The week I went to interviews, someone in my Classics class at school asked me what college I had applied to. When I told her it was Christ Church (love of my life), she responded with a mock gasp and said “oh, the posh lads’ college!” and winked. I was disturbed. I later completely freaked out: I am neither posh, nor a lad.
Skip to Freshers’ week at Christ Church, and we’re all sat in our lecture theatre being told by the Dean that “all stereotypes in Oxford tend to be 10 years out of date”. And that’s true.
Today, Oxford colleges are more nuanced than a single stereotype. Christ Church does have its share of ‘posh lads’, but it also has a fair number of people who don’t fit that category. It also turns out that being a posh lad isn’t always a completely bad thing. The ‘lad’ stereotype tends to be that their behaviour is a questionable at the best of times, but over the course of my first term here I’ve learnt that being a ‘lad’ doesn’t mean having no boundaries, or doing semi-illegal activities for the banter, or not knowing what ‘no’ means; it can simply mean having fun with your mates. So thank you to those that have shown me that.