Hello and welcome to Christ Church, my name is Rafi and I study medicine here,
and I've been here for the past six years.
Christ Church is a large college and it's a mixed college
of both undergrads and postgrads, with about 215 graduate students.
This is the GCR, or the Graduate Common Room
and it's a shared area that's available for use by
all graduate students here at Christ Church,
and it's also the place where we host multiple events such as BOPs, which are big parties,
whiskey and wine tasting sessions, movie screenings, and whatever else you can think of.
But the GCR is not just the physical space, the GCR refers to the
entire graduate community of Christ Church with its own committee and its own events.
And over there in front of us is the deanery, where the Dean of Christ Church lives,
and the reason it's of interest is because it's technically an unoccupied royal palace,
because er, King Charles I think it was, during the Civil War, er,
actually stayed here and ran parliament from the Great Hall.
The door handle on the deanery's door,
that was for the Alice from Alice in Wonderland,
who was actually one of the Dean's daughters,
and so that little door handle was there for her,
erm, and,
and the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, was the librarian at Christ Church and
wrote Alice in Wonderland as a series of stories he told Alice when he was babysitting her,
um,
so it's a big part of the Christ Church mythology.
This is Peckwater Quad where we have our Christmas Tree,
and around Peck, if you can see, there's er,
commemorations of our sporting victories.
So for most of the colleges there's a mixed, er,
graduate and undergraduate team apart from things like football where
there's a...
competitive GCR and JCR team.
Christ Church also offers a range of sports facilities including tennis courts,
cricket greens, rugby pitches and a multi-use sports area,
as well as squash courts just across the road in St Aldate's Quad,
the rowing club and it's facilities, and free access to the university gym.
So this is the library, so it's two floors there's a lower library and an upper library.
It's a study space free for use by both undergrads and postgrads,
really well stocked with almost every book you could need for your course.
If you still need your own copy of the book,
or indeed if you need any other equipment for your research,
or need to travel for field work or conference purposes,
Christ Church has a very generous travel, research and equipment grant
for you to use including electronic resources and hardware.
So welcome to the Great Hall,
obviously set up for social distancing at the moment,
but normally you'd be able to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner here,
and there are two dinner sittings every night,
an informal sitting around 6pm which is sort of cafeteria style,
where you grab your meal, sit and eat it,
and then a 7pm formal sitting, where you wear your gowns, read a Latin grace before dinner -
don't actually have to wear formal wear - and get a served three-course meal.
Um,
In addition, um, for graduate students every wednesday
there's either an exchange dinner where we go
for one leg in another colleges hall, and then they come to our hall for the other leg,
or there's a guest dinner where you get the same food as high table, where the tutors sit,
you get that with some wine for your meal.
And once a term there's a black tie night which has a four course meal,
wine and a prosecco reception.
Hall food is generally very good, and is able to cater for a variety of dietary requirements
including halal, vegetarian, vegan and various food and nut allergies.
So this here is the buttery, one of two bars at Christ Church.
So you can come here and grab a bottle of wine
or a beer just before dinner and take it with you into the hall.
Dinner is a fantastic experience and a way to meet lots of different people from
all over the world, who are all really passionate, and really clever, and really good at what they do,
and it makes for some fantastic conversations that you probably won't have anywhere else.
So this is the Undercroft Bar, the second bar, um,
normally this is where events like karaoke nights or post guest dinner drinks would happen,
there's a pool table, and a darts board, and a generally a
nice place to come and watch the football or the rugby,
as well as grab a few drinks and it's open most evenings during the week.
However during COVID times, um, obviously this has shut down and
instead has been moved to a temporary bar up in a marquee in the Master's Garden.
Here at Christ Church there's also a range of welfare support available
to graduate students, so this ranges from your college advisor who will be in your
specific field of study and can provide a second opinion on academic matters,
and someone else to go for besides your main DPhil or Master's thesis supervisor.
And from a more pastoral side there's also Claire who's the welfare coordinator,
who's fantastic at what she does,
and there's also the GCR welfare reps, and a peer support system,
and three wardens who are on call out of hours, in case of any welfare emergencies
that happen outside working hours.
So this here is the Master's Garden,
which is a private garden open only to members of Christ Church,
it's normally open during the summer, which is a great place to just come
and read a book out in the sun, sit with some friends,
and also during COVID times a marquee has been put up,
so as a temporary bar in the evenings, but also as a site for
various sorts of welfare, and other events to happen in a socially distanced manner as well.
Christ Church is also unique amongst Oxford's colleges in that
it has a cathedral rather than a chapel,
with a variety of services operating throughout the year,
open to people of all faiths or none,
and is a great place to just come and find some peace and quiet in the middle of a busy Oxford term.
My favorite thing about being a student at Christ Church
is definitely the people that you meet along the way,
from the very friendly custodians that greet you,
to the porters that help you out,
to the hall staff that help serve you your meals, um,
everyone is really friendly and willing to have a chat,
and then that's not to mention all the students, from all over the world,
studying all sorts of different subjects where you have
dinner conversations I don't think I'd ever have anywhere else,
and that has been an absolute treasure over the past six years.