Monday 20th October 2025

Opinion

Dear summer school snobs, please pipe down

You might not like it, but in an era of rising financial pressures for the university sector, summer schools are not just harmless – they are essential.

Embracing AI undermines academia

By facilitating copious AI usage, the University fails to deliver on its centuries-long tradition of encouraging original thought. 

Let’s critique what protesters do, not who they are

I may not agree with all of their tactics, but I am grateful for those who make sure that our University is on the right side of history.

Outreach shouldn’t stop at Hadrian’s Wall

In a Britain that claims to be a “United” Kingdom, having only two-dozen Scottish state schoolers at its best university does much to foster division.

Our intellectual self-indulgence is killing social progress

Those who access a world-class education have a special imperative to act.

Handwriting is a necessary skill and a dying art

Seeing the writing of some of my undergraduate friends, I’d rather hold my pen than hold my breath!

Reply: Tutoring can be a force for good

A refusal to engage with the potential of tutoring amounts to prioritising ethical intuition over improving lives.

Don’t let the chatbots win

Using AI to write an essay is embarrassing. There's almost always an element of deception involved.

Cartoon: ‘Ticking time bomb’

A response to the rise of Reform UK across campuses.

How far has Oxford come since the millennium?

An Oxonian is prime minister, the University’s chancellor is a baron, and our financing is still amoral at best.

If private schools were abolished, everyone would win

Attending a state comp gives you a greater sense of perspective.

Not everyone needs – or ought – to go to university

Student Finance is a truly wonderful thing. But it comes at a massive cost.

Cartoon: ‘Daddy I got in!’

Reaction to a new round of offers to study at Oxford.

Admissions tutoring proves that money beats merit

Private tutoring for Oxbridge admissions exemplifies everything wrong with educational inequality.

In defence of the History Admissions Test

Whilst the History Faculty is right to reconsider how it implements the HAT, scrapping it won’t do any good.

It’s time for a new view on college disparities

If we lived on the sterilised campus of one great identikit 'Oxford University', we should all imagine ourselves to be less fortunate.

Cut the job chat

It’s Michaelmas term of my final year. The days are short, my patience even shorter, and every conversation seems to circle back to the...

The inevitability of Noodle Bridge

In a controversial move, Christ Church College has been granted approval for the construction of a new footbridge crossing the A40. But what makes...

Lessons from the Cambridge Union

I went to Cambridge a few weeks ago, and attended a Cambridge Union debate on whether feminism and religion were compatible. I should warn...

Unfortunately, the Union Matters

Within a decade of being founded, the Oxford Union was already doing its best to tear itself apart – complete with a faux-epic of...

Divestment will take more than a review board

As reported by Cherwell last week, the Ethical Investment Representations Review Subcommittee (EIRRS) is conducting a review of the University’s current investment policy. The...

The gaps in Oxford’s political societies

The alignments of our nation are changing, and the failure of student politics at Oxford to keep up is nothing less than a dereliction...

Screw the Scrooges, students deserve to have fun

Having survived 5th week Blues (didn’t hear any Louis Armstrong), students can now look toward the end of Michaelmas. The days get shorter, the...

Booking needs binning

A leftover COVID system is stymying the freedom and spontaneity students need. Colleges should give it up and let us choose. In 2020, as the...

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