Here we meet a few of our recent leavers to find out what they have been doing in the short time since they left school and what they hope to achieve in the future.
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Jacob Page (12-19)
For obvious reasons, no account of my time beyond Dulwich this year could avoid making mention of COVID. After a long and brilliant summer in the sun, virtually all my interactions back at Cambridge are affected in some way by coronavirus. At a small college with inane yet rigorously enforced rules, the police-state level of surveillance has been frustrating. The old joke ‘How many academics does it take to change a lightbulb (read: suck the fun out of student life)’ springs to mind. At times, it has been pretty dismal socially, with many institutions that I hold dear being shut down for good, and many more being changed beyond recognition. With regards to my geography degree, the uncertainty of travel has made choosing a dissertation topic much harder, as I doubt I’ll be able to use it as an excuse to voyage somewhere preferably warmer than the UK. All in all, it has been a disorienting year, and I can only hope that by the summer, some semblance of normality can help make up for lost time.
Malcolm Eisenhardt (08-19)
Whilst my year off was affected by the pandemic, I did manage to get away to South America for a few months. After 4 months of working, I travelled to Brazil, Argentina and Chile before sadly having to come back early. I hope to restart my travelling during the summer of 2021, if COVID allows. I can’t say my lockdown was too eventful and bar some charity work, it mainly consisted of virtual football, and the real thing, once restrictions eased. I did manage to get away in the summer before commencing studies in Human Geography at Leeds University. It seems only right that if I’m to send in a photo, it would be with a geographical landscape. So here is me in Salar del Carmen, in the San Pedro de Atacama Desert, Northern Chile, blissfully unaware of the incoming pandemic. I hope to see everyone back at Dulwich soon. Olly Foster (08-19) I left London on a misty Sunday in January 2020 for an 11-hour flight to Shanghai; the start of a gap year experience involving 8 months working and travelling in South East Asia. An exciting, yet daunting prospect of 3 months in China and Japan respectively and a further 2 months travelling the rest of the sub-continent. Being in China and working in Dulwich College Suzhou, was a mind-opening experience. It certainly made me very aware of the considerable cultural and social differences between East and West. This was until the COVID outbreak started and a panic flight back to London. An impulse ticket was then booked to Australia, on the basis I could later fly directly to Japan and carry on my already truncated gap year. Halfway through this trip, Japan announced it was closing its borders and rumours started to spread that Australia (and the UK) were beginning to close their borders too. Flying back on 21 March to London became the only option, cutting my trip in Australia short (a now somewhat recurring theme). I am now studying Law at Durham University, hoping to carry on my attempted gap year next summer.
Nathan Sparkes (12-19)
The first couple of months at university have been rather bizarre. I haven’t yet been onto campus for teaching, we don’t have any live streamed lectures, and we only have one hour per week per module on Zoom, in which we consolidate what we’ve taught ourselves using resources sent at the start of the week. It’s taken some getting used to and being productive without any change of scenery from my bedroom is quite challenging. I find staying close to the Dulwich community the strongest link to normality these days, reminiscing over the days where we could sit within 2m of each other, go out for beers in groups of 6+ and not have to ‘check-in’ to go for a quick 99p Pret filter coffee pre-Monday night RGS lectures! During the brief relaxation of rules in the summer I managed to venture onto the continent with a few friends from Dulwich. Fast-forward to September and university has taken a whole new look, shifting completely online and hockey fixtures constantly postponed. As a university, we experienced a significant spike in Covid-19 cases. I tested positive at the end of September leading to a challenging 14-day isolation. However, the maturity I have seen amongst students abiding by isolation guidelines gives me hope that the current decline of cases in Exeter will continue.
My first year at the University of Hong Kong was faced with numerous disruptions. We moved to online learning as far back as November 2019 because of social disruptions. So, when COVID hit in early 2020, many of us had already adapted to online learning. The university experience would have been more fulfilling if I had been able Travis Yip (15-19)
My experience over the past 6 months has (like everyone else) been unique, challenging and surreal. It began with being forced out of university early and having to do my final term of Cambridge economics online. Luckily, there was not much teaching besides a few hours of Zoom supervisions. For our final year exams, the university was extraordinarily kind to us, offering a ‘safety net’: we could do no worse than in the previous year. They also made the exams 24 hours long and did not examine half of the course. After completing these exams, I started my career in Investment Banking. I am now working from home, very thankful I have a job, and enjoying post-University life as much as possible. Selvin Selbaraju (10-17)
to take part in the overseas volunteering trip I had planned on. Nonetheless, the new norm of virtual engagements has opened up opportunities for me. I joined an online business competition centred around creating shared value and I organised an online webinar with friends from Georgia, Vietnam, and Brazil under a student-run organisation. Most of all, the new norm has encouraged me to stay more connected with friends from Dulwich via Zoom and Skype and I look forward to when I can revisit London.
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