DD angry at mature student for inappropriate email

You sound bizarrely invested in your daughter's coursemates.

"Bragging" about how they got on the course= "what grades did you need and subsequently obtain"

Otherwise, what are you both inferring?

You could also try and get rid of the chip on your shoulder about people older than you getting on better than you in the workplace.

There's perhaps a correlation with the time you spend bitching about other people and the fact they're doing better than you.

You're basically as childish as OP's daughter tbh lol

I'd tell her to stay out of it, they're both adults. No-one will thank her for complaining. People always shoot the messenger. Is it really worth it? Lecturer may treat her less favorably in future.

Who exactly though is she going to complain about, because actually if she does she is br8nging into question the lecturer and the lecturer alone. The mature student hasn’t done particularly anything wrong and probably doesn’t gel with the group (clearly isn’t on the what’s app) is probably feeling embarrassed so nothing to be gained.

complaining brings into question the lecturer and how they mark

Considering the OP has told her daughter that the mature student ‘Likes being teacher’s pet’ there’s not much hope.
Go on OP, show your daughter this thread. I double dare you. 😂

At work, I see it as well. Older people who like a bit of politics, making best mates with the boss, and all of a sudden they are given a leg up, more money, better projects etc.

Do you think its possible they get those opportunities because they have more work experience? 😄

Oh no the more mature student, how embarrassing.

I was the only mature student on my course. The lecturers were my age and their tone with me was different. I became friendly with them along with some other matures from other courses in the same department. My classmates barely spoke to me.

We had a very good looking lecturer called Andy that I wasn't especially keen on - he was nice but very lazy and always visibly hungover. I borrowed a book from him once that he mentioned in class. Imagine my surprise a few years later when the now much more level headed and friendly young women on my course confided in me that as a group they had hated me as I was 'always flirting' and 'quite likely sleeping' with Andy. Apparently one of them really genuinely liked him and I was her competition.

They looked perplexed when I started to laugh and couldn't stop, we are taking bent over tears rolling laughter.

She needs to let it go. She was never meant to see the email, it wasn’t about her and does not affect her and it will make her look silly and petty if she complains. And what difference does it make that the student was “mature”?

But even if their was favouritism with this student, it wouldn't make any difference to your dd's marks on assignments 😕

She'll get the marks she deserves for her work, who cares what anyone else gets?

Plus, no tutor would be giving extra marks where they're not deserved as their own reputation will be fucked when their marking is assessed.

Massive overreaction. Is she sensitive/worried about her own academic performance?
As others have said, work is usually marked by more than one tutor, at least one with no particular connection to the student/anonymous, and moderated by someone external and even more unconnected.

Edited to change 'marking is usually marked' to 'work is usually marked'.

In you DD shoes, I'd just send a short reply saying "was this meant for me?".

The sender will be mortified, which is about as much "punishment" as she deserves. It doesn't sound like the tutor has done anything wrong so I don't see what there is to make a formal complaint about.

As the OP hasn't seen it, I suspect the "showing off" is something Ike. "I've actually managed to finish the latest assignment a whole 24 hours early. Amazing!" So a jokey comment, not meant as a showing off at all.
And the flirting may well be cut down to something like "Great to see you at the tiddlywinks club last night. I didn't know you were so good. Hope to see you next time."

Simply a casual email that she's reading that way because of her feelings, not as it was intended.

Yes. ‘Poor girl’ my arse. Unless there’s something extremely unsavoury going on in this email she sounds like the sort of terminally offended, uptight young people you read about in the papers.

If the email was a bit of a brag but otherwise just chatty we would have had a laugh at it, teased them and gone on with our own life.

We have these types of examples also - but if the email was only going to people in the same organisation and no personal info was disclosed that everyone who received it didn't already know (like, presumably they all know each other's uni email addresses), it's not a breach.

She's going to "sleep on it"?!?! FFS 😂My 12 year old DSD and her friends wouldn't be this bothered. She needs to grow up. Although it is a good job that she doesn't have bigger things in her life to worry about!

People have different relationship and level of communication with their parents while at uni. There are people who dont share much and people who talk to their parents every day.

If everyone else has read it why is she taking upon herself to contact whoever? Surely several people are going to be talking (gossiping) about it any way. I honestly don’t understand her gripe.

As a young adult, your DD is probably just very inexperienced here. This is something that she may look back on in years to come and wonder why on earth she thought it was such a big deal.

After all, the mature student must have already realised (or soon will anyway) that they erroneously sent this out on the group email and embarrassed themselves that way. That could be mortifying. The lecturer will have seen it too.

You are right to advise her to ignore it, but it sounds as though she and her friends are all egging each other on in the WhatsApp group. You can't put an older head on young shoulders. They will do what they will do in the end, and hopefully learn from it when/if it bites them on their arses.

Sometimes, experience really is the best/only teacher.

Well just to say that at the two higher education institutions where I’m employed, our GDPR training explicitly uses examples like this as a breach. I never send emails to student groups unless they are BC’d, this is what we are instructed to do.

I can actually see where your DD is coming from.

My DC has a place on a really niche Uni course and there are only a handful of students. 2 of them are mature students (40's) and I know this already as my DC knows them from other courses and they are on a WhatsApp group. They have both been bragging that they got onto this course on the group whereas my DC has not said anything. I have already spoken to my DC about them both, and warned them to make sure that they don't monopolise the best opportunities on this course (lots of projects) via schmoozing up to the teachers and bringing out sharp elbows. I saw them both on the open day and they monopolised questions and the main teachers time at the expense of others. It was so bad that I stepped in to have my DC's and others questions answered in the forum. Someone 18 wasn't going to pull them up on it.

At work, I see it as well. Older people who like a bit of politics, making best mates with the boss, and all of a sudden they are given a leg up, more money, better projects etc. whilst the younger ones, who are often more competent, don't have the personal skills yet to pull a sly one.

Mature students are just that. They have the experience of how the world works, and how to play the game and SOME, not all of course, but some take advantage of this in a selfish way to get what they want at the expense of the "kids" around them.

@Catlord are you hard of reading? I don't say the lecturer had done anything wrong, merely that they would probably be very cautious about perceived bias.

Without sight of the email you can't judge. Read it and then see for yourself.

A mature student of my acquaintance is currently coming to the end of a art foundation course and, having been told time and time again that 'you can't say that, you can't do that, you're not supposed to think that' by both fellow students and staff, decided to make her final project about the censorship of older women — and has been told she can't do that, by her 20-something course tutor, because it would cause too much trouble for everyone and upset her fellow students.

This is chilling and why I would never return to university teaching.

As for 'poor girl.' They have to grow up sometime.

@DoreenonTill8 🥇👏

'Sleeping on it' like she's the boss 😂