- I'm Alison Neambrosia, I'm doing my second year of masters
in Theology and Applied Theology at Oxford University,
and outside of class, I mostly spend my time on the river,
in the theater, or in coffee shops having meetings.
(peppy upbeat rock music playing)
- So, the masters in Theology.
Um, what has that been like so far?
- It's been very interesting.
The greatest thing about how the Oxford system works is
you can make a degree what you want it to be.
So I've been able to take a degree in Applied Theology,
and study very specific things that I think are interesting
and that I got to explore in my undergrad,
or things that I had picked up on, on my own.
- [Alison] So I've been able to write a paper on chant,
and how the formative nature of chant,
how it should be used back in the church.
I've written a prayer - uh, a paper
on prayer and rowing,
how being good at prayer can make you better at rowing,
and being good at rowing can make you better at praying,
and I just wrote a paper on sexual ethics,
and the damaging effects of the hookup culture
on human relationships in college environments.
So I'm all over the place.
- And you have the freedom to sort of
to choose those paper topics - I have the freedom
to choose that yeah.
So you, you pick your own papers
so essentially on courses, and you write your own titles
for what your essays are going to be,
you essentially make your own reading lists
in conjunction with your supervisor that you've chosen,
so it's very very free to do
kind of what you're specifically interested in,
and to really delve deeply into those subjects
rather than getting a broad range of courses
that you kind of touch on things.
- Has the Oxford program been what you expected?
- Um, not really, but
its a give and take
of what the course expects you to do
and what you wanna, like,
what you wanna get out of it.
I've definitely gotten out of it what I wanted,
which was a deeper understanding of a few topics,
um, and I've been able to build research skills,
and study skills, and writing skills
um, but it's also just an incredibly personally formative
program, you are constantly being pushed by your peers
and by your supervisors,
and just the environment as a whole,
you're never turned off,
you're thinking academically twenty-four seven.
Most of the time subconsciously,
but just because of the environment that you're in.
- [Man] So you're sort of always surrounded by that.
- Yeah, you just can't escape it.
They call it the Oxford bubble for a reason,
and it is just so penetrating.
- Right.
- This is the back of the examination schools,
this is where every Oxford student, to complete their degree
will come and sit exams,
and in which they wear a white carnation
to begin their exams,
pink in the middle, and red to end their exams,
and after they wear the red carnation,
they are told to come out the back door, here,
and they'll come out here, and there's barriers and ropes,
where all their friends come to meet them,
to trash them.
And these trashings started out with actual trashing people,
and that's not allowed anymore,
now we're a bit more humane about it
so we do shaving foam and glitter
spraying champagne bottles,
and people get really creative,
there's hili powder and glitter galore,
and you can see that it's completely ingrained
in the stones here because of all the celebrations.
So it's just a really fun way that people
end their degrees at Oxford.
(gentle acoustic guitar music)
- [Alison] So I chose to come to Oxford
mainly because the way they run the courses,
so they work on a tutoring system,
meaning that you have an hour one-on-one session
with a professor essentially, or your tutor.
It's essentially an hour long oral examination
of why you think what you think,
and why you wrote it down,
and you'll go in and read your essay,
you'll go paragraph by paragraph sometimes,
line by line, critique it,
and ask you to defend it,
and I find that way of learning
the most useful to me,
I've learned more in an hour with a tutor
than I have in a whole semester sitting in the classroom
with a ton of people being lectured at.
(relaxing acoustic guitar music)
- Um, how did you initially get involved in rowing?
- Well, that's a very good question.
I initially came to Oxford as a visiting student
my junior year of college,
and I thought, knowhow,
I could be like every other study abroad student
and I could go, and travel on the weekends,
and see Europe,
or I could really take this opportunity
to really be an Oxford student,
and I decided y'know, I'm going to throw myself
completely wholeheartedly into the Oxford culture,
and what that means,
and one of the things that means
a lot of the time is rowing!
It's a really big culture, because of the college system
its not as difficult to get into,
because a lot of the colleges have multiple boats,
so it's not like
one varsity level like you have in the states,
- Right, so each college has their own team
and they compete amongst themselves.
- Mm hmm, so each college competes against each other
in two bumps regattas, and then one amateur regatta,
so it's not as difficult to get into as you might think,
so I kind of just mentioned that I might want to row,
and the next thing I knew, I was at the boathouse
and on the water!
(relaxed acoustic guitar music)
(upbeat electro music)
- [Alison] Now the theater scene in Oxford is vibrant,
it's one of the best arts and theater scenes
in all of the UK,
it's really really amazing.
Every aspect of it is student run, student led,
produced, directed, everything.
A lot of the producers have started their own
production companies, where they have investors,
they invest in shows, they put them on,
they get the revenue, they keep going,
it's very professionally done.
- So what is typically your part of that,
is it the acting side, or do you also...
- So I do production side, so um
I started out as hair and makeup,
my first show here was Anything Goes,
with fifties hair, bright red lips,
great like quiffs for the guys, it was wonderful,
yeah. It was so much fun,
and so I signed up for Anything Goes,
and then did Guys and Dolls next, that seemed fitting,
and then did Stop, and then Stop took off,
and went to the Fringe, and is now
potentially being picked up for professional line,
and right now I'm production managing for um
for Sweet Charity,
which is opening up in a couple of weeks,
and so that's less on the hair and makeup side,
that's more everything,
that's props, sets, costumes, that's set,
that's making sure that everyone who's supposed to be there
is there when they need to be, and on time,
and they know what they're doing and where they're going,
so that's a bit more hands in all bowls type deal,
which is really exciting because the Playhouse,
like I say, it's a professional theater,
and they get traveling companies in there all year long,
and to be able to put a student production on,
it's just really special.
(upbeat electro music)
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