Malala begins studies at Oxford

Activist who was shot for her beliefs five years ago forges a remarkable education path

Malala Yousafzai, the 20-year-old Pakistani activist who was shot by the Taliban for advocating girls’ education, began her studies at the University of Oxford this week.

Yousafzai, the world’s youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, announced on Twitter on Monday that she was attending her first classes at the elite British institution. A picture of a laptop with three school books on logic accompanied the post.

She wrote: “5 years ago, I was shot in an attempt to stop me from speaking out for girls’ education. Today, I attend my first lectures at Oxford.”

Yousafzai was formally accepted to Lady Margaret Hall in August. It is the same Oxford college that Benazir Bhutto, who went on to become the first female prime minister of Pakistan, attended in the 1970s.

Clare Woodcock, a spokesperson for the university, confirmed Tuesday that Yousafzai has enrolled at Oxford but said the school would make no further comment. Yousafzai said in August she would study philosophy, politics and economics.

At a young age, Yousafzai became a high-profile advocate for the education of girls. She appeared alongside her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, the owner of a girls’ school, in a 2009 New York Times documentary about the Taliban edict that forbade girls from attending classes.

Using a pen name, she wrote blog posts for the BBC about life in the Swat Valley, an area of Pakistan that was largely controlled at the time by the Taliban. In 2011, she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize. It has since been renamed the National Malala Peace Prize.

But her efforts to bring change to the Swat Valley also made Yousafzai a target. On Oct. 9, 2012, when she was 15, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus, asked for her by name and shot her in the head and neck.

Severely injured in the attack, Yousafzai was transferred to Britain for medical treatment. She settled with her family in Birmingham, England, where she continued her education, according to the Malala Fund, an organization she founded in 2013.

In 2014, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside the Indian activist Kailash Satyarthi, for “her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” She has met with former U.S. president Barack Obama and with Queen Elizabeth.

On her 16th birthday she gave a speech at the United Nations, which declared July 12 “Malala Day.”

But even extraordinary lives have their quotidian moments. Last month, just days after posting pictures from the UN General Assembly and the offices of U.S. senators, Yousafzai sent an anxious request for help to her more than 987,000 followers on Twitter.

“Packing for university Any tips? Advice? Dos and dont’s?” she asked, adding the hashtag #HelpMalalaPack.