…to The Common Room Companion: a guide intended for new undergraduates or graduate students coming up to the University of Oxford (otherwise known as ‘freshers’) and returning students who’d like a refresher on the subjects treated herein. International students who may not be familiar with English dress and ritual are also most especially welcome.
What This Site Contains
This Companion leverages the author’s decade of experience at the University and other formal and ceremonial occasions to inform you of the more elaborate aspects of Oxford life, with which you may be unfamiliar. It will include:
Clear, picture-led guides to dress codes: sub fusc, black tie, white tie, morning dress, and further guidance on accessorising.
Formal dinners, demystified: how to read a place setting and navigate dinner table rituals.
Etiquette and ceremonial: what is Done and Not Done, and the meaning of University ceremonial.
Other information including: a glossary of Oxford terms, slang, and jargon, and other pieces of general advice and information.
Why Build This Site?
What is sub fusc? How would I go about buying a new suit? Why do I need to attend Matriculation?
My name is Alexander Yen. I matriculated in 2016, and read History and Politics at Magdalen. I’ve stayed on since as a masters’ and then a doctoral student, and in the nine years since I matriculated I’m happy to say that I’ve been to many of those formal and ceremonial events which colour the life of a student at Oxford.
What I’ve also been able to do is observe when things have gone right: conversely, of course, I’ve also been able to see when things go wrong. I’m writing this guide, then, in the hopes that it may serve the Oxonians that come after me.
It will be sufficient for me to impress on you, that whatever you have seen praiseworthy in others you will endeavour to imitate, and what in them may have appeared defective you will in yourselves endeavour to amend.
But to return to the questions at the head of this section. These were all questions I found myself asking when got my offer letter and started looking into life at Oxford, more than ten years ago. There were nuggets of information around in my day, but it was often contradictory, outdated, and desultory. So I am taking the opportunity to distil and present them to you, here, along with advice accumulated from a decade’s experience at Oxford, in the hopes that it will ease your passage into Oxford life and prepare you for formal occasions there and further afield.