The Covid student: no chance of getting 'trashed' on Isle of Wight

Here Mia Testa, a final year student at Oxford, who went to Ryde Academy and the Island Innovation VI Form, tells of her experiences...missing out on taking her finals and working from her Newport home instead of among the Dreaming Spires.

Oxford University is a unique institution, which holds on to its many weird and wonderful traditions tightly.

For final year students, these traditions include the donning of ‘sub fusc’ (essentially a ceremonial uniform) for their examinations, wearing different coloured carnations for each exam, taking exams in Oxford’s beautiful and vast Examination Schools, and getting ‘trashed’ after their final paper — an inexplicable, but widely loved, tradition where friends will cover you in shaving foam, silly string, glitter and confetti to celebrate your new-found freedom.

These were all traditions I was looking forward to as I came ever closer to finishing my Oxford English degree this year. And then...Covid hit.

Oxford’s announcement that all students were expected to vacate the city almost immediately meant most of us didn’t have time to pack up our rooms.

For many, this simply meant making another car journey at some point in the distant future, but for me, living on the Island, this also meant at least three more extortionate and time-consuming ferry crossings.

Mia in her Sub Fusc exam clothes at Oxford.

I packed a suitcase as best as I could for the coming unpredictable months, trying to decide what clothes to take, based upon our equally unpredictable weather.

Though I left Oxford in March, I knew I would still have to return months later to pack up the contents of my room, whenever it was safe to do so.

In the meantime, I still had my dissertation to write, and final exams to take — all of which I completed from home.

In hindsight, the disjointedness of my life at this time was odder than I realised — half my life still in Oxford, half back on the Island, with the boundaries blurred by having classes to attend and coursework to produce from my IW bedroom.

Unfortunately for me, I had lost my grandfather (who I was extremely close to) in January, and being locked in at home made it very difficult to distract myself.

I was also, of course, suddenly separated from my friends, tutors, libraries, and the comforting routines of university life in the city I loved. In some ways, however, this sudden move home benefitted me.

Mia fleeing back to the Island with all her belongings.

I was back with my family, I didn’t have to worry about shopping or preparing my own meals, there was no more wasted time getting to and from classes as meetings were now online, and the Island’s Covid statistics were much more favourable than Oxford’s.

My college, Trinity, covered the costs for me to buy a comfortable chair and WiFi extender, meaning I had a suitable place to revise and take exams despite the circumstances.

It was an odd culmination to three years of hard work, but I was mostly just grateful that I’d had a largely normal university experience and that I wasn’t an incoming fresher, whose entire university experience will surely be much different to mine.

I never once imagined that I would finish my Oxford degree from my kitchen table on the Island, but then, this year has provided us with many unexpected firsts.

While I didn’t get my classic Oxford experience this year, I can only be glad I did get to experience traditions such as wearing sub fusc and getting ‘trashed’ during my first year exams. Incoming freshers may not be so lucky.

Being a finals student this year has certainly been an experience, and one I will never forget.

After all, not many people can say they’ve graduated from the University of Oxford from home.