I could cry on behalf of my adult dd

[Theirishwan]

in 2016 my dd completed year 2 of her social care degree. She deferred year 3 to move to France to improve her French language skills. She spent over 4 years there and then returned home.

She applied to the college (in February this year) to continue her studies and was accepted into year 3 of the course and started it 2 weeks ago. At the end of her first week she got a call from the course director to say that she cannot continue on the course as the modules she did in year 1 & year 2 no longer comply with module standards approved by CORU (the social care regulatory board here in Ireland). The only option they are offering her is start year 1 again. She is devastated

She has decided that starting again would be soul destroying as it would be repeated modules but with the updates in them. She has decided to do an arts degree with French and Geography as her subject. But it’s too bloody late for this academic year. Had her application been rejected in February whe could have applied for the arts degree but it’s too late now.

oh I’m so upset for her and did have a cry with her last week. I know that at 27 she’s an adult but she’s still my child 😭

That is a real shame OP, I'm surprised they didn't ask her to do at least a refresher course before she rejoined, given she'd been out of the subject for 4 years. Is she restarting a whole new degree now?

That's a shame. I wonder why they accepted her first, surely they knew this beforehand? I hope they haven't taken any money from her?

God love her, that is soul destroying.

How long was her deferment for? Surely this was agreed?

Can I please suggest she apply for a Master's as a mature student, with the openness on her part to study a pre masters if it is required of her? I think that might be a great route to her not losing any time AND ending up with a more advanced qualification.

Is there another university such as the ou which would accept the first two years as transferred credit?

Seems strange to take a break from a social care degree to improve your French and disappear for over 4 years.

I'm not sure what she thought would happen when she took oiver 4 years away from her degree? Syllabuses change all the time, so does accreditation, and the CORU changes were well known.
She started 6 years ago but then abandoned it for over 4 years....this isn't an outcome that couldn't have been guessed at.

You can't get into a Masters without a primary degree

She finished in 2016 so that would make 6 years not 4. Surely she should have checked to see if the 2 years she had done were still valid after all that time. Courses are continually being updated and modified.

Why didn’t the college check all this before offering her a place? Seems really odd they would let it get thus far without having checked the detail.

Gosh even worse, finished six years ago! Amazed they let her come back at all, tbh

It is sad but surely it’s common sense that it may have changed.

Was French relevant to her degree in some way? (Can’t see how but maybe she wanted to work in France after completing her degree?).

Everything happens for a reason.

What did she expect to happen after taking so long out?

She's 27 and still faffing about? Doesn't really bode well. Can she not just get a job?

How has she financed all this?

To be honest this is a very harsh lesson for her. I am not sure why she thought that she could take a break for four years and not have any consequences. CORU are very strict and their requirements change over time.
I think she would be better off repeating year one and two rather than going the Arts route.

I’ve heard about this CORU registration issue. I think it’s a good thing if people working in social care are properly registered- and paid! Obviously it’s a terrible shock for people currently studying and finding out the courses aren’t compliant.

This is also happening to others who haven’t taken any time out, as far as I can gather.

Has your DD amassed any ECTS she can transfer?

The college accepting her back and then and then saying no can do is obviously poor, but social care really isn't the sort of degree you can pause for 6 years and restart.

I think both sides are wrong in this. The uni should have let her know sooner that she would need to retake. But also, why did your daughter not expect this to happen? It's common to take a year out but not 4 years. I would fully expect to have to restart my degree if I had taken that long a gap, there has to be a cut off point somewhere and she should have checked this.

It's poor that the college didn't tell her this earlier but living in another country for 6 years is not 'taking a break'. She should have expected to start all over again, not a chance she'll have retained that info

I would seriously question her commitment to working in social care to take such a long break. Most would just power through to get it done then go. Your dd sounds flakey. 4 years is a long time to pick up again

It’s been 6 years. The only person to blame is her. A year possibly 2 they’d accept as deferment not 6 that’s crazy. She wouldn’t have known most of the stuff that’s been taught. Sadly she needs to start again.

I hope she gets any money she's paid to the college back for this year because they shouldn't have accepted her back on the course.

However as pps have pointed out - she took six years out, it's not unreasonable that the modules she had done were out of date by then. I accept that's something that she might not be expected to know and the college should have - but even if the college had rejected her in February on that basis she would still be in a similar position regarding choosing whether to repeat the 2 years or do something completely new (albeit she could have applied to start the arts degree this year!).

I personally think the French and geography is a weird choice and think it would make much more sense to repeat the 2 years - for one she could presumably start year 1 immediately given that she's only missed 2 weeks and has already passed those modules (albeit the old versions), plus the college owe her for their fuck up! Plus given she's done 90% of the work it will be a very easy two years to the extent she could coast it to some degree, work extra hours in a part time job etc. Whereas if she does the arts degree she will be starting from scratch, will be 31 when she graduates and its not even a vocational degree so not sure what sort of job she will be expecting to go for with it.
Presumably she is pretty fluent in French anyway so can't see what an official degree will add to in terms of her employability.

Of course she isn't being unreasonable to be disappointed and neither are you to feel sorry for her but I can see the point of the pp that at 27 she needs to get a bit more of a definite idea about what she wants out of the next few years of her life and what she's working towards, rather than just getting a random degree for the sake of it.

They should have realised before now that she had taken so long out but taking so long in the first place probably wasn't the best idea if this is something she really wants to do.

6 years is a big time to be out of university. Also she must be fairly fluent in French by now? It might be a good thing that's she going to have a little bit longer to think about what she wants to do vs rushing into geography and French. Also as PP said might be worth a look at open university for part or the whole degree, as it will make it a lot easier to work alongside.