Susan Humphrey excelling at Oxford
2010-12-06 09:32:12
A year ago, on her 21st birthday, Susan Humphrey (’10) received the news that she was Mount Allison University’s 48th Rhodes Scholar. Today, she is working towards her Master’s of Philosophy in Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford in England.
Mount Allison’s 49th Rhodes Scholar, Kelly O’ Connor from Kelowna, BC, received the same good news recently — making this the second year in a row and eighth time in ten years a Mount Allison student has been chosen as a Rhodes Scholar.
Humphrey gives huge credit to Mount Allison for where she is today.
“Students at Mount Allison are so involved and, being one of them, I was able to learn how to squeeze more hours out of a day than I ever thought possible, to balance multiple commitments and passions, and how to truly engage within my community,” she says. “But one of the things I value most about my education at Mount Allison is how it encouraged and enabled me to truly own my education — it has pushed me to always ask questions about what it is that I’m putting in, taking away, and getting out of my work and to take action if I happen not to like the answers that I’m getting to those questions.”
Humphrey says her experience at Oxford so far has been overwhelmingly positive, but the transition to graduate studies has taken some getting used to.
“While there are rigorous expectations, we are given an extraordinary amount of freedom when it comes to how we go about achieving learning objectives and outcomes as students at Oxford. Very little time is spent in the classroom, so it’s easy to feel as though you’re floating in a sea of ideas, literature, and possibilities. That feeling is both exhilarating and intimidating,” she says.
Along with her academic schedule, Humphrey has taken up the popular sport of rowing, and she’s glad she did. She spent her first term as a member of the first novice crew of her college and trained five days a week with eight teammates and three coaches.
“The early mornings and frigid temperatures all paid off when our crew came second of 78 boats in the Christ Church Regatta, which is the competition that all beginner crews are working towards throughout the term. I hope to keep rowing as a big part of my life here at Oxford and will trial for one of the senior boats next term.”
She has also been playing volleyball, helping to plan the annual Rhodes Ball, and working with fellow scholars to organize the Global Scholars’ Symposium — a conference aimed at tackling global issues that is jointly coordinated by and for Rhodes, Marshall, Clarendon, Gates, and Churchill scholars studying in the UK.
Humphrey calls Oxford one of most international places she has ever been, with students converging from places across the globe, such as Pakistan, China, Hong Kong, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Austria, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, and Australia.
“To be given the opportunity to engage with such a diverse set of perspectives and ideas on a daily basis has been nothing short of amazing and is definitely one of the things that continues to surprise and inspire me.”
While she says it seems just like yesterday she arrived at Oxford, she has been thinking about what’s next. After she completes her Master’s in 2012, she plans on returning to Canada and is thinking about law school or taking some time away from formal education to work in public policy, though she is certainly open to other opportunities that may present themselves while she is at Oxford.