This is part of a series of columns written by Arts & Sciences Student Ambassadors.
The headline may have clued you in: I’ve had a bad case of the blues ever since I took my last flight out of Heathrow on June 20, 2025 and bid adieu to my semester abroad.
From reading “Jane Eyre” in the Radcliffe Camera library to surfing down Sahara sand dunes over spring break, I learned more in those six months than I ever could have anticipated. By the time I left the UK, I had finished 35 books, visited 11 countries, written 23 essays and made a lifetime’s worth of memories.
As a semester student, I arrived at Lady Margaret Hall six months after the year-long cohort. The adjustment was tough at first, in part because of the demanding course load.
At Oxford, students participate in tutorials, which are one-on-one meetings with professors (referred to as tutors). Unlike the typical lecture, these individualized classes are highly intellectually immersive. My cohort used to joke that, in Oxford tutorials, it felt like there was “nowhere to hide.” I recall being frequently stumped by my tutors’ questions: They always seemed to get to the heart of my confusion, forcing me to patch up the gaps in my knowledge. It was simultaneously the worst and best part about the tutorial system. Slowly but surely, my teachers and I learned together.
I majored in English, participating in 16 tutorials on Gothic literature and modernism, and I minored in jurisprudence, taking eight tutorials on legal philosophy and criminal legal theory. Every other week, we would only have a single class: our major tutorial. But during major/minor weeks, the work would pile up: we’d be faced with twice the readings, twice the analysis, and, of course, twice the essays. During these weeks, it was commonplace to find me lurking in the dining hall over multiple cups of coffee or visiting the nearby town of Jericho for their incredible cafe culture.
When we weren’t trekking to the library, my cohort and I were immersing ourselves in Oxford’s vibrant social scene. At the behest of some of my visiting student friends, I became a member of Oxford Union, which hosts Thursday night debates on hot-button political and social issues. I enjoyed free lectures on philosophy, psychology and English literature around campus. I even joined my college’s rowing team, attending a weekend trip to Gloucester to boat down the water.
When it was cold, I warmed up in the Bodleian libraries or overspent at the famous Blackwell’s Bookshop. In the warmer months, we went punting, an Oxford tradition in which people move a boat by pushing a long pole along the riverbed. The first time I tried it, two of my friends fell in; during the second attempt, we got woefully stuck in a deep part of the water. But by the third, we managed to make it to the dock without too much of a splash.
One of my favorite Oxford traditions took place every Friday. My college, Lady Margaret Hall, celebrated the end of the week around a candlelit table in black tie attire for a three-course meal. Formal Hall was an opportunity to debrief the week surrounded by great friends. That was far from the only social event available to us, though. Our college threw parties and club nights around the city every weekend. Lady Margaret Hall also hosted a ball in our backyard, one of the highlights of spring. The party was an all-night affair; it ended around dawn.
Over the eight-week break between terms, many American students travel the world. I managed to visit Iceland, Morocco, Spain, Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Switzerland, Turkey, and Japan before flying back to Oxford for the second half of my semester. One highlight of my spring break was getting to visit friends from Cornell and Oxford. My entire cohort of American students spent a week in Istanbul; I met up with friends from back home in Rome, Tokyo and Madrid. As spring came to Oxford, I took advantage of the warm weather by taking day trips to London, Bath and York.
When facing writer’s block, I loved walking around the different colleges, admiring the gorgeous Oxford architecture. Surrounded by such rich history opened my eyes to the incredible diversity of life. Not only did I connect deeply with my classes, but I also learned every day by virtue of living in a new country.
It is a truism that wherever you go, there you are, but I no longer know if I believe it. I think there is a part of me from before I went away that I can no longer reach: a part of me who knew far less about her heart, her mind and her future. It is why I feel so grateful that Oxford made its mark on my life, and why I so strongly advocate for my fellow students to do the brave, difficult, frightening thing and go abroad as well.
To me, the hardest thing about studying away was leaving at the end of the semester. Sure enough, you can’t reverse the clock, but you can enjoy the knowledge that your time there changed you, made you, and morphed you into somebody beautifully new.
Mittleman is an English and psychology major in the College of Arts & Sciences.
