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Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

When I was working on my thesis I did much of the same thing -- the majority of my "thinking" time was spent walking in a loop around the college gardens, and I would only go inside to type out a few paragraphs once I had composed them mentally.

I got quite annoyed when the college closed the gardens between midnight and 4 AM...

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An old professor of mine used to go on huge country walks for a lot of the day. He is one of the top figures in his field of AI and attributes most of his success to being able to just walk out of the campus and into a huge field. He is at a large post-polytechnic and is courted by the likes of Oxbridge and UCL/ICL almost yearly, but stays because he likes the nearby field.

I did much the same, also, Google says you were at Wadham College, right next door to me!

Where were you? Trinity? New? Rhodes house?

I was at New

Maybe a CS student walking alone outside at 2am is not the best of ideas.

Don't know where you live but I never had a problem or saw anyone else have a problem late at night over my 4 years of uni.

When a student I would regularly be out and about between midnight and dawn - it's when I did my best work. I never had any concerns. Still don't. It's a pity that you live somewhere that makes it an issue.

I wasn't a CS student, though.

Aside from the danger of tripping over my feet, it was quite safe. Oxford dates from a period when the "town" would routinely riot against the "gown", and college are, quite literally, fortified.

The Wadham college gardens aren't quite so well guarded as the college proper, but they're still surrounded by a 15' stone wall -- hardly something anyone is going to climb over just on the chance that they can mug someone.

Interesting - what college?

As haliax Googled, I was at Wadham.

I should've looked it up, but I'm on my mobile and 'net access is inconvenient - sorry. Thanks for the amswer. Your comment sounded familiar - I was at Corpus, Cambridge - so the experience is similar.

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