On Thursday 13 June, this year’s leavers were invited to attend a ‘Going Down Party’ hosted by the Dean and the Development Office. As a student who has been at the House for five years, I know that closing this chapter of my life will not be easy. However, we are lucky at Christ Church to have a Development Team who are so dedicated to maintaining connections with alumni. Their efforts made Thursday evening’s event feel less like a ‘goodbye’ and more like a ‘good luck’ as we move on to our next challenge.

This year’s cohort of leavers will be returning to the House next March for a reunion dinner – a date many of us have already marked in our diaries – and will remain members of the House for the rest of our lives. Trinity term is full of dinners, parties and celebrations, but none quite mark the end of an era like this one does. Even as we look forward to the next chapters in our lives, we know that we will still have the House to connect us. We will remember the small moments we shared that made the House feel like a home, and use the lessons learnt here to pave the way for our future ambitions.