Would I do it all over again?

This is probably the toughest question people ask me.

Short answer: ask me in ten years

Long answer: don't really know; it was all so uneven

When I think of GGD, I think of all the cool speakers I got to meet in Diplomatic Practice. Field trips. Some interesting concepts. And, well, getting to be a student at Oxford.

But I also think of how frustrating and depressing the whole thing was. Having to spend most of my time having to deal with shit and issues that shouldn't have had to come up if the programme had been managed better.

I never really learned what global governance was exactly. As for the diplomacy part, it scared me out of wanting to be a potential diplomat for at least the next several years.

Many other things frustrated me:
-- GGD was way too small. Too few resources. Would have liked more class options. And a larger number of students would have been nice too. Oftentimes it got way too claustrophobic for me.
-- My main experience in the university-world was with my honestly middling undergrad university. Relatively small school where most of the students were apathetic about politics and learning in general but overwhelmingly nice people. The people that ran the place genuinely cared about the students and no one was screwed over, even if that meant sacking one of the teachers who for whatever reason hadn't worked out. One thing I really enjoyed was the open debate allowed in class, where you could look at an issue from all angles. Whereas at Oxford it was difficult to impossible to question the party line of the 'liberal-left' without consequences. Heaven forbid if you read a newspaper other than The Guardian. I certainly will never call myself a liberal again after that experience.
-- It was next to impossible to meet people outside your immediate programme at Oxford. Talk about silos and structural barriers. This probably would have been different for me if I had been at a different Oxford college.

Well, I do have a Master's degree from Oxford. Nothing can take that away from me. And who knows what value dropping the 'O-bomb' will have in my future. Lord knows now it is more of a liability than an asset.

Now that I have the Oxford degree to put up on the wall, I do want to do more grad school in a couple years.

Knowing what I know now, what kind of school will I look for next time?
-- One with more political diversity, with people both to the left and right of the 'liberal-left'
-- One with a greater sense of community not broken in into dozens of colleges and a frustrating bureaucracy that limits and divides accountability
-- It doesn't need to be one of the top five schools in the world, just a place where I want to be everyday and get something out of every day.
-- A greater link to my research interests

But then again I might get into Cambridge and find it hard to say no to them too!