Hello and welcome to the Queen's Access podcast. It's so lovely to have you here.
And I hope you find this a useful resource in learning more about life at Oxford.
But more specifically about life at the Queen's College. My guests this week are Julia Dudi, a third year historian.
On the previous access and outreach track for Queen's and Jack Wilson, a fourth year,
Medick will have a chat about the access and outreach work that goes on in college and what it's like to be a student ambassador.
My apologies for any poor audio. These interviews have all been conducted over Zoome, and the Internet connexion isn't always completely reliable.
For a transcript of this episode, please visit the Queen's website. I hope you enjoy.
Hi, guys. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
To get us started. So you tell me a little bit about your queens, Danny.
So how you ended up at college. So, Juliette, you want to talk as well? Hi, I'm Julia, and I'm a third just doing history at Queens.
I'm from Newcastle in the northeast of England, and I originally fall in love with Queens when I saw it on the open day.
And I applied here and luckily got in.
And yeah, I really love it here. Oh, fantastic.
And Jack, what about you? I said, hi, Rob. I'm a fourth year in medicine.
Yeah, I came from the northwest, from a state school, and I actually stayed in Queens on open days plus, which I think it's ochola about Leiser Enns.
Yeah, I just I really liked Syndrome's really friendly there. Oh.
And there's also quite light Trinity. So I ended up flipping a coin between them but chose Queens.
And so I applied directly to Queens and thankfully thankfully got an offer.
And here we are. Oh fantastic. And I'm assuming you're happy.
You're happy with your choice. In the end, the coin flip worked out well. The coin flip worked out incredibly well.
Oh, fantastic. Okay, so let's get into some of the access Inari stuff that you've got quite a lot to get through.
So, first of all, I'll start with Julia. So we've all acted as student ambassadors, but what does this actually involve?
So basically, student ambassadors are to help people who visit the college.
We give tourists the kind of schools and groups both throughout the year on residential
things and in open days on student ambassadors also gave Q and A's and help in sessions.
And we also are top ambassadors, which I think we're going to talk about a little bit more later.
We also provide support during the interview period for students who have come to interview Cremes.
We had to answer any questions and help you through what is generally quite a stressful but hopefully exciting time.
So, yeah, we're just here to kind of represent the college to the world and show everyone that Queens is a really great place.
Yeah. Fantastic. I don't have a very good summary of the role. Yeah.
So Julia mentioned about being top ambassadors. So all three of us are ambassadors for the access platform.
Jackie, you want to explain to listeners a little bit about what this means?
So, yeah, the access platform is like an online resource where you can chat to student ambassadors.
So just people like us. And yes,
you can just ask them any any questions you have really about like applications or what like
what life is like once you get to Queens and things like that and sort of oxfords in general.
And you can also there's also the capacity Saraj, you like to bring up, bring people up and have a chat with them.
So if one is a one which can be a bit, you know, it can be easier than sort of typing out loads of loads of questions.
There's a lot you can also view frequently asked questions.
So other people have asked questions that we think are quite, you know, that might be applicable to a lot of people.
And so you can see how this is written by lots of different ambassadors on what they what their take is on me, on the questions.
So things like, oh, you know, what's the food like? What's you know is can you do spolin things?
So, yes. Perfect. Yeah. So that platform is available on the Queen's website.
If you go to the tablet called Meet Our Students. We are all available that.
And yes, you can tap water anytime with our irresponsive. Yeah.
So number four doesn't path probably the main ways in which people will encounter access marriage generally through Queens.
But Queens also have a link region. So, Julie, if you want to explain what this means.
Yes, so talk it or link regions or areas which each college has that they target that access and outreach to.
So Queens has historic links with the target area of Lancashire and Cumbria.
So will invite students from this area to residential visits.
Sometimes either student ambassadors or the outreach officer will come and visit schools in the area to encourage people to apply.
There's no obligation to apply to the college that has links with your area, and it's just assigned based on historic links or even randomly.
It's all just to encourage people to break down myths about Oxford on the college system
so that everyone gets a fair kind of access and outreach kind of presence in their area.
Yeah, and it's also worth mentioning that we also have a Lewisham uncertain as our London carriers.
I can I don't know about land carriers before I can go outside, but then I thinking about that.
I remember someone coming in from Maudlin College Cambridge to help my fool about Oxbridge as a whole.
It doesn't matter that you don't have to apply to the college that has a link region, which is the region in which you live.
Yeah. So I got you mentioned before about Open Day Plah.
What was that and what was your experience like. I say yes.
It's four year olds who are thinking about applying to to university and the next of the next cycle.
And you and I did. This is year twelve because Queens I live in the link region for Queens.
I live in Korea. And you basically just stay in stay in Queens for a few days and you sort of stay in student bedrooms.
You you sort of live like a live like a queen student.
And this is around this time of the university open day. So it fits in with that.
But you got a bit if you got some extra stuff. So there's like workshops related to applications to Oxbridge in general.
And you also got sort of mock tutorials with some Queens tutors who are who kindly volunteer.
And yet you sort of. Yeah, you just you're around college for a few days.
You eat your meals and things like that, and you can explore the city.
So it's just a way of getting a bit more experience of the city rather than just coming down for open day and sort of,
you know, not having maybe enough time to to explore. Which is nice.
Did you find that experience to be helpful when you have an application process?
Yeah, I thought it was really good, actually, because it's quite a long way for me to come down to Oxford.
So it was nice to have just a couple of days where I didn't feel like it was it was too rushed.
And yeah, it was it was really useful.
And so was the application process and things like the boxes oriels was really helpful when it came to solvency time.
Yeah, fantastic. So I kind of managed option Julia.
I was curious. I came after Julia as a actress and outreach rep, acquaintance as a dealer with our outgoing rap.
So she started the Humans of Queens project. So can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yes. So humans are queens is a contract that ISIS last year as part of the wider Humans of Oxford project and its Facebook page,
and you can find it on Facebook with profiles of current students, which basically describes their journey to Queens and their experiences here.
And it aims to kind of break down stereotypes and share the range of people that
come to Queens to break down the myth that we're all kind of privately educated,
very rich kids, when actually we're not what we're a range of very normal people.
And it's to encourage people that really Oxford students aren't so different from the rest of the world.
I think it's a really great initiative to show people that obviously Oxford is so achievable and Oxford students are just like everyone else.
And it's not like in the movies by the Road, kind of massively brainy, crazy people.
And they yeah, it's a it's a really great project. And if you cheque it out.
Yeah, you definitely should. I wrote a profile. Clearly I have a profile.
It's all very good. It's a lot of good comes on my profile from that.
Julia was the original creator over a as the Queen. Yeah, I wrote my own profile.
I was like, wow, let let's start this project. I love it.
I love it. So we also run a north west science residential every year.
So what can you tell us a little bit more about what that is? Yeah.
So I've, I've, I didn't come on this as a student, but I've volunteered to serve on this.
So, so showing people around. So it's for you. Twelve's like Julie was saying about, you know, making Oxford seem achievable and things I buy.
So it's for students who are on track to achieve the grades, the offers from typically so more underrepresented groups.
And you just get to spend a few days doing some. Again, it's sort of similar.
So I can do this. Plus, you spend a few days doing sort of what you saw eels living and eating in Queens and things like that.
And also, you got to go visit sort of museums and things around the city and just see what Oxford is really like.
And, yeah, it's it's it's a nice chances of live, live like a student and chat to current students as well.
And there's, again, some similar sort of sessions. They, they plus where you have like Q and A with students and things.
So yeah. Yeah. Again it's. Yeah. Just making it you know.
Obsolete is isn't isn't this? Yeah, like you said, it's not novels walking around.
Crazy, crazy, intelligent and so fairly normal. And it just yeah I think it just helps to so to see that first hand, you know.
Yeah, definitely. So we've mentioned the Northwest quite a lot.
So it's worth noting that the Queen Quinn College is part of the North West Consortium, which encompasses Queens and I think three other colleges.
Last year we had a Northwest drink.
This year, we set up a Facebook group for people to kind of scoff by Barranca, then hopefully meet up outside of Oxford.
That's a really nice way of connecting people from what sometimes can be like an underrepresented group within college.
So that's really nice. And it's a nice way to meet people from all the colleges as well who come from similar areas to you.
So moving away from specifically access within college, Julia, you're involved quite heavily in a scheme called Inside Uni.
Can you tell me a little bit more about the work that you do as part of that? Yeah, sure.
So I got involved with Inside Uni last year when it expanded to Oxford.
And it's a non-profit website which aims to make Oxbridge applications fairer
and more transparent by providing free resources to potential applicants.
So we're trying to stop the gap between private school students who get quite a lot of tutoring and support
with their education and state school students like me who perhaps felt a bit lost when they were applying.
I remember when I started to apply and I had no idea how to go about it.
I walked into my application test basically blind. So it's it's really a great project to try and stop that gap.
The resources include things like guides with resources for different courses
and subjects to help you with further reading and finding out your interests
and also interview experiences from thousands of current students at Oxford and Cambridge to help you know what to expect and get tips and advice.
We've also recently started a Q&A session series on what it's like to study at Oxford and Cambridge for a range of different groups of people,
which allows you to ask questions to current students about their experiences. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
So I would really cheque this out. It's a really, really great project.
And if you're interested in applying to Oxbridge, it's it's a really great thing to get resources.
A websites inside. You need dog and you should be able to find us the.
It's amazing. Thank you, Julia. Yeah. I'm also going to quickly plug Zero Gravity, which is a scheme for which I am the ambassador for Clean's.
So that is a kind of platform for mentoring for students who are about to start.
Yes, 13. And they can be matched as somebody who studies their dream course at their dream university.
And we'll help them with that application. We'll run mock tutorials. We'll do mock interviews.
And then even after they've got their offer,
we continue to help support them throughout their a level period and then throughout preparing to go to university.
So that can be a really, really great resource,
especially if you're a first gen student or if you're from a school which doesn't normally send many people see Russell Group universities.
That can be a really, really, really great way of building a whole bunch of experience.
So I'd like to ask you both a question you may not have prepared for, but I just think that it might be interesting.
So if you both would mind telling me a little bit about what a standard week looks like for you in Oxford.
So, Jack, do you mind going for us? Yes, sure.
So the. So my week.
Is saying 30 years, it's been a bit different to the first two years medicine, but they're in third year.
It's sort of odd maybe how four or five lectures a week.
So now usually in the morning and then in the afternoon, it'll be.
I'll often do things I say preparing for. So she's oriels.
Which in in third year for me once every two weeks I said I'll be writing an essay that's, you know, 1500 words or something like that.
And then obviously having one of those tutorials, which usually, you know, it takes around an hour with one of the person.
And then apart from that, for me, it sort of consists of playing a bit of sport.
So I play football for the college and also a bit of rugby as well.
So, yeah, my, my, my, yeah, my schedule hasn't been, you know, particularly taxing in terms of that.
But I've managed to manage to fill my time with my short film time with other things outside of university this year.
But yeah, there's also been sort of a lot more coursework this year.
So, you know, that's been fitted in around other things. Really.
Yeah. Now, a good balance by the hand today. What about you, David? Yes.
Similarly, history is quite independent.
I would say that I do have a kind of similar number of lectures.
I probably have about five a week and around one a day.
And so a lot of my time is spent. Doing independent study and essays and reading for my subject.
I generally have about three tutorials every two weeks spread out.
And that's the different subjects, because you generally take more than one subject of time in history.
You take one subject across or three times a year.
And yet, other than independent work and tutorials and reading and things like that.
Oh, and I also have classes as well.
Sometimes instead of lectures, which is kind of more individual work kind of group based work in a kind of small class of around six to twelve people,
which is quite fun because you get to bounce ideas off each other and you kind of have different perspectives.
Outside of work, I am involved quite heavily in inside union head of social media.
And I am helping to design this year's alternative prospectus.
I'm also in an acappella group called In the Bank, which is really, really fun.
And I love to do to kind of unwind. And really I just spend time with my friends and, you know, do normal student stuff, which is fantastic.
That sounds great. And yeah, and the banks are amazing. I think you get on Facebook.
So for each of you, what is your favourite thing about college and why?
I like clothing with this question because I feel like it gets you get to know the interior a little bit more by what what their favourite thing is.
So, Julia, do you want to stop? OK. My favourite thing about Queens is probably the atmosphere.
People at Queens are really friendly and co-operative, which is not at all what I expected when I came here.
I'm from a state school in the northeast of England and so my knowledge of Oxford was basically only based on myths and movies.
And I was so worried when I thought about applying initially that it was gonna be really cutthroat and I'd really struggle to make friends.
But that's not what happened at all. And everyone here is really lovely and supportive and normal.
And I have a really great group of friends who I adore and I'm really looking forward to seeing soon.
So, yeah, I think I left my phone. I've got.
What about you? Well, yeah, I was going to say the just the community without a lot of that is sort of, you know, similar to what Julie was saying.
But it's just, you know, everything you do does this sort of.
Yet there is this. This. Yeah. There's a real sense of community in that, you know, everyone just sort of has a go and like the.
So, you know, in the sports clubs, in music and things about anything you do outside of your academic work,
like it's all just about, you know, having a go. And, you know, we're not we're not that great a sport.
We're not like that music. Everyone just has a laugh and, you know.
Yeah, but that community spirit, I think, is just it's probably my favourite thing about it.
Yeah, definitely. Thank you very much to both of you. That was really interesting and I'm sure really, really helpful for anybody who listened.
And. Yeah. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate your help. And I'll take you there soon.
Thanks for having us. Thank you. Thank you so much to Jack and Julia for that interesting conversation.
And a massive thank you to all of you who listened.
There are loads more access resources on the Queen's College Web site, w WW dot queens, dot ox, dot acey dot UK forward slash access dash outreach.
And you can find out more about the college in general through its Web site,
Twitter and Instagram, including on the Access Twitter at Queen's Outreach.