I'm a third year from Hertfordshire, studying PPE (Politics, Philosophy & Economics). I went to Dame Alice Owens, which is a state school in Potters Bar. One of the main things I was worried about when I arrived here was that I hadn't studied maths, economics or philosophy before, but my tutors were really helpful and I soon caught up with the maths I needed for economics.

Philosophy (especially ethics) has ended up being the subject I enjoy most now, although an interest in politics was what originally inspired me to study PPE. This is one of the advantages of PPE - it's a really varied course, and there's lots of choice of modules from second year onwards so you can tailor it to your preferences after you get a grasp of the basics in first year.

Most of the work is based around time spent in the library reading to prepare for my essays, with a few lectures to give a general overview of the subject, and two tutorials every week. There are fewer contact hours in PPE than most courses, so you need to be pretty organised and self-motivated to get your work done. I prefer it this way because I can be really flexible and plan my days around other things I want to do. I tend to spend most of the daytime working in various libraries round Oxford, usually with a fairly long break for lunch seeing friends, often involving wasting ridiculous amounts of money on paninis, cake and coffee at STACS, our college café.

Aside from work and numerous extended coffee breaks, I also fit in a fair bit of extra curricular stuff - last year I was on the JCR committee and I volunteer for a small international development charity, so I spend some evenings in meetings and the rest chilling with friends in college or at the pub/college bar. One of the great things about St Anne's is that there's a real sense of community and we normally have quite a few college-based events like subject curries, bops, formal dinners in hall and open mike nights. We do work hard, but we have a lot of fun too - I just waste a lot less of my time now I'm here. Although when there's an essay to be done and facebook beckons, I can't avoid a little bit of procrastination...