OxYou

Editors: Milo Dennison, Susie Barrows

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Oxford student, in possession of a freshers’ week, must be in want of new friends, but to find them you’re going to have to work your way through some odd characters. We’ve put together a handy guide to help you spot five of the most common specimens. Just make sure, whatever you do, that you don’t become one of these.

The one who doesn’t seem to exist

We all know one of these. Back on the group chat they seemed to dominate the conversation, suggesting all sorts of plans for when you arrived in Oxford and sending a million messages at all hours of the day. But now that you’ve got here, they don’t seem to really exist. You thought you once saw them ducking into a room somewhere in the depths of your accommodation, but you haven’t seem them since and there seems to be a mound of dust accumulating on what you took for their door handle. They’ll invariably appear for one club night halfway through freshers week before retreating into the woodwork again.

The one who applied as a joke

Unless you’re at Merton, you’ll definitely run across someone who’s just a little too keen to let you know that they put down Oxford on their UCAS “just for fun”. They’ll tell you how surprised they were to get in, since they put in absolutely NO work on their application, and how they’re sure they were let in by accident. Inevitably they’ll then end up getting a first in every essay from now until they graduate: just ignore them.

The freshers The one who asks what school you went to

you’re Everyone tries to make awkward conversation in freshers week, whether it be asking people guaranteed to meet in Oxford whereabouts they’re from or the infamous “what A-levels did you study” question. But there’s always one who’ll approach you with slightly greasy hair and a blue linen shirt on (normally from Ralph Lauren) who’ll launch Milo DENNISON straight in with the “what school did you go to?”. You reply that they probably wouldn’t have heard of it, and before you’ve even been able to ask them back they’re obnoxiously telling you that they were at Radley. The only response is, “Oh I haven’t heard of it”.

The one who’s having an essay crisis already

The first time you notice this one will be when they put a vaguely panicked messaged in your subject group chat asking whether the fourteen books they’ve read are enough followed by several crying emojis. Then you won’t see them again until you’re getting a tour around your college library, where you’ll find them tucked away in some dark nook on the verge of tears with papers strewn all over the desk. It’s normal to worry about your first essay, but avoid these people at all costs: you’re meant to enjoy freshers week, you’ve got eight weeks after it to cry about work.

The one who’s just got back from a gap yah

Does your college have a fresher who looks just a little bit too old and has a questionable fashion sense? Do they talk about how they’ve recently discovered themselves and are now intensely spiritual? Have they got a dodgy looking tapestry hanging up in their room? If so, you’ve got a gap yah student - our apologies. Having been funded on their jaunt around South America by mummy and daddy, these freshers will regale you with slightly too fanciful stories of their travels, all in the most horrendously private school accent you’ve ever heard.

AGUIDE TO CLUBBING IN OXFORD

Susie Barrows

It’s your first term in Oxford, and with that comes many nights spent picking up god knows what on the soles of your shoes from sticky dance floors and getting a little too comfortable around people you met three days ago. But never fear, OxStu is here to provide a full and coherent guide to help you make informed decisions about where exactly to spend these memorable (or not) hours. So sink your last double vodka coke as the college bartender shouts at you to leave because it’s already 11:07 and the bar has to shut at 11, and come along for a journey through the locations of the best and worst nights you will ever have in Oxford.

Atik/Park End

Yes, they’re the same place. The main floor will have you trying desperately to bop to a slightly random 2010s pop song that isn’t quite right because the DJ has a god complex about his ‘remixes’, but inevitably you will reach the point where all you really want is to scream along to the normal, unadulterated version of ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ without some unnecessary bass drop half way through and oontz oontz in the background – at which point you head down the stairs to the holy grail of Park End, the Cheese Floor. Here you will find banger after banger of the music that people claim they hate but will be found screeching their lungs out to when someone actually puts it on, as well as every rugby lad in Oxford inevitably losing their minds when the dulcet tones of Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ begin to filter through the slightly too loud speakers. There are other rooms too, I am told – but as a shit-cheesy-music enthusiast, I only ever make it to the cheese floor after trying the main floor and remembering why I don’t like it. Ask someone with better music taste about the others.

Bridge

A smoking area with a club attached. 2020/21 veterans will remember this was the place to go to spend £10 getting into a club where all you could actually do was sit down (outside) and listen to music so loud you couldn’t even have a conversation with your five friends. As a real club though, the inside bit is odd – two long rooms, possibly the weirdest layout for a club I have ever seen. However, while Park End provides good music (read: ABBA) any day of the week thanks to its many-roomed layout, the lack of rooms means the music at Bridge is incredibly hit and miss. If your taste is anything like mine (read: ABBA), the only decent day to go is on the famed Bridge Thursday, where you will meet everyone you have ever spoken to in Oxford crammed into two glorified corridors. The aforementioned smoking area really comes into its own when you want to catch up with that one person you met at interviews and haven’t seen in three years, though. Just don’t go on a Friday – it’s not worth it.

Plush

Oxford’s favourite LGBTQ+ club. It’s underground, and it’s about what you would expect from an underground club – one tiny dance floor in what looks like an old dungeon which hundreds of students pack into every night, and the delightful accompaniment of wet walls and ceilings, which, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, might drip on you. The music is eclectic – I once heard Mumford and Sons in there, which worked a lot better than you would expect, somehow – but it’s always fun. Its main attraction beyond being an LGBTQ+ club is the 3 for £5 jagerbombs, a dangerous, but at least cheap(ish), game. Just make sure to thoroughly wash if you accidentally touch the wall (it’s difficult to avoid), and don’t bother going if you’re over 6 foot.

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BEST OF THE ROAST

Rordon Gamsay

Sunday Roast is satirical and should not be taken as defamatory, nor does it reflect any political stance of the Oxford Student.

CW: Abortion

ACHOO: FRESHERS FLU CASES SPIKING

It’s that time of year again. A once-peaceful visit to the library is now punctuated by coughs and sniffles as the newest members of the university transfer every germ they came into contact with via the walls of Plush and the sticky cheese floor of Park End to poor unsuspecting second and third years who are too old, and too tired, by now to have spent noughth week within the hallowed walls of Oxford’s handful of clubs. Rordon went to interview the latest victims of this rapidly spreading disease.

‘Honestly (COUGH) it’s just really (COUGH) reminding me of my glory days as a (COUGH) fresher and making me (COUGH COUGH) feel so much less old, so really (COUGH) I should be thanking the freshers for giving me this illness despite personally not setting foot within fifty metres of Park End, Bridge or Plush for the whole of noughth week (COUGH COUGH COUGH)’ one such third year told Rordon (with some difficulty).

‘I’m honestly not even that ill like -’ – here the interview was forced to end as the interviewee descended into a coughing fit breaking the decibel record previously set by the bass drop of the Park End main floor DJ’s remix of ‘You Belong with Me’. Readers can be reassured that Rordon has been snorting Vick’s First Defence like a fresher who has just discovered poppers, although his throat has started to get a little tingly in the last few days…

OXFORD STUDENTS FOR LIFE SACRIFICE BABY

Oxford Students for Life have caused controversy this week after sacrificing a recently christened baby named Jesus in an attempt to save the souls of all student for life members. Having been recently tarnished by other, less holy, Oxford students at the freshers fair, they felt their souls in need of saving and so resorted to the only option available to them, sacrificing one of their member’s recent babies. Having posted on Oxfess asking for reactions to vote on the decision and then brigading the page with their members, they made the choice to do it after a meeting of their 12 committee members. Asked about whether the decision would be controversial, one of them simply said “it’s in the bible”.

The Oxford Student recognises the seriousness of the discussions on abortion and the feelings of those affected by the issue.

More information on abortion services can be found here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/abortion/ https://www.bpas.org https://www.asn.org.uk