Having recognised the futility of awarding people degrees for studying other people’s languages, the absurdity of giving someone a degree for studying their own language is impossible to deny. As English students would say with their penchant for using other people’s words to repeat other people’s thoughts (in most subjects, it is called plagiarism), it follows like “an overwhelming question”.

You cannot award degrees for reading novels, any more than you can for walking barefoot on beaches, having drunken sex with strangers or all the other things people look forward to doing on their holidays when the pressures of real work temporarily abate. Now of course English students will point out that the degree is English Language and Literature (“It’s really two degrees you know”).  

If English students did no more than read and repeat what others had written, they would be a mild but bearable irritant. Unfortunately, there is something about the degree itself, or those attracted to study it, which leads them to believe that they are destined to create great literature, as well as to study it. They believe Oxford is a creative food chain, and that just as they have enriched their lives by reading the works of others, so their fellow students can enrich their infinitely poorer lives by suffering their own execrable efforts at poetry, or (if fate is being particularly unkind), their “first” novel.  Who has not endured the utter agony of sitting through some adolescent sonnet, wondering what on earth can be said at the end which isn’t too rude but will firmly close off the prospect of any more readings from their Moleskine exercise book of horrors.

An observer sitting in the lecture hall might notice something rather odd – uncanny, one might say – all the English students look the same. There are broad types of course: our female English students comprising of the long-haired, Keatsian Romantics or alternatively the post-modernist “fuck the canon” look with the piercings and doc-martins to prove it. The male English students are even easier to predict: I’m looking at you slightly-stubbly specs-man, with the ankle boots and leather satchel.

As with all the degrees considered for exclusion, there are entries on the credit side of the ledger as well as debits. No other subject can have contributed so much high quality hair to the Oxford scene. Certainly no other set of students can have committed so much love and care to their own hair. The sight of English finalists walking to Schools shaking their locks in a light breeze is one of nature’s great events, the image of lions in the Serengeti coming irresistibly to mind.

And they would have greeted the original title for these articles – “Six Degrees for Separation” – with a smug nod of recognition rather than the look of blank incomprehension it actually received. But these are mere makeweights in the overall balance. If it makes it any easier, they can be given the satisfaction of choosing their own epitaph from whatever they happen to be studying, but the knell of parting day has tolled for English nonetheless.

Much has been made of the announcement that Oxford is to have its first woman as Vice Chancellor, with many hailing this as a symbol of progress. A statement from OUSU, not seen by some members of the elected executive prior to its release, welcomed the news, but has since disappeared from the OUSU website. Since then people have been reluctant to call a spade a spade, and point out that Richardson is, well, just another Vice Chancellor in the same mould as that pinstriped clown, Andrew Hamilton.

On the greatest threat facing universities at the moment, which is that of creeping marketisation, Richardson has shown herself to be at odds with both the principles and policies of our students’ union and the views of students. In 2010 she told journalists, “£9,000 a year is very little to pay for a St Andrews education,” which presumably from the perspective of a former Harvard administrator could be true.

In the same interview, Richardson called the marketisation of education “corrosive”, but if that’s the case, then why hasn’t she called for universities to be publicly funded? In Michaelmas we had a debate across the university as to whether or not OUSU would back the NUS’s call for free education to be paid for by greater taxation on business and those with higher incomes. The vast majority of JCRs that debated this voted in favour, as did OUSU Council. Louise Richardson should be told sooner rather than later that students do not agree with her that £9,000 a year is “very little” to pay and that we will not accept quietly any comments of the kind Andrew Hamilton enjoys making, calling for higher fees.

The role of Vice Chancellor, while questionable in itself in a university that ought to be run by and for students, workers and the wider community, is presumably to secure the long-term future and act in the best interests of all stakeholders.

The greatest threats facing us are the international education companies like Apollo and Pearson and the policy-makers who want to rip open higher education to the forces of the market. Overcrowded classes, a casualised postgraduate workforce, pay cuts to the cleaners and librarians while management cronies rake in six-figure salaries. These are all hallmarks of the processes unleashed into education by the Blair years and accelerated by the Coalition.

Vice-chancellors play a vital role in shaping education’s future. Richardson will work with the Russell Group and Universities UK, the VCs’ club, who tend to adopt a pro-fees stance with the government. In their goal of securing more cash for their institution, these vice-chancellors prefer that the tuition fee cap be lifted than for the government to raise taxes on millionaires like themselves.

When the next big tuition fees fight comes up, I very much doubt that Louise Richardson will be on the side of students and those who work in this university – and I don’t think her appointment is the godsend that some people are hoping for.

Pretty much since the election, many people have been talking about the government’s plan to scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. The narrative of those nasty Tories depriving us of our civil liberties and turning us into a police state has already developed. Whilst a very easy narrative to run and buy, it is mind-blowing how the debate has been lacking in any knowledge of the facts.

First and foremost: the government is not proposing to ‘scrap’ any human rights. This policy has nothing to do with rights and liberties, it is about changing our relation with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. At the moment, any judicial decision made by the Supreme Court in London can be overturned by the Strasbourg court, which kind of renders the Supreme Court, well, not really supreme. It is fully consistent with a strong belief in human rights and civil liberties to say the British courts should be sovereign in Britain.

The number of people who seem to have convinced themselves that there were no human rights in this country before 1998 is quite staggering. Was pre-1998 Britain a place where no civil liberties were protected, where the Crown Prosecution Service randomly picked out people it pleased to imprison without any good reason, was there no freedom of press, religion or expression? The idea that we need to be ruled by a foreign court to enjoy civil liberties in Britain is simply absurd.

To claim that there is correlation between one’s membership of the ECHR and the extent to which civil liberties are protected is quite frankly factually incorrect – and let’s not even talk about causation. Where do you think rights and liberties are protected more strongly: in Albania or Canada? Azerbaijan or Australia? Russia or New Zealand? These are meant to be rhetorical questions, by the way.

I am not saying the Strasbourg court is a useless and evil institution. In fact, I think it has done a lot of good in many countries with a weaker record on human rights, many of which are post-Communist countries – in the Czech Republic, for example, Strasbourg helped rectify the poor treatment of the Roma community in the 1990s.

British common law has been the basis of human rights legislation throughout the world. We have had freedoms and rights in this country since even before the Magna Carta. The government’s policy merely reasserts the historical state of aff airs: that there is a convention – incorporated into British law – on whose content virtually everyone agrees which guides British courts in their decisions on human rights issues.

Before getting all angry and agitated, let’s just pause for a second. This policy does not eradicate human rights. The only thing this would do is to say that if the British Supreme Court comes to a judgement which disagrees with judges in Strasbourg, it should be the British Court which is supreme in Britain. I actually think that’s quite a good idea.

And may I just add: this policy was in the manifesto and people voted for it!

Sometimes, it’s important to hold your hands up when you get it wrong. When OUSU passed a policy to support a free 5th Week, I opposed it, thinking it would take away from the other important challenges facing students with mental health issues in this university. I was wrong. The campaign led by WomCam this 5th Week has demonstrated that a reading week would be enormously beneficial to many students. But more importantly than that, it’s challenged some of the entrenched prejudices we hold around mental health: the way that we have normalised mental health problems so much that it’s become normal to be ‘blue’ in 5th Week, and that debilitating stress is called ‘pressure’ and ‘just part of the Oxford experience’.

In order to make this university environment one which is truly accessible and welcoming to those with mental health problems, we can’t simply change policies. Unfortunately, we must do more than just criticise the University and colleges, although there is no denying that there is plenty which we can and should criticise. We also need to challenge those underlying attitudes which are present within us: among our peers and among this student body. The WomCam campaign to #Free5thWeek has challenged some of those attitudes by making us recognise that the way we talk about work pressure at Oxford is not acceptable. We shouldn’t dismiss and trivialise the real and unacceptable effects of this university’s work structure on many of our students as ‘tradition’ and ‘why we’re such a great uni’.

There’s so much more that we need to do in this regard. And it starts with every single one of us: we need to look at our attitudes and ask ourselves if they are making students with mental health problems feel valued and welcomed, or worthless and excluded.

Just go ahead and ask yourself some questions. Have you ever challenged someone as to why they have decided to rusticate? Have you ever thought to yourself, ‘They’ve just done it because they didn’t prepare well enough for exams.’ Have you ever turned up to a tutorial, essay in hand, only to find your tute partner hasn’t completed their work for this week, and put it down to that student being lazy, or just spending too much of their time in Park End and Bridge? Have you ever seen a common room officer not fully commit to their role for a few weeks, and instead of trying to support them, decided that they simply aren’t fit for the position? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, ask yourself a few more.

What if that person who rusticated didn’t manage to prepare fully for their exams because of depression? What if that tute partner without an essay in hand didn’t complete their essay because of anxiety: and found themselves in Park End and Bridge because they were genuinely terrified of losing all their friends if they didn’t go? What if that common room officer had received some terrible news a few weeks ago, and is so keen to get back on track with their role if only someone would ask to make sure they’re doing alright?

Mental health issues can affect people in so many different ways. The ways that they can distort people’s perception of the world a round them can prevent people suffering from mentalillness from getting done what they want or need to do.

If you ever come across a friend or peer who seems to be falling behind, or being unreliable, just remember these three key things. They almost certainly aren’t being lazy. They almost certainly want, desperately, to be able to get on with what they want and need to do. And those attitudes, as discussed above, are likely to be just as big a factor in preventing them from doing so as the mental health problems which they face.

So constantly question your attitudes. Most importantly: give people the benefit of the doubt. And do whatever you can, as much as you feel able or comfortable to do (with no judgment for being unable or uncomfortable doing so), to remind people that they are welcome here, that they are wanted, and that they are of immeasurable value. And remind them in any way you can, that no matter what is holding them back: they are brilliant, and deserve to be at this university.

Yes

Sara Semic

As much as I would like to say that I geek out over my course and take great pride in my essays, starting with the outline and fi lling it in gradually like a painting with nuance and depth, the reality is that I bash it out in order to submit it by the deadline, and hope that it’s legible. As a humanities student blessed with a schedule unfettered by labs and a workload that can be crammed into one arduous weekend, perhaps I ought to check my degree privilege before waving aside the case for the importance of the Oxford degree.

However, with so much flexibility and freedom it seems a waste to spend my time chained to a desk, going through the reading with a finetooth comb when I can achieve just as much by skimming the texts. And if, according to the old maxim, ‘the vast majority of humanities students get a 2:1 anyway,’ then why would I want to look back on my nine short terms of university and remember the abyss of the Gladstone Link, or obsessing over the origins of WWI?

The real privilege of being at Oxford lies not in the unique tutorial system nor the abhorrent subfusc, but the roulette of societies and extracurricular opportunities available – from student journalism to quidditch and everything in between. At Oxford you have the privilege of being able to try out things that you’ve never done before, and most probably won’t have the chance to once you’re stuck in the rut of the nine to five. It is by joining the countless societies, or indeed starting your own project, that you can discover where your true interests lie (once you’ve realised that your heart just isn’t in Macroeconomics). Plus, to those of you complaining about catastrophic backlogs, given our obscenely long breaks in between, we have more than enough time to catch up on lost sleep and missed work and still binge on Netflix.

On a purely social level, the importance of your extracurricular ties is a no brainer. We defi ne ourselves here in relation to the diff erent Oxford ‘scenes’, distinguishing the thesps from the rowers and the union hacks, rather than the Classicists from the Theologians. On top of this, it has to be remembered that without any society allegiances you run the risk of falling off the radar and sacrifi cing any chance of a spot in Cherwell’s illustrious Top 40 list.

Jokes aside, getting involved in the wider university network allows you to escape the college bubble and meet more like-minded people, who share your interests and niche tastes. Is that not more valuable than attaining a distinction on an essay or a tute sheet?

But even for the career-minded, your extra curricular involvements are all the more vital, both for building future contacts and for standing out from the legion of other students hoping to climb the greasy pole of success in a Magic Circle firm. For the careerists, your time at Oxford is as much about rampant CV building as it is churning out essays and attending lectures. Indeed, being able to show that you can head the Guild and CapitOX whilst holding down a 2:1 is what will stand you in good stead in the overcrowded job market. Employers want to see that you can juggle multiple commitments, lead projects and solve real problems. As much as your tutor will try to impress upon you that your self-worth rests on you acquiring a First, employers will tell you it really isn’t the be-all and end-all, and can even be off -putting for those who think all Oxbridge off spring are just socially inept creatures.

Furthermore, it’s easy to become so absorbed and caught up in the ivory-tower learning of your degree that you lose a sense of perspective and forget that there is a world beyond the dreaming spires. Countless societies and organisations actively engage with political debates and try to tackle the problems that face us all. The Oxford Hub, for example, gives you the chance to make a real diff erence in the wider community, rather than just theorise about solutions in your essays or tutorials.

But does it need to be an either/or question? Surveys have shown that those who maintain an extracurricular commitment are more likely to receive a First in their examination compared with those who ‘just study’, so there’s no reason to sacrifi ce an interest for the sake of your degree either. And I doubt that I’ll look back on my reel of Oxford memories wishing I had had more sleep.

No

Josh Caminiti

I feel somewhat obliged to begin my piece with the small caveat that the irony is not lost on me, and neither, I hope, on my readers, of using an extracurricular engagement (Cherwell) to argue against the relative value of extracurriculars.

This is a helpful, crystallising irony, as it is to show that my true thesis is not to advance a scholarly hermeticism (as Chaucer’s ‘Sire Clerk of Oxenford’ does), or that extracurriculars are wasteful or useless, and should yield in favour of our academic pursuits in every instance, but rather that it would generally be better for us to excel academically than in extracurriculars. However, the essence of the old adage preserved in Brideshead Revisited that to get anything above a third, if not a first, is a waste of time, still chimes a ring of truth for many students. They feel that to be at Oxford means, firstly, to be at Oxford, and secondly (only secondly) to study here. But the 1920s, and the frolicking days of the ‘gentleman’s Third’, are long gone.

To move past a fashionable evaluative nihilism, it would be helpful to establish the grounds on which one thing can be said to be more important than another, or, value-conferring properties. An exhaustive purview of them would neither be commensurate with the allotted length of the piece at hand nor the patience of its readers, and so we will be restricted to considering two: being beneficial for our futures (loosely interpreted) and being fulfilling (socially, existentially, epistemologically etc).

Although, as an arts student, I try my hardest to avoid thinking about future employment prospects, this debate would be incomplete without considering them. When it comes to that great and beckoning hereafter, the ‘real world’, there stands the question, ‘Would I value more walking away from university with several solid extracurricular achievements and engagements under my belt, or a swanky scholar’s gown, a relative mastery of my subject-matter, and the pedigree confirmed by a well-respected degree?’ Oxford boasts that over 95 per cent of undergrads find themselves employed or engaged in further studies six months after graduation, so it seems like, whichever side you take in this debate, you will be ‘just fine’.

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If we had to venture a guess as to why Oxford students seem to do so well on the market, I am confident the answer would lie in the universally-recognised high standard of education we have received, indicating both a passably industrious work ethic and commendable learning. In the outstanding majority of cases, employers tend to strongly favour applicants with good degrees in a relevant field compared to those who have dabbled in extracurricular activities. For a minority of students, perhaps, their extracurricular activities will lead them away from the path set out from their degree: but for every rower who participates in the Olympics there are thousands more law students who become lawyers, economics students who go into finance, and medicine students who go into medicine. Our degrees have, for the most of us, already plotted the trajectory of our future lives, and to excel along this path is to excel in the future.

Il faut cultiver notre jardin – what is too often overlooked, and often can only be appreciated in retrospect, is the intense fulfilment and self-cultivation that our academic life can provide us with, in a way that equals if not outstrips the fruits of extracurriculars. Putting aside sloppy considerations of utility for a moment, the knowledge and skills that we receive as part of our degrees (provided we maintain our end of the bargain as students) are of inestimable value, and “the best provision for old age” (as an aside: spurious Aristotle quotes are the best Aristotle quotes). I genuinely enjoy my degree, or rather, the content of which it is so constituted, and for me some of the greatest opportunities offered by Oxford are to be found in a reading list, not a boat house.

A good education teaches us to delight in the education received; Hamlet to an English student, or Cicero to a classicist, or (even) the Krebs Cycle to a biochemist. To respond informatively and creatively to questions that matter to us is one of the noblest tasks we can undertake and a fundamental part of getting a degree here.

This is the only time in our lives where we will have the outrageous privilege of dedicating our days to the increase of knowledge in an ever-growing depository (or rather flame, for ‘education is not the filling of a bucket’), with access to some of the greatest educational resources in the world and under brilliant tutelage.

To see our degrees as slavish contracts we have unwittingly entered into, with extracurriculars our only hope of real fulfilment and enjoyment, is too see incorrectly. In all this discussion, I am reminded of the words of Ecclesiastes (non-inclusive, blame King James) that, “to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God”. Now, to avoid charges of hypocrisy, I should really get started on that essay.