Janey Harold (UK)

Having graduated from Oxford with a First Class degree in PPE in 2022, I return this October to study a BPhil in Philosophy. The city feels different to how I left it: face masks are few and far between, one-way trails through libraries are no more, and the gap stretching between me and my neighbour in the dining hall has shrunk. It feels good to be back in a university that has largely recovered - and has helped the world to recover - from the pandemic that once dominated it.

For the past two years, I have worked in NHS hospitals in Rotherham and Barnsley. That work taught me a lot about people, systems, scarcity and operational challenge. But despite being places full of determination and grit, these hospitals could afford little time for thought. This is what I came to miss, and it is what I most look forward to regaining in the coming months - time to think thoughts, question arguments, discuss ideas, pose alternatives.

What will I think about? To that I keep an open mind. (One of the brilliant things about Oxford’s BPhil is that it leaves all topics of inquiry on the table, ready and waiting to be picked up, turned upside down and examined.) Right now, I am enjoying reading about moral motivation, Kantian constitutivism, and philosophies of human action. But I expect that these interests may grow, transform, shrink, expand - change - throughout my time here.

The spirit of Ertegun House strikes me as full-bodied and thrilling. A world in which more of us are able to engage directly with the humanities is a hopeful one. I have long appreciated the powers of music to bring people together in collective recognition and realisation of our human capabilities. (This is something that my hometown of Wolverhampton’s brilliant youth music service taught me all too well.) And I see Ertegun’s mission in a similar light: bringing thinkers together through - not just in spite of - our differences.

It is a joy to be here.