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Study Abroad at the University of Oxford!

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, but I’m finally back! And with good news! Ever since January, I have been studying at Mansfield College at the University of Oxford with five other Holy Cross students during the latter half of the pandemic.

All sophomores at the College have the wonderful opportunity of applying to study abroad in a variety of places during their junior year such as South America, the UK, Germany, Athens, France, China, India, and a wide range of other places – all at the top universities of each respective country!

As noted by this recent report, for the last decade Holy Cross has been the top school for placing students in interesting and rigorous study abroad programs!

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend Mansfield College at Oxford, where I am able to undertake the rigorous tutorial system which consists of writing a paper each week that I present to my tutor for rigorous questioning.

Small class sizes at Holy Cross as well as seminars have greatly prepared for me the defense of my arguments in front of my tutors. Further, all the tutors here have commented that Holy Cross students present some of the best analysis and writing they have ever seen, a testament to our rigorous curriculum and great professors back at home!

While studying at Oxford requires a lot of dedicated studying and time management

skills  (something HC has prepared us all for), there still has been some time to get out and view the amazing nature and architecture scattered throughout the city. Dazzling towers and magnificent churches line the streets throughout Oxford, making for an amazing view for daily walks to the library!

To all prospective students, studying abroad has been one of the highlights of my undergraduate experience, and Holy Cross is amazing in sending students wherever they want to go!

Check out the pictures below for a glimpse into the sights I experience every day!

The towering entrance to the famed Christ Church College
My friend Nina making a cameo in a picture of Mansfield’s Philosophy, Politics, and Economics library!
Me in front of the famed Radcliffe Camera Library building known to be a staple of the City of Oxford!
The beautiful common of Mansfield College with the library and administrative building in the background!

 
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Off to Coast Guard!

Opportunities at Holy Cross 

One of the best things about being a student at Holy Cross it that you are handed a nearly unlimited amount of opportunities to travel somewhere, whether it be for an immersion trip or a sports game you are bound to leave campus for an interesting place!

In my case, my very first HC sponsored trip came with the annual mock trial trip to the Coast Guard Academy for a regional invitational tournament. Everyone on Friday night gathered in Hogan 3 and packed themselves into the school vans for the hour and a half journey to New London, Connecticut.

The Trip

On the way, my teammates and I sang along to 2000 throwback playlists and talked about how the first half of the semester has gone for us all so far.  Once we arrived at the hotel we excitedly grabbed our bags from the vans and ran to our hotel rooms where we unpacked. Shortly afterward it looked as though the hotel lobby had been turned into a classroom, the mock trial team had completely taken over it with casebooks, exhibits, and other various materials taking up the space on the lobby tables as we all practiced our examinations.

First Day of Competition

The morning quickly came, eventually leading to us arriving at the Coast Guard Academy and signing in for our first competition against Fordham. While we didn’t win our first couple of trials, the learning experiencing was amazing for everyone on my team as no one on the team had any previous collegiate mock trial experience before, we were all rookies!

As the day began to settle we explored the wonderful Coast Guard Academy campus (only second to the beautiful campus we have right here at Holy Cross).  Once we drove back to the hotel we had about five minutes to change before we were treated out to a night at a wonderful restaurant that had some of the most delicious pizza and cake that I have ever tasted.  At the dinner table, all of the players and coaches conversed about the activities of the day and quickly moved on to talking about other various things such as career advice and general funny stories.

Second Day of Competition

On the second day of the competition, the entire team walked into the halls of the competition with a new found confidence as we saw that even us as rookies could put up a good fight against teams that were full of veterans who had been doing collegiate mock trial for three years.

On the second day of competition, we actually ended up winning a couple of trials and generally overachieving for a whole group of rookies at a competition with well-seasoned talent!

The Tournament in Review

Looking back at the tournament, while it was stressful at certain points due to the high stakes manner of the tournament, I ended up having so much fun with all of the people across the mock trial team. I encourage anyone reading this to check out mock trial if you get the chance as you’ll make friends for life and learn lots of helpful skills along the way!