THE
OXBRIDGE LAUNCHPAd

My name is Elena (She/Her), and I am a second year reading History at New College, Oxford. Studying history means very little contact hours and subsequently means managing and scheduling my own timetable to work independently. This can often be tricky because of its lack of structure. This year, I have had an essay a week but in first year I was given an essay and a half a week.

I wake up at around ten in the morning and will make myself some breakfast. I’ll have a tutorial with one other person and a professor discussing the essay that we handed in for that week. I’ll then head to the New College library to get on with some reading, a few days before the deadline. I start off by reading the general overviews and then getting into more of a historiographical angle of reading. I would usually go for lunch at around one for an hour. My friends and I usually head onto Cornmarket Street to go to Pret or Itsu. Returning back to college I do a few more hours of work.

At five, I organise the New College Women’s Football Team training sessions that we have now been able to start as Covid-19 regulations have been relaxed. I usually cook dinner at home but a few times a week I’ll go to the college bar or grab something to eat with some friends afterwards.