Category: News

In November 2020, Oxford10 was approached by the charity ‘My Big Career’, which was seeking volunteers to help conduct mock interviews with students at state schools in Hackney hoping to study at Oxbridge.

Without hesitation, the team at Oxford10 drafted an email to its vast network of alumni asking them whether they could offer one or two hours of their free time. The response was truly amazing and My Big Career received overwhelming interest in helping out. 

Overall, the charity paired 39 students from 19 schools with 10 of the Oxford Alumni volunteers and after the interviews had finished, Oxford10 received an incredibly kind message from the charity: 

We just wanted to extend a huge thank you for sharing the practice Oxbridge Interviews volunteering opportunity with the Oxford10 alumni network. It was a big success and the volunteers were amazing; giving some great advice and calming the nerves of the students who attended the sessions. We hope the volunteers themselves enjoyed the experience and we are really happy that a lot of them would like to hear about future opportunities. 

I would also like to give you some feedback figures:
– 100% said that they really benefited from attending the event.
– 100% said that they felt more confident after the session. 
– 93% that they would attend another event in the future.

The team at Oxford10 keeps its fingers crossed and hopes that as many participating students get into the Oxbridge universities as possible. We would love to welcome future alumni to Oxford10!

On Thursday 17th December, Oxonians from around the world joined together to sing Christmas carols – virtually!

It was the first time for many of us to sing classics such as ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘O Come, All ye Faithful’ in a Zoom environment, but this did not dampen the alumni’s enthusiastic efforts to bring the carols to life.

We sang to the accompaniment of a recording of the Oxford Bach Choir’s carol concert in the Sheldonian Theatre, which brought back fond memories of the city. Attendees also enjoyed sharing stories of their own holiday customs, and the foods and drink they like to create and share with friends and family at Christmastime.

We would like to thank all the alumni who could join us and who contributed their stories (and their singing voices!) to this festive celebration. 

Covid 19 has taken the energy out of many of us and we are in a moment of uncertainty. We have no idea how things will unfold.

With this in mind, Oxford10 invited Sophie who has been running mindfulness sessions for many years, to not only give us a talk about mindfulness but to also show us how we can use it in our everyday lives.

In today’s session we learned that mindfulness can give us stability when we feel the carpet has been pulled from under our feet. It appears that we are being distracted 47% of our time and this leads to our mind wandering around.

In two short mindfulness practice tasks of 2 and 4 minutes each, we found out that we have a direct experience and a narrative experience with our mind. Sophie told us what to focus on so that we can shift our experience with our mind in order to stop the talking in our head.

We finished the session by writing down ten things that nourish us and also a few things that deplete us and how we can shift these energy depleting things from our list. A wonderful experience that came at the right time when so many of us are experiencing fatigue and are looking for ways to calm our minds.

Applications are open for the #StartedinOxford Demo Day – deadline is 23 October 5pm.  Apply now

The #StartedinOxford Demo Day is a celebration and showcase of the Oxford-linked entrepreneurship community, and will be held online on Wednesday 18 November 2020.  This event will bring together exciting companies and ventures linked to the University of Oxford or Oxford Brookes University (students, staff or alumni) from across the globe, as well as those from across Oxfordshire.

In previous years, we have come together in Oxford, with 20-30 startups and over 300 registered attendees mingling and chatting over the course of an evening.  This year we will be virtual – there will be even more hand-picked companies to meet and engage with in a fresher’s fair style virtual setup.  The event will be open for almost 24 hours, with sector-specific sessions, panel discussions, and opportunities to hear selected companies pitch live throughout the UK work day.  Attendees can find out more about each company, request more information, chat with the company representatives, and vote for their favourites to win prizes, including cash, introductions to networks and VIP’s, and connections to the wider Oxford-linked ecosystem.

The Demo Day has multiple purposes: 

·         increasing awareness of Oxford-linked companies and ventures (in this case, from across the globe),

·         facilitating connections (ie water cooler discussions) between people and organisations in the ecosystem, and

·         supporting companies to finding the resources they need now (including cofounders or employees, workspace, advisors or mentors, access to networks or experts, or investment)

As a company you will get:

1. The opportunity to showcase your company to a large worldwide audience, across the Enterprising Oxford platform and via its connected networks and partners
2. A chance to win prizes, including cash, access to networks, experts, mentors and collaborators, and support packages
3. To meet other companies exhibiting, from a range of sectors and stages
4. Exclusive access to VIP guests, including senior executives, investors, and key connectors in the Oxford-linked entrepreneurship ecosystem

Apply now

On Thursday 17th September, Oxford10 held a Zoom event for London-based freshers (undergraduate and postgraduate) to help them ease into their exciting journey at Oxford. Nearly 100 freshers attended the event – a definite record for this Oxford10 committee – and they got to meet friendly faces, hear from current students about how the upcoming term was shaping up amidst the pandemic, and put their wits to the test in a three-round quiz.

Current second-years Seren Ford, Rachel Howe and Orly Welch shared their experiences at Oxford to date – including a Trinity term in lockdown – and their thoughts on how freshers could make the best of their time at Oxford, even amidst a global pandemic. The participants were then grouped by colleges – with some colleges bravely represented by just one person – and asked a range of Oxford-themed questions. We’d invite you to try answering some of them as well:

Which US president studied at University College?

How many libraries are there in Oxford?

When was the Oxford Union founded?

Eventually, the team of Corpus Christi and Christ Church emerged victorious, pulling ahead of the rest of the competition with full points across all three rounds. Seems like that lot are very prepared to do Open House next year, where they will undoubtedly charm wide-eyed sixth-formers with their formidable knowledge of Oxford.

Participants thoroughly enjoyed the event, as it gave them an opportunity to meet some friendly faces and make them feel at home in Oxford (even as they were mostly attending the event in their own homes!). The Oxford10 team wishes every fresher the very best as they began their journey from Oxford; if nothing else, the event gave us cause to reminisce fondly.

Answers: Bill Clinton, 100, 1823