Computer Science - Marius Gavrilescu

• Home    Râmnicu Vâlcea, România
  
• Degree  Computer Science
  
• A levels Romanian Baccalaureate in Romanian Language, Mathematics, Computer Science
  

What made you choose to study here?
As we all know Oxford is the best university (not that I’m biased). St John’s also offers lots of perks, which make the student experience easier and more enjoyable.  

Is life here different from how you expected it to be?
I expected it to resemble my high school experience – lots of work with little free time. I was wrong on the first count (the workload being very reasonable), but right on the second – there’s so many interesting societies here that you can expect most of your free time to be taken up attending numerous events.

What do you like about studying at St John’s?
Plenty of free food.
Friendly Mathematics & Computer Science community.
Good (and numerous) College sports teams.

Are there aspects of  your degree you particularly like?
In my experience Computer Science is a pretty flexible course, which allows you enough spare time to attend your favourite activities. Computer Science has great employment opportunities: plenty of companies are looking for programmers nowadays and many of them offer well-paying internships. It’s one of the few courses where you have a very good chance of getting an internship in the summer after the first year – and leaving it with a full-time employment offer.

How do you like to spend your spare time?
I am involved in a number of societies. I spend about 12 hours ballroom dancing each week, and I’m on the College Ultimate Frisbee team. I can be seen at every Computing Society event that I am able to attend. The rest of my spare time is spent playing games or watching movies with my friends, going to one-off society events, and simply reading pointless stuff on the internet.

What advice would you give someone looking to study at Oxford?
Being an...  awesome person? The most important part of Oxford is the people here. There are few other places with so many smart, friendly, interesting and accepting people to meet and share experiences with.