Oxford students believe they are the “worst behaved in Britain” suggests a recent survey conducted as part of a new MTV series, ‘The Freshers’.
The survey asked students from eight universities, including Bristol, Manchester and Essex, which establishment they thought had the most badly behaved students.
87% of responses from Oxford students named their own university, topping the poll.
One third claimed to get so “out of their heads” on drink that they urinate or vomit in public at least once a week, while three-quarters boasted of engaging in sexual activity “whenever they had the chance”.
The findings have been largely met with amusement by Oxford students, and most who gave their reactions to Cherwell felt that the survey must have been answered with a strong sense of irony.
Hector Page, the new Balliol JCR Dean, charged by the College’s constitution with “enforcing discipline in the JCR,” did not seem overly worried by the revelations.
“Working hard earns you the right to pints, and we work really hard.
“As a newly-elected JCR Dean, I plan to be extraordinarily understanding of loutish drunkards, to the extent that I vow to make full use of the college’s excellent bar to help me get into the mindset of such individuals”.
However, not all students were convinced about the appeal of this “mindset”.
One student, Chris Gross, remained unimpressed by it; “To be honest, I like nothing better than getting drunk, fighting with men, demeaning women and pissing all over Zizzi’s. My ideal night ends with running around trying to put tiny hats on small animals before falling asleep in a bush covered in my own vomit. And what makes it even better is that the tax payer is funding it all, and it’s not like it’ll impact on my work because I don’t have really have any”.
Yet the president of one college’s Maths Society, a self-described “nerd” disagreed with Gross. He argued that there was “only goodness” in the “laddish activities” revealed by the survey.
“I am a fan of the louts,” he said. “They enrich our bops, our bars and our lives”.
Most students strongly agreed with a University spokesperson, who said, “We think there might be a bit of exaggeration in the tellings of the survey.
One student stressed that, “Some of the stuff my mates get up to at other universities makes me look like a little schoolgirl”.
He was seconded by his college rugby captain, who argued vehemently that “in an environment of people who would rather listen to someone’s musings on the self than watch England play rugby, it is no wonder that some people consider themselves to be ‘top lads’.”
“The ability to down a pint is so hard to come by in Oxford,” he continued, “that whenever someone possesses it, they immediately think they are some sort of super-lad.
“I have seen many members of the sycophantically adored Blues rugby team not even come close to doing a strawpedo in a respectable time.
“On the other side of the coin, there are those people who leave their Cicero and Hume once in a blue moon.
“When that blue moon comes around however, they barely drink enough vodka-lemonade to make a small hamster tipsy and they then proclaim that they are so wild and fun, deluding themselves into thinking that they are breaking free from their self-imposed shackles of over-working.”
Students have concluded that “while there is undeniably a degree of loutishness in Oxford,” the MTV survey tells us “less about students’ behaviour and more about what they consider ‘loutish’ to be”.
