Rakibul’s reflections on living the Oxford dream and taking a leap of faith

Rakibul Islam Bhuiyan, a BRACU SoL alumnus, has recently concluded the Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) program at the University of Oxford, widely regarded as one of their most prestigious master’s degrees in law. Previously, he had faced an embarrassment of riches, having secured fully funded scholarships from both Oxford and Cambridge, a situation most students only dream of.

The adjustment that followed, he says, was more of a weather shock than a culture shock- “Freshers’ flu,” Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) from autumn’s shrinking daylight, and homesickness took over early on, though friends and Oxford’s welfare team saw him through it. The academic adjustment was no gentler. Coming from BracU’s lecture-based system into Oxford’s adversarial, Socratic tutorials and seminars, demanding roughly 40 hours of self-study per week, wasn’t easy.

That deep-end feeling followed him into the classroom, where his cohort included sitting judges, practising lawyers, and doctoral researchers from around the world, several of whom appeared to have full careers before arriving for what was, on paper, the same master’s degree. In time, he realised that feeling out of his depth was simply part of the experience. Oxford’s intense system was built to stretch him rather than break him. As he puts it, “Oxford doesn’t teach you the tip of the iceberg; they teach you the depth of the sea.”

Photo credit: Collected

The course that reshaped his thinking most was AI and Data Law, which examined rules like the GDPR and how AI is altering hiring and workplace monitoring. Equally memorable was Professor Antonios Tzanakopoulos showing him that, unlike hierarchical national courts, international law runs on countries agreeing to cooperate, not on any central authority.

Beyond academics, the campus architecture and formal college dinners gave him his own taste of Hogwarts. He also fielded frequent questions from classmates about Bangladesh, especially around the events of the July Revolution, and was proud to represent university students’ role in that history.

Looking ahead, he hopes to help reform Bangladesh’s legal framework and strengthen its potential as a regional commercial hub. He urges other students, “An opportunity not taken is an opportunity lost, and a person who fears pain more than failure will taste both; these are the biggest lessons I’ve taken from Oxford: stand up, speak up, and seize what comes your way.”