Nick Jefferson (Jurisprudence, 1994)
Nick studied Law at Hertford in the 90s and is now Partner at Monticello LLP. He has been supporting Hertford for a number of years and took part in our Bridge to Bridge bike ride in 2014.
‘And what’s your Plan B?’ he responded, immediately and condescendingly. He was the Head of Sixth at my rural comprehensive. I had just told him that I was thinking about applying to Oxford. Not what you’d call unbridled enthusiasm.
It was nearly 25 years ago, but still today that scene will be playing out over and again in schools up and down the country. Fortunately for me, another teacher, an Oxonian, picked up on my interest and nurtured me. He suggested that Hertford might be a good fit. He was right on so many levels.
I was lucky. I read Law, went on to qualify at a big City firm and then transitioned in strategy consultancy. I’m now a partner with Monticello LLP, helping businesses reinvent themselves for the 21st Century.
But relying on luck isn’t good enough. Because for as long as kids are told, either implicitly or explicitly, that Oxford isn’t, somehow, ‘for them’, then we all miss out. Society misses out, by not furthering the brightest and the best – regardless of where they come from. The university misses out, because its ongoing reputation is dependent on the diversity and plurality of thought that drives truly great thinking. And, most of all, young people miss out – on the genuinely transformative privilege that is Hertford.
Michael Hutchence sang: ‘I told you, That we could fly. Because we all have wings. But some of us, don’t know why.’
Because of attitudes like the one above, too few kids know that they can fly. They are held back, needlessly, by the maddening, feudal bonds of ‘class’, ‘station’ and ‘knowing one’s place’. I want others to have opportunity to be liberated from those surly, pointless shackles; to tear through them, with warrior-like gusto. I want others to know and receive – because they deserve it on merit and on no other grounds – what we have all known and received; the lifelong gift of our education from and in Hertford College: intellectual curiosity, learning how to learn and an insatiably hearty appetite for life.
That’s why I donate.