The reckoning is at hand and Huw Fullerton has the flowers to prove it

Oxford is currently in the midst of Trinity Term, aka the summer term (by now you’ll be aware that we need weird names for everything. I’m pretty sure even Cambridge go for ‘summer term’ now), and in theory this should be an idyllic time for Oxford students.

All the stereotypical Oxford experiences of punting, Pimm’s, picnics and cheerful real-world incompetence all taste a little sweeter in the sunshine, and the city itself is never more beautiful than in the warmer months. But sadly it is not to be.

For the most part, you won’t see students merrily skiffing their way down the Cherwell with fruity alcohol and Hemingway in hand, because Trinity term holds a darker purpose for us. This is the term of reckoning.

From an undergraduate perspective, exam time can seem a little like wartime, with soldiers ready to ship out at any given moment. The fearful rookies quiver as they hear veterans boast old war stories and relish in grisly tales of those who didn’t make it: the time someone was refused entry because she wore the wrong type of tights; the man who spent every exam with his bare feet curled around the legs of his desk like an academic limpet; the girl who spent the entire three hours weeping but who never left. And then there are the legends.

The rumour that, instead of your usual ‘sub-fusc’, if you turn up in a suit of armour this counts as ‘full-fusc’ and means an instant first. Or that a certain Latin phrase, lost for centuries, inserted into any essay will guarantee an academic career of your choosing.

Round and round the stories whirl, varying in likelihood and coherence — but they’re just distractions. Young or old, science or humanities, first year or finalist, we’ll all have to strap on our uniforms and go over the top.

Arguably, I’m trivialising the experience of war here (though I’d probably take a tour over another year studying Milton), but sometimes finals do feel like we’re finally leaving ‘boot camp’ and putting our hard-earned skills to the test. All that we’ve worked for the past two or more years has been leading to these few days in an exam hall, and it feels somewhat intimidating, but not from the exams themselves.

In less than two weeks (even less than that by the time you read this), I will have functionally finished my degree. No more Shakespeare, Chaucer, Keats, Swift, Donne, Austen — whatever I read from now on is my own choice, and for my own casual benefit.

Though I don’t have to leave Oxford for a few weeks after my finals, the day that I don that red carnation (white through pink for the earlier exams, fact fans) is sort of the day that I finally pop the Oxford bubble and re-enter the real world. It’s mad, I’ll probably have to pay taxes or something (that’s what people do, right?) Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to be shot of revision, and I’m looking forward to a chilled out summer. But my course is as much Oxford to me as the city itself, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone, metaphysical poets and all.

I suppose if this is war, then in a fortnight or so is my discharge. Here’s hoping I don’t make it too dishonourable.