Shaking the ‘Oxbridge reject’ tag

In the infamous YouTube hit ‘High Renaissance Man’, when describing Bristol Uni, the protagonist utters a stonker of a line…

“Imagine if you will, a drug-fuelled after-party on a punt. Welcome to Bristol”.

Still bitter you can’t punt around Bristol?

Ah, Bristol, one of the few spiritual homes of the Oxbridge Reject. It’s a state of existence that many resent, some embrace with a strained grin, and one that we’ll all take to our modest West Country graves.

The term ‘Oxbridge Reject’ has two main functions. Firstly, it binds us thicko deadbeats together, and soothes us with the possibility that, maybe, just maybe, mum and dad might still love us despite our horrible inadequacies.

And secondly, unfortunately, it permits us to continually bang on about Oxbridge, our traumatic experiences, and why we’re honestly, definitely, truly, so bloody ecstatic we didn’t get in.

In my experience, most people who are happy at Bristol genuinely are happy to be here rather than ‘there’, as they most probably would be at a whole host of other red bricks. But that doesn’t seem to stop us comparing ourselves to them, and, occasionally, forlornly mimicking their style.

There are some faux-Oxbridge-y elements of Bristol that we’ll never shake. It’s well known that Wills Memorial building and Wills Hall were built in the style of Oxbridge architecture.

This, admittedly, has its benefits: working the gothic vibe definitely makes us seem pretty ominous and academic, which is great in a world where students are having to fight to the death over graduate jobs.

Our faux-Oxbridge buildings aren’t fooling anyone

But on the cringey, pointless side of things, there are the few strange Oxbridge-style rituals that we still cling to (albeit with sweaty, desperate fingers).

In any context, the tradition of eating around a long table in a gown when it’s not a medieval feast-reenactment is a bit obtuse – unless you belong to a cult.

When your university-forefathers didn’t actually do it – they were busy flogging cigs – it smacks of a load of rejects pretending they were never rejected.

Snobbery is something of a ritual, and in some cases a lifestyle choice, that we also seem to have borrowed from Oxbridge. We might criticize their elitism and ivory towers, but the way we talk about UWE often makes it sound more like we’re studying at a zoo meets crack den than a university.

A bit of rivalry is generally harmless, but it’s always grim to hear a hammered Bristol student talking about how stupid and incompetent UWE students are while they piss on their own shoes and grope whatever they can get their hands on.

From archaic traditions and attitudes to student media, even The Tab came from Oxbridge.

This would never have happened if we weren’t all so in love with Oxbridge

Cambridge students had to devolve the idea to us copycat simpletons who couldn’t even fathom the concept of a student tabloid without their guidance.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing some of the stuff Oxbridge does, but doing it simply because Oxbridge does it isn’t enough, and creates a total identity-vacuum. That’s when we become nothing but a bunch of rejects, because we can’t think of what else we could possibly be.

Instead of comparing our position to Oxbridge’s (…it’s not looking good guys) in the rankings and lamenting our rejections, we should embrace how we’re different. For example, some might point out that our imitation Oxbridge buildings were funded in part by cigarette sales.

A legacy of stained fingers and premature death doesn’t exactly steep our university in rich, cultural history, but let’s be honest; no one ever made any money from anything ethical or worthwhile, and now the stale smell of an L&B will remind you of hard academic graft.

But really, what can be universally agreed is that Bristol as a city far outstrips both Oxford and Cambridge. Forget academia, this is about the ‘uni experience’.

Sure, you can’t really cycle into the centre without the risk of being road kill, and there aren’t any twee rivers to punt on, but really, as a very wise man once said, Reject or not: “anyone who says that they don’t fucking love Bristol, is either lying, not telling the truth…or they’re fucking ugly”.

Amen.