Shannon Philip

Reading the MSc in Contemporary India at Oxford was a fascinating experience. Not only did I enjoy the intense pressure of the short Oxford terms but I also managed to experience the equally intense socializing and merry making. As a small and committed group of students on the course, I inevitably ended up making some wonderful and close friends with whom I spent numerous hours in Oxford’s many libraries as well as bars and cafes. Trying out food in each other’s college dinning halls as well as exchanging books from our college libraries became very much second nature to me and my friends during the Masters.  

The course offered excellent and rigorous teaching about India form interdisciplinary experts in their fields. We were set stimulating and relevant readings before all our lectures and classes and we always had access to the fantastic teaching team through a round of question and answers at the end of all lectures. I particularly valued the opportunity to spend time with my course supervisor discussing my various essays and thoughts because this provided a unique space to engage with my own work. 

The MSc in Contemporary India was my first experience of life as a student at Oxford and I very quickly became hooked. After finishing my Masters I have stayed on at Oxford to start my PhD on gender in contemporary India with the Department of International Development. I am still very much in touch with CSASP and regularly attend their many interesting events relating to India or South Asia more broadly. I am thrilled to have been part of the MSc in Contemporary India cohort of 2013-14 and I take away lots of fond memories and laughter as well as a very different way of looking and thinking about India.