Life at the 900-Year-Old University (Ep. 108)

Today’s episode is a conversation with one of my YouTube friends: Simon Clark!

You might remember Simon from Episode 77, which was a reply of a livestream where we  (along with our friend Jamie) answered questions about becoming an adult.

I wanted to talk with Simon again on the podcast for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, he graduated with a physics degree from Oxford University. I’ve always been curious about Oxford; it’s one of the most well-known universities in the world, parts of the films were shot there, and it’s old. Like, 

With a history dating back to the year 1096, Oxford University is actually the oldest English-speaking university in the world. As befits a university that’s been around for over 900 years, Oxford has some rather unique ways of doing things – which Simon elaborates upon in our conversation.

Secondly, Simon is currently a PhD student, with his main area of study being atmospheric physics. So we also talk about what life is like for a PhD student – the workload, the of work, the schedule, etc.

Aside from being a PhD student and a choral singer, Simon is also a pretty active YouTuber – which is how I met him. Check out the links below to have a look at his work!

Also, heads up: This is one of those episodes filled with banter and random conversation. Simon is one of those people I always end up talking to for at least double the intended time – it’s inevitable.

If you’d like to skip all the off-topic stuff about comics and Pokemon and everything else, skip to around 25 minutes in the episode. Don’t worry, I’ll only cry a little bit.

Oh, and if you’re curious, here’s one of Simon’s study-related videos!

Things mentioned in this episode:

• Simon’s YouTube channel
• Follow Simon on Twitter
• Crash Course on Atmospheric Physics
• PhD Watch
• Jake Wright
• OxVlog project
• Simon’s Goodreads
• My Goodreads

Want more cool stuff? You can find all sorts of great tools at my Resources page.

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