College Life Blog

Over the coming weeks we'll be showcasing some of the experiences of students who have taken advantage of Christ Church's summer bursary programme. Summer bursaries give students funding to take part in educational and career development opportunities over the long vacation. Applications are now open for 2022. To see the eligibility criteria and to...

Christ Church Cathedral Choir has just returned from a successful tour of Sweden. Following two postponements because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the tour was a much-anticipated return to international travel for the Choir. Along the way, we were very glad to be reunited with alumni of the House as well as friends and supporters of the...

This year, Mental Health Awareness Week (Monday 9 - Sunday 15 May) takes ‘loneliness’ as its focus. Despite common misconceptions, loneliness isn’t about the number of people we have around us, the amount of time we spend alone, or the ageing process. Rather, it is the feeling that arises when there is a discrepancy between the social...

Over the coming weeks we'll be showcasing some of the experiences of students who have taken advantage of Christ Church's summer bursary programme. Summer bursaries give students funding to take part in educational and career development opportunities over the long vacation. Applications have just opened for 2022. To see the eligibility criteria...

The OURCS website does not appear to be up to date so this webpage may help http://eodg.atm.ox.ac.uk/user/dudhia/rowing/torpids/ Thursday’s results may have been less impressive than those on day one, but every single crew put in a huge performance for the House.  A summary of the day: M4      -1 M3   ...

The GCR has announced a new Christ Church college pet: an English Longhorn newly named Eeva. The cow, currently wintering in Binsey, west Oxford, will come to Christ Church Meadow in the summer months to graze with the herd. We chose her out of three unnamed ones for her bright fur and due to the distinctive shape of her horns. She is...

If you or someone close to you is going through a difficult time or coping with a condition or stressor, sometimes reading about these situations can help. The Library works with the Welfare Team to purchase books to support those seeking to understand and manage health and wellbeing using helpful reading. The Reading Well programme is an excellent...

In the first of two College Life blogs inspired by Mental Health Awareness Week, Revd Clare Hayns, Christ Church’s Welfare Coordinator and College Chaplain, discusses the importance of taking the time to focus on our mental well-being.    This week (May 10th-17th) is Mental Health Awareness Week where we focus on this...

In the first of two blogs by students currently working from home, Ayman D’Souza (3rd year, Medicine) describes the challenges of lockdown life and learning. Like many other students, I'm tackling this term online once again. Of course it's not the same to be doing university from home, but this virtual world also presents lots of new...

Linnea Drexhage, Christ Church's GCR Treasurer and a Wellcome Trust DPhil student, describes working in a lab during the pandemic. The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology is one of the few institutes in Oxford that is still open for all students, researchers and postdocs who need to continue their research during this new lockdown. Earlier last...

Anna Betteridge, Women's Captain of the Christ Church Boat Club, describes how the College's rowers are coping with Covid. ‘Unprecedented’ is certainly the word of the moment, and the start to college rowing’s 2020-21 season has been no exception. As an institution which has stood for more than 200 years, though, it may come as no surprise...

Emilė Radytė , D.Phil. candidate in Neuroscience, reflects on starting a graduate degree at Christ Church during the pandemic. Choosing to go to graduate school, whether that be for a single year or an extended research programme, a part-time or professional programme, is a significant decision. Graduate students tend to come from a very wide...

Giulia da Cruz, JCR President and a third-year student studying Modern Languages, reflects on her first weeks back in residence at Christ Church after lockdown. Michaelmas 2020 was never going to be a normal term. However, after a year abroad and a global pandemic, I couldn’t wait to come back. My new responsibilities as JCR President meant...

Our latest blog explores what life is like for the few students who have remained in residence during the pandemic. Twelve weeks since almost all Christ Church students were sent home, and six weeks into remote Trinity term, college life still continues for the few students that have found themselves quarantined in the House, albeit in quite a...

Our fourth blog looks at Christ Church’s gardens and the Meadow as seen through the eyes of our Head Gardener. In common with much of the UK, the garden team were put into lockdown on March 24th and since then there have been no members of the department on site, although we are now working on plans to get at least some staff back in. We have...

Our second blog focuses on student welfare and the work our Wardens are doing to keep everyone connected and supported. As one of Christ Church’s Wardens, along with Nader Raafat and Emily Swift, I am part of the College’s welfare team. As with the rest of Christ Church, and indeed society more broadly, we have had to adapt to face the...

Fifth Week of Trinity Term sees the return of Summer Eights! This is the annual rowing competition in which crews from each college battle it out in ‘bumps’ racing (essentially aiming to crash into or overtake the boat in front in order to move up the rankings) on the River Thames. It’s a fun week, not only for the rowers, but also for...

From Friday 15th to Saturday 23rd February, Christ Church Arts Week took over the college! Organised by Annika Schlemm, JCR Arts Rep, the week included a wide range of events and activities, including talks and screenings, workshops and classes, and tours of the Picture Gallery. You can find out more about the events that took place during Arts...

Female academic staff at Christ Church work on a huge variety of different research areas, from Music and Philosophy to Chemistry and Astrophysics! Find out more about some of the amazing things they've achieved over the past year...   Christ Church’s women of the SCR recently joined forces in a new initiative launched by Dr Leah...

Earlier this academic year Dr Leah Morabito, Millard and Lee Alexander Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Galaxy Evolution, came up with the idea of a new initiative for women in the SCR, allowing them to meet each other at events like lunches and dinners, to share knowledge and experience and, in the future,...

February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. We have a huge number of inspirational women among both our staff and students, including many working in science who achieve some incredible things. To celebrate their achievements, here’s a summary of news featuring our women in science from the past year – from...

February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, declared by the UN with the aim of promoting full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls, and further achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. To mark the day, we’re taking the opportunity to celebrate...

February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, declared by the UN with the aim of promoting full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls, and further achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. To mark the day, we’re taking the opportunity to celebrate...

In this post we're finding out more about Christ Church's David Weller, who's not only an assistant gardener in our Gardens and Meadows team, but is also a talented artist! From his paintings inspired by the people and places at Christ Church, to the ways in which his background in art influences his gardening, discover more about the varied skills...

DOOR 23 Step into Christ Church through this gate and you're stepping through 500 years of history. Tom Gate is the main entrance to the college - students, staff and visitors to the Cathedral enter through what is, as far as we know, still the original gate, in place ever since the college was founded in the 1520s. The gate in Tom Tower is...

DOOR 20 Step through this doorway and enter Christ Church's impressive 16th-century kitchens. For nearly 500 years talented chefs have been fuelling the college's staff and students from this very room, preparing delicious meals with ever more modern equipment in a space that still retains features from throughout half a millennium of history. ...

DOOR 16 From a brewhouse to the home of one of the most important literary figures of the 20th Century – there can’t be many buildings that have seen this much change! This door marks the entrance to a cottage lived in by W H Auden, who returned to Christ Church, his alma mater, in later life.   This building is hidden away just to...

DOOR12 This door was never even meant to exist, and was added at the last minute after a sudden change of plan. But why would a building not need a door at the entrance? Because the Library, where this door is found, was originally intended to only be on the first floor of the building, with the ground floor open to the elements. Until a bequest...

DOOR 8 An enduring political statement that's still visible nearly two hundred years after it was hammered into this door, the 'No Peel' door is unmissable in its prominent location at the foot of the Hall stairs. Which was exactly the intention of the perpetrators of this action – and the mark they left both on the door and Christ Church more...

DOOR 4 When is a door not a door? When a faint outline in the wall is all that remains of a doorway that was once used by royalty…   You might miss this outline in the wall on your way up our beautiful Hall staircase. But if you did, you’d be missing an intriguing part of Christ Church’s history. This rectangle in the stone is...

As part of our commemoration of Remembrance Day and the centenary of the Armistice, we're using our College Life blog to feature the perspective of Christ Church alumni who have served in the armed forces, to shed light on their experiences, thanking them for their service and appreciating the role they have played and the things that they have...

Steven Grahl is a sought-after conductor and keyboard player, Conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford and President of the Incorporated Association of Organists. He served as Director of Music at Peterborough Cathedral from 2014-2018, where he was responsible for training the Cathedral Choir. Steven arrived at Christ Church a month ago. So after...

Freshers' week is almost upon us! At Oxford, this comes in 0th week of Michaelmas Term, which is the week before full term starts again (in 1st week). During this week, students who’ve already started at Oxford will return to their colleges for the new academic year, and first year students, known as Freshers, will arrive in Oxford for the...

When I was applying for university I went to what seemed like hundreds of Open Days. One of the main things I learned (other than to remember to bring a bag for the mountain of leaflets I was given) was to make sure I had a plan for when I got there, so that I would get as much out of the day as possible. So this article is intended to provide a...

14th-20th May is Mental Health Awareness Week. University can be stressful at times, but there are plenty of sources of support and advice within college and the wider University that can help to alleviate some of the stress. In this post Nader Raafat (Raafi), the JCR's Male Welfare Rep, talks about the ways in which the college system and the...

14th-20th May is Mental Health Awareness Week. University can be stressful at times, but there are plenty of sources of support and advice within college and the wider University that can help to alleviate some of the stress. In this post Gayathri Karthik, the GCR Vacation Officer, talks about her recently established role, the first of its kind in...

14th-20th May is Mental Health Awareness Week. University can be stressful at times, but there are plenty of sources of support and advice within college and the wider University that can help to alleviate some of the stress. In this post Clare Hayns, our Chaplain and Welfare Coordinator, tells us a bit more about welfare at Christ Church, and her...

May the Fourth be with you... It's Star Wars day! Christ Church has connections with the series itself, but we thought we’d also take a look at all of the other ways in which our students, staff and alumni are involved in research into space and galaxies far, far away. First up, we have the fact that a Christ Church alumnus has...

In our new feature, Alumni Spotlight, our Development Executive Aileen Thomson finds out more about some of the fascinating and varied things our alumni have got up to since leaving Christ Church. --- Bite-sized ‘Ted Talks’ from lawyers, for lawyers We caught up with Ben White (2002, Modern History) and Rosie Collins (2002,...

Over the past year we've had a number of fascinating stories relating to alumnae and their achievements once they've left Christ Church, including honours from the Queen, book publications, and inclusion in a Bodleian exhibition! Take a look at some of the stories below to find out more about the amazing work that's been done by female members...

Our students get up to some pretty amazing things both in college and further afield - from sport to music and photography, they've amassed some brilliant achievements over the past year. Here's a quick guide to what some of our female students have done since the last International Women's Day in 2017 - click on the links to read the full...

Seventh week of Hilary Term sees the return of 'Torpids', a series of rowing races held yearly at Oxford. Crews from each college participate in ‘bumps races’ along a 1800m course on the Isis (River Thames) from Wednesday to Saturday – over 130 men’s and women’s crews take part, with six men’s divisions and five for women, and...

Dr Kerri Donaldson Hanna joined Christ Church in 2017, and she is also a UK Space Agency Aurora Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on understanding the formation and evolution of planetary crusts of airless bodies like the Moon, Mercury and asteroids. You can find out more about her on her personal website and her...

Dr Leah Morabito joined Christ Church as the Millard and Lee Alexander Postdoctoral Research Fellow and a Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Galaxy Evolution in 2017. She was Co-President and Co-Founder of the Society for Women in Physics at the University of Michigan, and is currently Outreach Officer at the Oxford Society of Women in Physics. You...

Tutorials are an intrinsic part of the Oxford experience, and they're one of the many things that have contributed towards giving Oxford its excellent reputation for teaching. But they can seem quite daunting if you’re not really sure about what will be involved, especially if you’ve heard the term but aren’t quite sure how it differs to...

Interviews at Oxford can feel very daunting, and it can be easy to think that this is your only chance to impress the tutors and win your place at the University. But this isn’t the case – interviews are just one part of the whole Oxford application process, and they’re used along with the rest of your application (including your personal...

We're now into 6th week of Michaelmas Term, which means that the first of Oxford's famously short 8 week terms is nearly over! Oxford terms tend to run from 0th to 8th week for undergraduates, although you may find yourself starting earlier and/or staying longer depending on your course and if you have coursework deadlines. But generally, you’ll...

You may not be a typically outdoorsy type, but it's always good to get out in the open air every now and then, especially in the lead up to exams so that you have a chance to clear your head, get some exercise, and take in plenty of Vitamin D. And even in the autumn and winter months, Oxford’s full of beautiful trees, and there are loads of...

Sub fusc, or academic dress, is one of those Oxford quirks that it can take a while to get your head around before you start at Oxford. For one thing, you first need to work out what it actually is, and then you need to decide which clothes you're going to wear for it, and find out when you need to wear it. It can all get a bit confusing. So...

Starting university gives you lots of things to be excited about. You'll be living independently for the first time, in a new place, meeting loads of new people and enjoying some exciting new experiences. But all of these things can feel quite daunting, especially if Oxford is a very different place to what you’re used to, and when you add...