure that the social secretaries had actually done their job and arranged for at least one curry at term. He’d chatted with his old friends at Cambridge, and set up a beginner’s Varsity match. He balanced the high numbers at the start of the year with extra sessions, and liaised with the committee to make sure that accomplished beginners moved into intermediates, and stayed there.

By the end of the year, I had only two main concerns. Firstly, I felt like I was a bit superfluous. Secondly, I wasn’t sure how much of this would last when our Golden Man left when his degree was over.

So I ran into him today in the street, having missed out on fencing for the last year (I have been far too busy). A brief chat assured me that things were running even more smoothly than I’d hoped, with high numbers and good coaching. But betters still, he assured me that although he’d soon be off to Japan for a year, there were now eight new qualified coaches ready to take over, as well as an incredibly efficient new beginners’ secretary running the show.

I read somewhere about the difference between good and great leaders. Both will do wonders for your organisation, bringing you to the top of your game, getting things done, and keeping people happy. But the main difference is that a great leader will have an effect that will last long after they’re gone. They’ll make sure that someone just as good will fill their shoes when they’re gone, and that all the plates keep spinning by themselves. And amazingly, they’re modest about it. They just do their job as best they can.

I hope one day to find that I’m a leader of that quality, but I honestly doubt it. Until then, the best thing I can do is to recognise these Golden Men when I find them, and make sure they put where they can do the most good. But I rather doubt they need me to do that.

I had a philosophy of science exam the other day. I’m quite good on some parts of this, and less so on others. Basically, if I can relate whatever abstract topic we’re talking about to some everyday example or set of examples, I’ll get a good grip on it. But whilst I do tend to be quite good on topics in philosophy in tutorials, my essays often turn out rubbish.

I have a habit of biting off more than I can chew, or of trying to run before I can walk. So my tutorial essays are generally confused, and whilst I might get points for noticing something interesting, I’ll usually lose them again for not being clear on the basics.

However, with this exam, I got the revision down well in advance; I got the feedback from my tutor that I needed; I worked out a layout to each question that worked well; I had enough knowledge of the topics to fill three hours of writing; and I had one or two possibly original points that I hadn’t found mentioned in the literature.

I think I may have scraped a first in that exam. It’s the first time I’ve ever thought that of a philosophy paper.

I’m one exam down, five to go. Since I do a damn silly subject, my exams are spread out over four weeks. In a way, it helps to take the pressure of. In another, it’s a pain that I’m on edge about them for a whole month.

The funny thing is that, at least in my essay exams, I can’t focus nearly as well as I can in my own time. It just gets to me. And it’s odd, because in other high-pressure situations, like coxing or driving, when there’s my own safety and someone else’s to worry about, I’m fine. The pressure actually keeps me focused.

In the meantime, I need to stop procrastinating, do some shopping, some revision, and hopefully get the time to watch the last day of Eights today.

So says a friend’s facebook status. And she’s got a point. Taking the time out to do anything except sleep and eat can be difficult, especially in exam season. I already feel guilty about taking two hours off for a pass plus lesson today.

And yes, we get nice long vacations (not holidays!) that people can be rather jealous of. But honestly, it’s because we need them! I have an A3 sheet filled to the edges with just the subject headings of everything I need to know for my exams, and that’s just for this year! And I need to know at least a sixth of that before my first exam in four weeks time.

Honestly, it’s far from uncommon for people to stick around during the vacation, so that they can get some work done!

Anyway, the shortness of this post should speak volumes about how serious I am.

“So the first thing we should ask is…do you know what you’re letting yourself in for?”

That was the first question I was asked when I turned up for my interview at Hertford College, three years ago now. I can’t remember what I said, but the honest answer would have been “no”.

Now I’m here, a third-year physics and philosophy student, who really ought to be revising for the collections I have coming up, and wondering if I’d known, would have made me think twice about coming to Oxford?

I’d struggle to give you an account of the last three years, but I think I can give a few of the ups-and-downs. I’d like to think it might be helpful for anyone thinking of applying, but also I’d like to see how it compares to the experiences of the other 11,000 undergrads currently going through their studies. Oxford is far too big for anyone to say they’ve really experienced it.

The first thing I remember noticing about Oxford was that, for all the educating that goes on here, it was as close to being classless as you could hope for. I’d heard the rumours; the playground teasing that I’d be going to toff-city, and though I was fairly sure that they’d be wide of the mark, I had a few niggling doubts. They were dispelled within hours of my arrival. If anything, I’ve seen quite a few people from working-class backgrounds, actually disappointed that they wouldn’t get to play the hero and defend their class from the elitist pigs. I’ve also met the occasional unremarkable chap down the bar, had a pleasant conversation, and later been slightly surprised to hear that I’d be talking to the 3rd Viscount of someplace. I’d never have guessed…but then, I’m not sure how I could tell.

So the myth about elitism is completely false. If anything, I think the University is resisting the pressure from the media and the Government to start being biased in favour of the working class, because it’s politically correct to do so. No one here gives a damn where you come from, and they’ll only sneer at you if you start getting hung up on it. You get here on academic performance alone.

Which brings me on the second thing: work. My first lectures were revision lectures on mathematics, to bring everyone up to the same level. We shot through all of A-level Maths and Further Maths in just two weeks - that’s four hours of lectures. It included quite a few things I’d forgotten, and a handful of things I’d never been taught. And that pace hasn’t let up since then.

Back at school, I could quite comfortably spend two hours on a weekly homework and be sure of getting at least 70%. More like 90% if I could be bothered to make the effort. I got a bit of a shock when I looked at my first problem sheet. I’d left it with only a day to spare, thinking that it would be plenty of time to shoot through some classical mechanics. I was still working up to the deadline, and horrified, but not remotely surprised, when it was handed back with “42%” scrawled in red ink on the top corner. I was also rather puzzled by the smile my tutor gave me, and the murmur of “good effort”. When I saw the marks of my fellow physics students though, I felt that guilty relief when you see your comrades fail: it makes you look good by comparison.

These days, I can get an 80% maybe once a term. If I’ve really worked at it, had a good run-up, no distractions, and above all, enjoyed the topic. I generally feel pleased with anything above 65%. But boy, do we work!

My first essay was also a disaster. It came after the problem sheet, so I’d made a start on it with plenty of time. But I still made two huge errors: I hadn’t done the reading, and I had no idea what to write.

My essays at school were in history, where everything was simple. You had all the material handed to you on a plate by the teacher, and then you wrote a two-line introduction, and then four paragraphs on each of the significant factors of whatever event you were talking about, and then a conclusion that was balanced but perhaps came down slightly on one side more than the other.

So it took a while to realise that the lectures simply wouldn’t give me enough material to write an essay with, and that I’d really have to get the books. And that I’d have to get them AS SOON AS I WAS SET THE ESSAY, or my fellow philosophers would beat me to the college library and pinch them first, and I’d have to trapse all over Oxford to get them.

Then I’d actually have to write the essay itself. Sticking to the old history format just wasn’t going to work, and I couldn’t find one that did. In the end I waffled until I reached as close to 2000 words as I could, about whatever came into my head. Eventually I realised that I’d really have to plan my essays (some I only did in desperation at school), and that there was no general format - I’d have to work it out individually for each essay I did, with an introduction that covered not only the relevant parts of the topic, but also the argument I was setting out in the essay. Which meant I couldn’t made it up as I went along. I’d have to actually work I what I was going to write before I wrote it!

Maybe it’s true that the PPEists get to slack off in their second year, or that geography’s a duff subject. I don’t know. But I can tell you that mine is anything but. I remember asking in the interview: “So, it’s evenly balanced, right? Fifty-percent physics, fifty philosophy?”

“More like seventy-seventy” the answer came back.

So what’s everyone else’s experience? Did you know what you were letting yourself in for?