Jose Cobangbang IV grew up in the Philippines ,graudated from Berkeley, worked in San Francisco for 10 years, and then packed his bags and came to Oxford for an MBA. Whilst here, he's attended the COP27 summit, rowed for Pembroke, and done work on flood alleviation ideas for the Global South.
It's one thing to make it into a student paper for something you've done at Oxford, but it's another to make it into the Times and Telegraph. That's exactly what Phoebe Winter did when she advocated for scholars' privilege to be abolished in the room ballot at Oriel. But to get there, she had to go a bit off script.
When I was on my year abroad in Taiwan, I met a whole host of interesting people. One of them that really stood out was Sheng, the man who came to collect my rent every month and did odd jobs around the apartment. As part of an project I had to do for Oxford, I interviewed Sheng about his life in Taipei. Reflecting on this project two years later, there's a lot to be said for how it relates to my experience with Oxford, and with Taipei.