After the last week of term, I’m going to enjoy the Easter holidays and take a much-needed break. The last seven days have brought with them two essay deadlines, a presentation evening for the charity project I’ve been working on as well as the general rush of things to do as term ends.
University teaching is split in a strange way when compared to school’s regular three terms; we have two ‘teaching blocks’ which are split over three terms and then exams at the end of terms one and three. This means that there’s still a week or two of lectures left after we return, but after that, we’re straight into exam season and then all done by June. As a result, a lot of the study for the summer exams takes place over Easter.
It’s not all work though. At the end of the break, there is also the annual ‘Philosophy Weekend Away’ to look forward to. The weekend takes the form of a three-day retreat to Ripon College in Oxfordshire where students and a guest speaker (this year, Rebecca Roache from Royal Holloway, London) give philosophical talks. I’m giving a talk on decision theory and something called the Allais Paradox which you can find some more reading here on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a really good resource that you’ll use a lot if you end up studying philosophy. Even if it will be somewhat intimidating to give the talk it’s sure to be a good weekend and everyone going is looking forward to it.
Easter also means that those that haven’t already are submitting applications for internships and/or making other plans for summer. I have a few housemates who are starting their years abroad and years in industry but most people are organising their own internships and activities. I’ve just sent off an application for the university’s ‘Enternship’ (internship + entrepreneur) scheme where, instead of working for someone else, you receive funding and mentoring to go and start your own business idea. Whether it’s completely successful or not is remains to be seen, but it should be a valuable learning experience regardless of what happens and, if my friend and I are accepted, it should be fun to see what we can make of it.
It’s always good to spend some time planning for the future but, for now, I’m off to Crete for a week where hopefully I can forget about that for now and just enjoy the present. See you all back here in a month.
James 
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