Drowning in Deadlines, Thriving in Discovery: My Life as a History Student

 Last week, I wrote a blog post about why History as a subject is at risk. While my enthusiasm might suggest an unwavering love for my degree, the reality is more complicated. As any student will likely confess, the long days and lack of sleep eventually make you ask, "Is this worth it?" This week, I aim to explain why I have a love-hate relationship with my history degree.

Reading time: 6 minutes

Doing a degree is hard, but doing an Oxford degree certainly adds some complexities, such as timeframes. At Oxford, our terms are shorter, 8 weeks (+0^th week). This means a lot of content must be covered in just two months. Each term, I have studied at least one paper; however, there have been times I have been doing half of a paper in addition to my main term work. In History, we have seven assessed elements in the final honours school. These include the thesis, European and World History, History of the British Isles, a Further Subject Paper, A Special Subject (which counts for two papers), and my least favourite paper, 'Disciplines'. As such, there is much content to be covered in around four terms worth teaching – one term of assessment and one term of writing your thesis. This makes the second and start of your third year (predicting here) extremely busy. The short terms make it hard to keep up, often leading to catch-up work over vacations. Therefore, the Oxford system's lack of time is a clear issue.

History is incredibly fascinating. There are many incredible sources to study, from manuscripts to newspapers to photographs, and there is not enough time to explore everything.  Each week, we have the task of writing at least one essay, and from this, we are given an extensive reading list in which we need to make the difficult decision to focus on so many texts. Having dyslexia means that I often find myself working through the reading list late into the evening and even on weekends. I don't mind as I often find my work stimulating, but when you are on your fourth night of 10/11 pm finishes in the library, the exhaustion starts to build up. There are ways to try and overcome this, such as forced breaks and timing myself for how long I pay attention to a specific book, but this is often hard to follow. As a 'historian', I find myself down rabbit holes of interesting information when the task given to me doesn't necessarily require me to have such a broad interest at this very moment. If we had two weeks to produce a 2,000 (approx..) worded essay, it would be a more manageable task, but less work would be done. Despite all this, the late nights and work pay off when the essay is handed in on time, and I have included some insightful material. It does, however, remain that I would like more time to do this.

In addition, my degree can be lonely. (Cue the gasp from my friends reading this). When I say 'lonely', I don't necessarily mean I lock myself away and never interact with people. Instead, 'lonely' in the academic context means without much support academically. For example, I have one and a half tutorials a week – two every other week, so it averages one and a half. This is the chance to sit down with a tutor, go through the essay they set us, and have any questions answered. We don't have office hours here at Oxford and certainly don't have any in History, which is apparently not the norm at other universities. Whilst I can still email a tutor to ask a burning question, sometimes they don't always respond. This is entirely understandable, as they are professionals and are extremely busy. The lack of contact hours can be somewhat depressing. I love my tutorials; it is a chance to talk to someone equally excited about a niche topic most people would glare at you like you're mad (i.e., princely burials; I am, admittedly, a little too happy about these). However, I wish there were more structure – maybe more chances to discuss these in a class environment. So, in some ways, the lack of contact hours can make students feel academically isolated.

Imposter syndrome is a reality at Oxford. The demanding pressures of academic work, the careful act of juggling socialising with this, and the need for sleep all make you feel out of your depth. My experience at RAF Cranwell on the Air Cadets Leadership Course (ACLC) was when I first felt stretched to my limits over a small timeframe. Squadron Leader Kazi was right that we would be out of our comfort zones for the week, but it would do us well in the long term. Oxford is in some ways like this: 8 weeks of being out of my depth but trying my best to keep afloat amongst the challenges heading my way. I think of it best as the gliding swan analogy, with the calm 'top' of the swan gliding along the water and its legs below peddling fast to move them along. Although, in my case, the swan doesn't look very serene, it tends to still have an air of confusion on its face – as evidenced by my tutorial this morning.

Furthermore, everyone here is so brilliant, and I love discussing amazing concepts and ideas with them. Yet, now and again, I find myself sitting at my desk thinking, "Wow, that was remarkable. I don't think I could ever do that." As second-years, we have just started to think about the thesis – love the idea or hate it, you had best start thinking positively about it, as it will happen whether you want it to or not. In our thesis meeting on Monday, I sat listening to my incredibly talented course-mates give excellent ideas on global history, historical artefacts, and social divisions. In contrast, I sat there feeling inadequate about my own idea. It also didn't help that just before I was about to share the concept, the tutor turned and mentioned something about not picking anything "too depressing" since we would be studying it in darker months. Needless to say, my idea about studying cemeteries and their layouts is, for the time being, under reconsideration. While there is so much inspiration to be drawn from this degree, it often requires careful support and an even closer eye for detail when writing. As someone recently said, I should just develop some "academic arrogance." Maybe with time, I will overcome imposter syndrome with more essay practice. Oxford is certainly adept at providing you with opportunities for this.

The above outlines how some of the elements of my university degree have impacted my relationship with studying history. History is close to my heart in more ways than one, and it has given me a fantastic opportunity to be at this university. In a few weeks, as part of my recent course on Anglo-Saxon Archaeology, I shall be seeing (and handling) some artefacts at the Ashmolean. Yet, no matter how much I love history, there never seems to be enough time to explore everything it has to offer fully.