Artikel Asset magazine

Helaas (althans, voor diegene die dat helaas vinden) nog geen nieuwe update. Wel een soort van samenvatting van afgelopen halfjaar, aangezien ik afgelopen weekend een artikel voor Asset magazine heb geschreven. Hoewel, zoals jullie inmiddels weten, normaal gesproken de woorden uit mijn laptop vloeien en het eerder te veel is dan te weinig, was ik met dit artikel al even zoet en had ik geen tijd om weer eens een goede update te plaatsen. Waarschijnlijk komt hij over een paar weken. Voor diegene die toch graag wat leesvoer hebben, hier het artikel voor Asset magazine ;). Deze is helaas wel Engelstalig.

Veel liefs,
Monique

The city Oxford, University of Oxford, 38 different colleges, rowing, parties and numerous societies…Even though I have 1500 words to tell you about Oxford, after having lived here for only half a year, this already seems way too little! I believe the most natural place to start is to tell you how I got the chance to study in this exciting and inspiring city.

At the moment it all seems perfectly normal to me: rowing at 7AM on the Thames, wearing a gown (kind of toga) to formal dinners, and standing up when the fellows walk in, having lectures given by professors who have written many articles or even books which I have read before. However, only one year ago I was about to submit my application for the M.Phil. programme in Economics at this University, and could only dream of getting accepted (no that’s not just modesty). In 2010 I completed my bachelor programme Algemene economie at Tilburg University, and after I conditionally received the Excellence Scholarship, I started considering the option to pursue a Master’s programme abroad. The condition upon which you receive the Excellence Scholarship is that you either do a Researchmaster’s programme in Tilburg or a Master’s programme abroad. Whilst weighing up the different options, I got really excited about studying abroad, and after my thesis supervisor gave me the final push, I started searching for potential universities. In the end I applied to five universities, and since the application process is basically the same for all universities, I applied to Oxford as well. When I received offers from several of the universities I applied to, I was already incredibly happy, but seriously, you should have seen me when I received the e-mail with the offer from Oxford University! I was flabbergasted but of course in heaven, and after I celebrated at a party the same evening, I checked my e-mail the next morning again to make sure I hadn’t misread it.

Luckily I didn’t misread the e-mail: I was accepted and would begin the M.Phil programme in Economics in the beautiful student city of Oxford on the 27th of September 2011. You might find it strange, but some students here at Oxford talk about how amazing it would be to study at Harvard or MIT, for instance. Even though it feels very natural for me to be here now, when I hear people discussing the above, I usually try to think back to how unreal it all seemed only a year ago. The message of this story is, although it might be a bit hidden: never underestimate yourself or your degree from Tilburg University. First of all, Tilburg University is very well known for its expertise in Economics abroad. Secondly, if you aim or even secretly dream of something, just go for it, because your possibilities and abilities are much greater than you might expect!

But anyway, back to Oxford, only 1013 words left, and I already started with too little! I will therefore tell you about some of my Oxford ‘highlights’. The principal reason why I’m here is to study, which in my opinion is definitely a highlight, so let us start with that. As I already wrote above, I enrolled this academic year in the M.Phil. programme in Economics. This is a two year course in which every year about 60 people enroll, of whom approximately 70% are originally from outside the UK. Every weekday we have lectures from 9:30 (perfect starting time if you ask me) until 13:00 in either Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, or Econometrics. In addition to that, a class about two times a week. The range of topics taught during these courses is very broad and ranges from time series analysis in Econometrics, to dynamic optimization in Macroeconomics and general equilibrium theory in Microeconomics. As we only have three exams in June which determine our entire grade for these courses, we need to hand in two problem sets every week, to make sure we keep up with the work and are not taking it all too relaxed. You might believe this is strange as well, but even though the grades we receive for the problem sets don’t count towards your final grade, people (including me) are sometimes working during the night to finish them. This illustrates what I really love about studying at this university: everybody is so intrinsically motivated about understanding subjects thoroughly and learning new things. Also most people, obviously not only in my programme but in general, are extremely passionate about the subject they are studying, but at the same time still very outgoing. I will tell you more about the latter below. To finish my ode to Oxford University: the lectures are overall very interesting and discuss mostly things I haven’t heard before. In addition to our lectures, there are numerous possibilities to visit seminars every week, in which professors or PhD students present their recent findings. This, I believe is very interesting and enriching as it enables you to connect theory and empirics and broadens your scope.

But on to the next ‘highlight’: the collegiate system. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the collegiate system, here follows a short explanation. In Oxford there are 38 colleges. When you would like to study at Oxford University, you need to be accepted and subsequently become a member of one of the colleges. Some of them are divided into subject families, such as social sciences, but usually a college accepts students in almost every area. This ensures that you become acquainted not only with students working in your subject area, but you can also get to talk to or even become best friends with people working in completely different fields. Besides connecting students, a college provides, among other things, accommodation, a library, a gym, a bar, and a buffet three times a day to its students. In addition, a college has its own activities committee and cultural and sports societies. Every college is therefore a kind of small community within Oxford. As your college already provides you with so many opportunities to live, study, eat, sport, or party with your fellow students, I believe you would need to put in a lot of effort to become lonely whilst studying in Oxford! Another unique aspect of studying in here, are the formal dinners organized at the college halls. The frequency of those dinners depends on your college, but the idea is basically the same everywhere: you dress up smart, sit down in a hall which could be the set of a Harry Potter movie, and enjoy a three course dinner for usually even less than the price of a starter in a normal restaurant. You can probably understand why I love Oxford so much!

Although I and most of my fellow students spend most of our time studying, there is still some time left to enjoy all the things Oxford has to offer beyond our studies. First of all, I can’t think of a cultural, social, or sports society which doesn’t exist in Oxford. Ranging from underwater hockey to the Star Trek society, Oxford has it all! I decided to be a little bit less original, but still really fun, and become a member of my college’s boat club. Like about 500 fellow students, I started in September as a novice (which is jargon for never having rowed before this year) at our boat club. We just started getting into the basics and practiced rowing with 8 people at the same time only once, when we got our first race, the Christ Church Regatta. This is the first big boat race of the year in which only novices could participate. As would be expected, because only novices take part in this boat race, it is hilarious to watch (at least the first days when everybody is still in the race) since some boats crash into the bank, bump into competing boats, or even capsize whilst everyone is still in the boat. Nevertheless, I can assure you that it’s still very exciting to participate in. Already after a few weeks of rowing experience, you have the possibility to race and really feel the team spirit before, during, and after the race.

At the moment our rowing schedule has become a lot more rigorous and intensive, to optimally prepare us for the next race. When I get up at 6AM for the fourth time in a row to cycle to the boathouse, exhaust myself again on the rowing machines for 40 minutes, or have circuit training, I feel like a real athlete and am sometimes quite tired. But on the river, surrounded by the beautiful nature, and feeling everybody in the boat working together and improving quickly to row even faster, I realize every time again, it’s definitely worth it!

To conclude: Studying in Oxford is probably different from the ‘normal’ exchange experience, as the main focus is on studying and there is less time available to explore a country and its culture. Also doing an entire Master’s programme abroad obviously takes you longer than a few months, and might therefore seem a step too far. However, I would strongly recommend it to everybody considering this option (and also to everyone else), because once being here, the step seems way smaller that you thought it was. Even though Tilburg University is already a very good University, and I really enjoyed studying there, I definitely wouldn’t want to miss out on this experience!