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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

For getting annoyed by my mum saying "college" all the time??

199 replies

movember · 05/11/2011 10:00

Sounds a bit petty but my mum constantly refers to University as "college". Maybe I am being anal about it (probably) but I come from a non academic family. Out of 7 siblings, only one aunt actually went to university (and none of my 12 cousins have either so it was always a bit of a battle against the odds for me. I'm not massively academic so it took alot to actually get IN university, 2 years of education just to get to interview. Then I had to apply amongst 800 people for 200 places. I was one of the successful ones but it was bloody hard and I am proud of myself for getting in.

It's a big deal for me.

Yet my mum constantly refers to it as college and talks about it as if it's just a few gcses Im doing (its a science degree). I and my sister correct her all the time but she does it that often I'm sure she's doing it on purpose.

Yesterday for instance:

mum - "what were you doing on the 26th?"
me - "it's a night out with people from uni"
mum - "oh yes, you're going out with your college friends."

I don't always correct her because I think it sounds a bit twattish but why does she do it??

I constantly get "oh, are you at college today? do you have an assignment to do over the weekend?"

errr ... I have an assignment to do over the next 3 months, not the fecking weekend.

It could be put down to her having no experience of academic stuff but it's SO annoying and she manages to get everyone's place of education right! for instance "oh when your sister finishes college she might go to uni!" hmm you sure she won't just stay at "college" forever? grrrr

OP posts:

otchayaniye · 05/11/2011 13:15

no one asks, no one cares at my age, but if it does come up i say Oxford

Appuskidu · 05/11/2011 13:28

Which university are you at? Did it used to be a college/poly?

clam · 05/11/2011 13:32

DISSO???!!!

MrsUnassumingTroll · 05/11/2011 13:32

MrsB I'm dead common, me. Don't let the MA (Oxonian) fool you!

Don't have a chip on your shoulder about Oxbridge, you didn't miss much, honest . It was actually BLOODY hard work.

MrsUnassumingTroll · 05/11/2011 13:32

Fecking cocking iPad.

MA (Oxon)

2rebecca · 05/11/2011 13:42

Why is it Oxon not just Ox? I've never got the on bit.

mrsbaldwin · 05/11/2011 13:44

[Makes mental note to swap her Mac laptop for an Ipad as obviously the Oxbridge types all have them ]

FunnysInTheGarden · 05/11/2011 13:51

at one time no one ever referred to Uni. All universities and polytechnics were 'college'. It's only since Neighbours that Uni became common.

So YABU unless your mum is doing it to lessen your achievements, in which case YANBU

grovel · 05/11/2011 13:52

Oxon - Oxoniensis
Cantab -Cantabrigiensis

It's the Latin, don't you know.

grovel · 05/11/2011 13:55

College used to cover sixth form colleges and polytechnics.
Universities were universities (and the term "uni" was dead common).

In my day........

fedupofnamechanging · 05/11/2011 13:59

If you do a degree, what is the difference between doing it at a university or a college. It's the same degree, after all.

My old college has been renamed a university and for the life of me I cannot understand why - it doesn't make the quality of the degree any different.

OP, you sound a bit snotty to me and if I was your mum I'd continue to wind you up and call it a poly.

overthehillmum · 05/11/2011 14:03

My mum always said college, I was the first person in my family to go to university, it really hacked me off, but then again when I got my HND she went around telling everyone I had passed my MOT!! I just put it down to her age!

mrsbaldwin · 05/11/2011 14:09

So, OP, did you get posher whilst your mum didn't, she senses this and is trying to annoy you by insisting on 'college' (ie 'university' is too much like airs and graces) OR is your mum proud of your achievements but doesn't really get the whole vocabulary and doesn't see that it matters anyway ... or a bit of both?

CailinDana · 05/11/2011 14:12

As others have mentioned, in Ireland most people say "college" and this is actually correct as there is a National University of Ireland (NUI) and each individual location around Ireland is a college, not a university in itself. So it's University College Cork, University College Dublin etc. Trinity is a separate college (not a university) and there are a few other small colleges like Froebel. Also, in Ireland, 6th form college doesn't exist so if someone says college they automatically assume it's third level rather than secondary. The whole college thing really confused me when I first moved over here and I think people were a bit confused when I said I went to "college" in Cork - some of my colleagues thought I didn't have a degree. I still have to remind myself to say university.

Really I think it's all what you're used to. But, OP, if you feel your mother isn't acknowledging your achievements then that is a problem.

worraliberty · 05/11/2011 14:14

OP have you done this thread before?

Because if you haven't, there's someone else on MN whose Mum says exactly the same thing and it annoyed the OP in exactly the same way...for exactly the same reasons.

Perhaps you could get together for a bit of a rant

LineRunnerBonfireMother · 05/11/2011 14:14

Hi OP, I think it depends on whether your mother is in the general habit of saying and doing things that belittle your achievements. It's the context that matters.

If it's really just her way with words, then even if you ask her to change she's not likely to be able to.

My kids hate me saying 'going to the pictures' instead of 'going to the cinema,' for example, but I still say it sometimes because it's simply ingrained.

If she's doing it deliberately, then you've got problems, and you'll need to ask her very specifically what her issue is. Why does she feel the need to put you in your place?

My sister finally got to university after twenty years as a single mother, worked her knackers off, and got a brilliant result at the end. My mother's response to her getting a First? 'Huh. Trust you,' said with full cat's bum face. Like you said, some families (or mothers) seem slighted by their children succeeding at anything on their own.

fiventhree · 05/11/2011 14:16

You might be unreasonable, but not if she's trying to compete with you through minimising your achievements.

For what it's worth, college/uni is getting alot more mixed up anyway, so one day she may be right- ie unis are competing to run college courses, colleges running degrees, and employers competing with everyone!

mrsbaldwin · 05/11/2011 14:21

Re worraliberty asking has OP done this thread before?

Perhaps her DISSO research is on 'socio-economic and psycho-linguistic discourses in the familial setting'

In which case this thread wrote your essay for you

worraliberty · 05/11/2011 14:24

mrsbaldwin Either that or it's a 'disso' on people like myself who have too much time on their hands....meaning they remember these things

KingofHighVis · 05/11/2011 14:25

To me 'uni' came over from australia with neighbours and I don't really like the term. It was college when I was there (redbrick russell group so nothing to do with former polys). These day people I know doing cpd masters and the like call it school.

Towndon · 05/11/2011 14:30

Yes, it did. I'm old enough to remember when Neighbours started, and "uni" wasn't used here before then AFAIK.

"To me 'uni' came over from australia with neighbours"

TidyDancer · 05/11/2011 14:32

It didn't come with Neighbours, it's an abbrevation that's been used for longer than Neighbours has been around. HTH.

HardCheese · 05/11/2011 14:34

Like CailinDana and the other Irish-born but UK-resident posters, I grew up calling universities 'colleges', because in most cases they were constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland, or Trinity, which was a 'college'. It took me a while to get my head around calling the final two years of secondary school in the UK sixth-form 'college' (and actually, deep down, I still find this a bit pointless - it's still school, really.) So I don't hear 'college' as a belittling term for 'university' - I think of them as roughly synonymous.

Although, OP, I do hear you on your mother's possible issues with you being at university. Both my parents left school at 13, and I'm the first one that anyone knows of in the extended family to have ever gone to university. I have four degrees, including two from Oxford, and while I think at some hidden level, she's proud of that, you would never know. She's suspicious of things she doesn't understand, and always wanted me to do something that would keep me local -like hairdressing. (You cannot imagine anyone less suited to being a hairdresser than I am...) She also has a horror of looking like she's showing off about her daughter's achievements, so any admiring comments from neighbours etc would be met with 'Oh, she's too lazy to go out and get a job, she just likes being a student'.

The thing that does drive me absolutely mad, though, is the reverential tone of voice she puts on when she sees some elderly male academic being interviewed on TV - 'Oh, he's a lecturer at the college, he must be a brilliant man' - while I point out patiently that the daughter sitting in front of her is actually also a university lecturer ... Grr.

mrsbaldwin · 05/11/2011 14:38

Hardcheese did you interview for Oxbridge in 198x and turn me down? If so I am after you

mrsbaldwin · 05/11/2011 14:39

typo ...

Hardcheese did you interview ME for Oxbridge in 198x and turn me down? If so I am after you

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