Joe Miles Week 8: End of term blues

For the sixth time in my two year period at Oxford, Eighth Week of term has finally rolled around again. Psychologically speaking, Eight Week is a very strange phenomenon- well, at least in my experience. In most challenging tasks, like running a marathon or trying to get through a tutorial that you clearly did bugger all preparation for, you generally only start gently flagging towards the very end, before slowly running out of steam.

By way of contrast, as far as Oxford terms go, I manage to plough through all 8 weeks until all my energy mysteriously vanishes the second that my very last essay is done.

This is all the more odd considering that many people seemed to share my sentiment in my earlier column that I rarely felt as if I ever do any actual work. Either I’ve become extraordinarily lazy since I’ve set foot on Oxford soil, or this place messes with your head.

Oxbridge is renowned for its workload being far higher than average and this prestige perhaps explains the credibility you gain when an employer sees on your CV that you graduated from Oxford. Even if you only did Art History. However, the way that Oxford also forces you to acclimatise to academic working conditions that are as inhumane as you can be subjected to without any labour laws being violated in the process also counts.

Joe Miles buckles under 8th week pressure and takes a kip

This is why so many Oxford grads end up in law and finance, surviving a high-stress career on an almost entirely cocaine diet. By the time we leave here, our concern for our own wellbeing has been carefully trained out of us. Potential employers know that the costs that they will incur in disposing of the body when we inevitably die at our desks is more than compensated for by the many hours of unpaid overtime we will have given them.

None of this is to suggest that you absolutely have to go into a hideous high-pressure job once you leave this place. It’s just difficult to leave the work-pace behind. I for my part simply cannot live without at least one impending crisis to deal with, and I can’t be the only person who genuinely thrives off pressure. My future career is likely to involve me running from one shit-storm to the next desperately trying to find a mop. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Whilst I may appreciate a break now, I guarantee as soon as Ninth Week rolls around, I’ll be wondering what the hell to do with my life.

Also, on another note, I sadly won’t be able to continue my column next term due to other commitments. So if you have any mindless vitriol that you want to see appear on an online comment platform in front of hundreds of thousands of potential viewers, from now on please forward it to [email protected]