Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
An open letter calling for changes to Oxford University’s plans to have students graduate without attending an official ceremony has attracted over 2000 signatures. The open letter calls for graduation ceremonies to be postponed or conducted in smaller groups, rather than cancelled outright. Graduation ceremonies meant to be taking place on the 2nd and 9th […]
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In the perennially wise words of Marge Simpson, it’s very easy to criticise. It’s much harder to come up with a sound policy for mitigating the effects of a coronavirus pandemic on hundreds of different examinations and types of examinations; at a university comprised of nearly 25,000 students of all ages; who study nearly 400 […]
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Image Description: The UCU stop tuition fees march. This academic year has hardly been the best. UCU Strikes disrupted Michaelmas and Hilary, and now Trinity is to be held remotely. It is not a stretch to argue that we have not got what we are paying for. This is what hundreds of thousands of students […]
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Image description: Handicap parking logo As we near the third week of quarantine, a worrying trend in our response to the coronavirus has started to emerge. Seen in both politicians and university faculty alike, the somewhat blasé attitude toward those of us with underlying conditions is concerning at best, and frightening at worst. “Concerning at […]
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Image Description: Sign relating to the Coronavirus pandemic outside the Oven Door, High Street, Wetherby. Pandemics are hard to characterise. Identifying a touchstone, emblematic of all they entail is by definition, difficult. Nevertheless, we can, paradoxically, rely upon a crippling lack of certainty. After all, global crises are periods of profound insecurity. Yet, even in […]
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Image Description: A girl using the Whatsapp messenger service to connect with friends. Five minutes ago, I left a four-hour Skype call with some of my Oxford friends. Yesterday, I spoke to another friend for four hours via Facebook. I have never socialised more than I am now. That’s despite being on vacation, so its […]
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To put it simply: the disturbance caused by the coronavirus pandemic should merit cancelling all exams in Trinity term. The UK government has already cancelled all GCSEs and A levels and shut all schools. Further, a majority of people in the UK are either working from home or not at all. This disruption to society […]
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Image Description: A sign on the entrance of a local school signalling closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to the Coronavirus Pandemic, the UK Government has taken unprecedented steps to combat the spread of the virus. The imposition of a temporary ‘lockdown’ since midnight on 24 March has been the most dramatic of […]
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The National Union of Students has just elected its new President, Larissa Kennedy, by a margin of just one vote. The vote breakdown of the election was made public in a leaked Twitter post. Kennedy, currently a Sabbatical Officer working at Warwick’s Student Union, narrowly beat out Erica Ramos by 246 votes to 245, after […]
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On Friday, the University of Oxford released a paper which suggests that over half of the UK population could have already contracted – and now be immune to – coronavirus. However, many experts have queried the validity of the findings, and the researchers themselves find them far from conclusive. So, is the media frenzy around […]
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“At this stage, I can confirm that we anticipate that most or all teaching and assessment next term will take place remotely.” (Oxford Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education via email, 16th March 2020) It should be welcomed by all that the University is in active discussions over the impact of coronavirus on Trinity term. Equally, we […]
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The Oxford Student has been notified about a proposal by the Classics faculty to remove the study of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid from the Mods syllabus, a decision which has surprised many across the faculty. This proposal forms part of a series of reforms aimed to modernise the first stage of the Classics degree, […]
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Image description: Magdalen tower For the first time, 69% of Oxford’s offers have gone to people from state schools. This may sound good, but that means that nearly a third of places have gone to an elite group. Said group representing 7% of the population. To some people this is not an issue. People have […]
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Image description: Magdalen College Improving access to students from more disadvantaged backgrounds has rightly become the priority for Oxbridge admissions. After all, no young person should be discriminated against “on the basis of the class they were born into”. The upper echelons of higher education should be open to all inspiring, budding young intellectuals and […]
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Student finance England has a strict policy on estranged students, which prevents students from making an application based on their own independent income. If you are an estranged student, this typically leaves you worse off, because you cannot be means tested, and so receive a maximum of £3500 in maintenance loan. At this point your […]
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It’s internship season. Many of my friends and I are currently sniffing the internet for the elusive summer placement to hone the edge of a CV that, fingers crossed, will slay the job market for years to come. Whilst I’m looking for something to fill my second summer as a student at Oxford, in a […]
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Look, I’m not one to paint with a broad brush stoke, and I know that not all crew dates are bad. But unfortunately we live in a world where the worst case scenarios are the ones that stick. Crewdates stories are the stuff of the Telegraph and The Daily Mail’s dreams, as they seek to […]
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In light of OULC’s campaign to ban private schools, I decided to write about the more rarely discussed part of the private schools debate- that of stigmatization. I’m not here to discuss whether we should abolish private schools; that’s a separate debate on policy. I want to argue that the climate of stigmatizing private school […]
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Recently, a spate of cases from the Home Office have cropped up involving academics being threatened with deportation or having their or their children’s visas rejected. This has doubtless caused significant emotional and psychological turbulence for these academics, but we might go deeper and ask: Why now, are there so many patently unfair decisions being […]
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