When I first returned to Oxford to study as a mature student, many people asked if it felt strange to be back at University; but what really felt strange was that I'd ever been away! But although in many ways Oxford all seemed very familiar, I was twenty years older than I had been as an undergraduate first time round at Brasenose, and I was very glad to have ended up at Harris Manchester, a college that specializes in mature students (i.e. students aged 21 and over). As pleasant as Oxford's typical school-leaver students generally are, as someone who'd been out earning a living for the past twenty years I felt it far more congenial to be mixing with other students in a similar situation.

The actual business of studying theology felt quite different from studying Engineering Science (my first degree). For one thing, preparing for an Engineering tutorial was a matter of a minimal amount of reading followed by working through a sheet of problems; after about ten hours or so I'd either completed them all or got hopelessly stuck, so that no more work was needed or possible. Preparing for a Theology tutorial was a totally different matter: each question seemed so vast that it seemed I could potentially go on reading about it for ever; of course I eventually just had to stop reading and write my essay, by which time I'd in any case be bubbling over with ideas I wanted to get down in response to what I'd read. The second difference was that while I frankly found some parts of the Engineering Course a bit boring (especially when they involved tedious repetitive calculations that had to be carried out by hand, or by slide-rule and log tables), I never found that in any part of the theology course. Working felt easy because it all seemed so interesting, and the stuff I was given to read was stuff I wanted to read.

It no doubt helped that Harris Manchester is a small and friendly college - small enough that one can get to know everyone and really feel at home. It's also proved an exciting place to be, both as it's progressed from being a Permanent Private Hall to being a full College of the University of Oxford, and because of its highly distinctive ethos and mission compared with other Oxford colleges (recruiting and teaching solely mature students — a significant contribution to Oxford's outreach). It would not be true to say that every minute of it was wonderful - real life just isn't generally like that - but I've enjoyed it here as much as (or more than) I've enjoyed being anywhere; so much so that I stayed on and did a Master's and then a Doctorate, and was then delighted to accept an offer to join the staff!

Studying Theology at Oxford as a mature student is doubtless not for everyone; indeed, it's something relatively few people will ever contemplate, but should you be one of them, it's something I can heartily recommend.