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I was in a tutorial room in a fancy Oxford college with fancy Oxford stairs and imposing gardens and porters who hesitated to let you in through the gates. In this tutorial room, I was to give a presentation of my research to around 15 other graduate students and a professor who usually completely ignored my class contributions.
It might not surprise you to learn that graduate students at Oxford were rather competitive about their intelligence, and that as a general rule they did not relish being perceived as stupid. I, on the other hand, was Australian and so, to an almost liberating degree, this meant that in the UK my imbecility was presumed just as soon as my accent was noted.