It’s almost week 6 of Michaelmas term (there are three—Michaelmas, Hilary and Trinity) and even though it sounds cliché, the time is flying by. It seems like only a few days since I arrived at Heathrow, made my way to Green Templeton College, and found my new home for this year. Almost since that moment, my time has been packed with exciting speakers, fun pub nights and, for the past 5 weeks, classes!

As you might have guessed from the names of the terms, Oxford tends to do things a little differently from other universities. On Matriculation day, we all dressed up in “sub-fusc” with our college-mates and listened to a speech in Latin in the beautiful Sheldonian Theatre. Very quickly we all felt part of the centuries old Oxford experience. It has been really fun going to different colleges for meals and events, such as dinner at Christ Church (in the Harry Potter dining hall!) and the HalloQueen bop at St Anthony’s College.

So far I have been trying to get involved in activities throughout the University, but there are so many cool things going on, it is impossible to take advantage of them all. Some of my favourites have been being part of the Peer Support program before classes started, where I and 9 other MBAs went through 30 hours of training to learn listening skills and ways to support our classmates through this hectic, fun and sometimes stressful year. I’ve started practicing basketball with Oxford’s second team, which has been a blast. I’ve loved being involved in college activities and meeting people from other disciplines and broadening my own experience in that way. And of course, I’ve loved hanging out with the other MBAs in various settings such as International Development/Social Enterprise drinks at the historical Turf Tavern on Mondays and the weekly Friday happy hours in the School’s common room.

Does it seem as though I’ve forgotten something? Oh yes, there is some studying happening in all of these activities. Actually, we are learning so much at such a quick pace that I can already see the way I think about problems changing, which is really exciting. We are all starting to think about what we will do for our Entrepreneurship project, and it is so much fun throwing business ideas around with classmates from all over the world. But first, I have to get through exams which are in (gulp) 5 weeks!