This blog has been shortlisted as part of our JC student blogger competition

Being Jewish, I’m constantly running into family friends. Being about to go to university, the small talk is fairly predictable:

Where are you going to uni? (Oxford) Your parents must be so proud! (They are) Are you excited? (Yes) Are you nervous? (Yes) Oh you’ll make friends.

And at this point I tell them that this is not what I’m nervous about. The exact opposite actually. I know too many people there. The place is packed with north-west London day school kids, the place is packed with other Jews.

People talk about university as a chance to meet new people, reinvent yourself, forge your identity, but that doesn’t work particularly well when you’re surrounded by people who know your grandma. You just look like a bit of an idiot really.

It’s a bit like writing an article for a Jewish newspaper, or accidentally writing a prize-winning poem for Jewish Book Week (that actually happened to me, please don’t Google it, I’ll cry). You know full well that everyone you know and everyone you met briefly at a family friend’s bat mitzvah when you were eight will read it. You know your mum is going to get a whole load of texts about it. You know that if it’s a bit rubbish or a bit too cheeky you’ll become a social pariah in your community, cast out by everyone you know and love because one time you did a thing that some people didn’t like a little bit.

So, yes, I’m nervous about going to university. I’m nervous because I’m not leaving The Bubble. The Bubble is just shifting slightly north – or west, or east, or maybe south (I’m not studying geography) – with me.

Mira Trenner is about to start her first year at Oxford University.