Any parents of Y12 DCs up for a support thread?

My Mum would be depressed to hear that. She was the only girl doing maths in the 6th form when she was at school, but that was in the 1940s!!!

Girls doing Maths seem to be in a minority. In his class at college there are 2 girls and 17 boys.
We are going to the Lancaster open day on 28th August, that will be the first one I get to visit and I think it will be an overnight stay. It's another campus one, he's not keen on big cities, won't even look at any in London / Manchester. We do live in a village population c75.

TheEarlOf It's all new to me and until recently I hadn't even heard of Warwick uni but I gather you are right.

secretscwirrels your son is clearly aiming for the best though. Warwick IS the bees knees for maths. It is number one and known for it!

prettydaisies Well much to my surprise DS did not like Durham. He says his opinions are based entirely on the Maths department and he doesn't mind about the other stuff. The Maths course and the talk by the Maths department didn't inspire him anything like as much as Warwick, he thought it was too prescriptive.
Unfortunately DS doesn't do extra curricular. Maths is the only thing that excites him (I think he was a changeling ).
We have Lancaster booked for the end of August and Nottingham for September but I think he needs to see some others. He's gone off on a summer schol for the rest of this week. Poor boy, two 5am starts.

Ta! That's really interesting.

Kez100 I have a vague idea of how it's set up but having just looked up the Bower Ashton Campus I don't know as much abotu it as Frenchay (main champus).

This thread on The Student Room is really helpful and although it's from 2 years ago I've had a skim through it and things haven't really changed that much. www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1619112

Earl, my daughter will be looking at Bristol, but UWE and Bower Ashton Campus, not the main University. I know there isn't any halls at Bower Ashton but I think there may be some in Bristol with a free or cheap Uni bus. Do you know anything about this set up at all?

Kez100 I could have done my course in 2 years BUT I would have missed out on a lot of extra-curricular which has helped me get a job after uni. If uni is about furthering your career (rather than the academics), which for a lot of people it is, then by doing the extra-curricular which I had time to do by doing it in 3 years rather than 2 then it makes sense to have 3 years with less official contact teaching time

I do sometimes think DS is heading for the wrong course. We stumbled into the Civil Engineering dept by accident and he was fascinated by the film they were showing on how pathogens spread in hospitals, and spent a lot of the day taking photos of the buildings and thinking of ways to stop bottlenecks when there were lots of people in one place etc
It was a visit to JET that decided him on ME with nuclear.

One of my daughters BA (Hons) courses is available as a 'fast track' over two years. They will only allow this after consideration of where the student is in terms of ability but it shows these courses are starting to become available.

Yes he went on a coach from school. Not heard yet, they are due back after 7pm.
It will be interesting to see how he compares it with Warwick where he went last week. I don't think he's impressed by historic buildings and architecture and I gather Warwick is a modern campus. Durham will be very different from that point of view. His main interest is in what the Maths department say and they sold it to him at Warwick.
It's odd how they form ideas sometimes. Apparently, before last week, DS had the idea that all the Maths students would be housed together if he went to a campus uni . He was not keen on that as was hoping to meet some none Mathsy girls.

DS is going to Durham on Saturday as well, but they are going to Nottingham on Friday and staying overnight in Darlington. Poor little car will have probably added a 1000 miles in open days

Leeds ticked so many of the right boxes.

DS really like the course (mechanical engineering with nuclear)
Good contacts with industry
Brilliant sports centre with a climbing wall (big +) He will have worked at our local sports centre by then for nearly 3 years as a lifeguard/casual officer, so good chance of work.
Knows someone there already who is giving good reports back about student life.
Residence seemed nice and not too expensive.

secretscwirrels not Durham today, but DD is going on Saturday. It involves a very early start (I don't think she realised quite how far away it is). Has you DS gone today? Would be interested to know what he thinks.

Finished in May. Well, I know it would be unpopular with staff but faced with £9k a year fees plus nearly the same again to live on I wonder how many students would prefer to have their course condensed into two years. Five weeks holiday a year is enough for the rest of the world .

Anyone's DC gone to Durham today?

Thanks Earl.

Thanks Earl

If anyone has any questions about Bristol I am currently studying there and would be happy to answer any qs.

My course probably has 8/9 hours of contact a week and we finished in about May and then had exams but I know the Vets/Dentists are in 8-6 some days. Having said that although I have fairly few contact hours it's not like I don't have things to do and if you want to go speak to the academic staff they are more than happy to talk/debate things with you. I think that's wehre it lies really, how much the student is willing to put in. I know some people on my course who've come in just for the lectures and left whereas I tend to talk to the lecturers and get the help fi I need it.

Anyway, I do think it might be course dependent rather than institution dependent, but it's a question that I will be asking / getting ds to ask when we eventually get to his Open Days. Just interesting to hear what students already on courses think of their Universities.
If it helps, I was talking to someone at St Andrews who LOVES it there, if that helps anyone ?

Oh, no - I can see how you've mis-read what I meant - sorry
I meant, that all there was were the 2 revision session, meaning to say there was nothing for her to attend / do / work on between March and July, rather than there were only 2 sessions. Sorry! I don't think it's the university's responsibility to organise their revision. I do think it's their responsibility to teach and to challenge the students though, otherwise we could all just sit ant home and get degrees without any guidance, surely ?
She hadn't got work set / essays or dissertations or projects to hand in. I mean, I know in theory you could spend a lot of time 'reading around the subject', but I think they've had plenty of time for that in the first half of the year, and actually do need something to be working on.
I agree it is (and should be) a completely different thing from school, but I do think it ought to be 33+ weeks long over a year.

Kez University.

Well Cardibach - my degree ('85-88), my sister's (85-89) my dh's ('93-97) all had full days of attendance of college - well, full "school hour" type days ... 9 - 3.30 / 9.30 - 4 type hours) - with one afternoon out for sports I think was the idea.

We still had to do independent study, reading, research etc., but it was expected that you did that in the rest of the afternoon, the evenings and at weekends, in addition to the lectures, classes and seminars you had to attend. It's not about "being passive and expecting to have everything done for them", it's about expecting the teaching staff at the university to actually teach. I know some courses have/had fewer contact hours, but there's a big difference between 5-6 hours and 25-30 hours. I don't expect anyone to organise revision sessions either, but I do expect them to teach for the full academic year.
I understand that some people think that's fine to have so little teaching and guidance each week, but I can't believe anyone thinks it's OK for the course to finish in March. Really ??
I know quite a few youngsters who are at / recently finished universities, and the fewer hours seems common, but I've never heard of another college just not giving any lectures, seminars, teaching in any form, for half the year.