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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to feel sorry for today's university students?

145 replies

Lucydogz · 12/09/2016 09:57

I live in a city with a couple of big universities, so this last weekend the place was full of new students finding their way around, most of them with mummy and daddy. When I started uni (admittedly decades ago) you were put on the train with your bags and left to it. It was sometimes hard and lonely, but I don't think having my parents along would have helped. Why do parents have to be so involved these days?
Plus (while I'm on the subject) student halls of residence used to be pretty spartan - shared bathrooms for the landing, and one TV, in the Common Room. Even if you were shy, you couldn't hide in your room all day. Now they seem to live in little pods and never need to actually socialise.
I expect I'll be flamed about this, but doesn't anyone else think that student life was better in the past (and that's without the issue of loans)

OP posts:

Barksdale · 12/09/2016 11:34

YABU for twitching the curtains and sneering at new students.

YABVU for calling their parents "mummy and daddy".

You don't know any of these people, what gives you the right to be so horrible?

My parents dropped me at uni in 2009. I've a long-term health condition and we've been through hell together. They were happy to see things going right after years of hospitalisation and wanted to celebrate. I wanted them there. It was a precious moment for me and I was bloody proud to have got there.

Oh, and I had an ensuite so you can judge that too.

HairsprayBabe · 12/09/2016 11:38

I left uni 2 years ago. My halls were single bedrooms, a shared kitchen, bathroom and TV lounge for 7, all painted in a horrible sickly green with royal blue wood work. We socialised every single day and I made life long friends.

You can get "fancy" halls but IME it was only the super rich or international students who opted for that. My parents paid for my first deposit (about £600) after that I was on my own. They never had any contact with the uni itself and I saw them once or twice a term - went to a uni about an hour away from my home town.

YABU to talk about modern Uni life when you have no first hand experience of it.

corythatwas · 12/09/2016 11:50

From my own experience (lecturer and mother of uni-age dd), I don't think it's lack of socialising that is the main problem for most of them. I can reassure you that there is plenty of that going on

When people feel sorry for today's youngsters, what they usually mean is "I feel sorry for these people because I cannot see that they are as wonderful as I remember myself being at the time". Others may choose to agree or disagree.

BertPuttocks · 12/09/2016 11:56

I went to university in the early 1990s. I went there and back by train but was definitely one of a tiny minority. I felt quite envious of those whose parents cared enough to go with them and show an interest in where they would be living and studying.

MargaretCavendish · 12/09/2016 12:07

When I started university (sixteen years ago) my parents and, as far as I can remember, just about everyone else's parents took them. I've never done any other form of moving house by public transport, either - would you, if you had a choice?

Tbh I think it's pretty swings and roundabouts. My parents were definitely much, much involved in my life as an adult than their own parents were in theirs. I guess that probably has made me a bit less self-reliant (though I've done fine!) - I know there are plenty of people who would sneer at the fact that now, in my thirties, I might still call my mum if I'd had a really rough day, for instance, as chatting to her cheers me up. I'm also much, much closer to my parents than they were to my grandparents, though: we genuinely enjoy each other's company. I think that's a pretty good outcome, but others might differ.

OreoCat · 12/09/2016 12:10

Borp that's unbelievable!

I see no issue with drop offs/pick ups etc, but that really takes the mick!

VanillaSugarandChristmasSpice · 12/09/2016 12:21

NaomiWolf

She was called Olivia Channon. She died of a heroin overdose. She was at Oxford at the same time as my brother.

Just asked DD if she wants DH to take her to the supermarket or for me to pack up a bag for her. She said "Bag, please!" I.e. drop and go. Gotta love her.

corythatwas · 12/09/2016 12:37

You know, I feel sorry for the middle-aged people of today. In my young days, they were hardy old dears, who got their entertainment from knitting and queuing down the greengrocer's and only two channels on the telly. Middle-aged people these days have the internet and mobile phones and online shopping: stands to reason that they can't get the same satisfaction out of life.

Doggity · 12/09/2016 12:41

I don't know anyone who doesn't go with parents but it's usually because they need an extra pair of hands to move all the stuff into their halls.

I went with my step-sister and every student had parents and family members. I was bribed and promised a nice dinner because my boot is big. According to step-sis, all the parents left as soon as their child was moved in, usually within a few hours or so. The students all hung out that first evening and got plastered, of course.

FrancisCrawford · 12/09/2016 12:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 12/09/2016 12:48

YABU. I graduated last year. Can't think of anything worse than a shared bathroom with a bunch of students. I prefer to throw up and hangover-cry in the privacy of my own bathroom thank you. We all managed to socialise in halls perfectly well despite not sharing a box room with 50 other 18 year olds and sharing a toothbrush in a little mud hut outside or whatever character building halls you had in the Good Ol' Days.

Xbox in the lounge, a few bottles of cider, bowl of Doritos = happy flat. We weren't little vampires edging out of our room grumbling about being forced to see people.

We saved that for going home and having to talk to parents

GreatPointIAgreeWithYouTotally · 12/09/2016 12:49

I dropped DD off on Saturday. She needed help to move her belongings and we enjoyed a walk around the city, lunch and a coffee before leaving her to it. I think that's normal behaviour, not mollycoddling.

I'm hoping for a text from her as I don't want to be a needy mum texting her. I hope she's ok, but I reckon no news is good news.

marcopront · 12/09/2016 12:49

When I went 30 years ago my parents took me, dropped me off, had a coffee and went home.

I used to shop at the Sainsbury's close to Birmingham University. On the Sunday before the first day of term, it was always full of patents teaching their children, usually sons, how to shop. After Christmas they would just buy the food for them. After about a month the massive bags of pasta would appear for all the students who wanted to cook together - it didn't last long. After Sainsbury's they all went to Frankie and Bennys.

DD is only 9, but when she goes to University she will probably be hopping on a plane on her own.

Aeroflotgirl · 12/09/2016 12:50

I started uni almost 20 years ago, and as we did not drive, mum went with me and my stuff on the train, she saw me to my room spend a couple of hours then went back home and that was that. I was used to being away from home, as I went to boarding school so it wasen't that difficult. But yes I do agree, the youngsters nowadays seem to be more molecoddled than they were, not only uni, but in other areas. I have heard of parents coming with their kids to job interviews , or phoning employers on their kids behalf about jobs.

GreatPointIAgreeWithYouTotally · 12/09/2016 12:51

DDs accommodation was very similar to mine in the 80s, except they have WiFi..The kitchen and bathrooms are shared and very basic.

CaoNiMao · 12/09/2016 12:55

Threads like this often descend into competitive hardship! "My mother made me walk from Glasgow down to Exeter carrying a trunk, in the snow, and slapped me around the face with a manky dishcloth as farewell"

I think nowadays if I was going to university, for the price I'd be paying, I wouldn't expect to live in some hovel.

WhereDoAllTheCalculatorsGo · 12/09/2016 13:04

My pfb took himself off to uni yesterday in his own car (that I bought him)
Spoiled

lionheart · 12/09/2016 13:08

It is just:
a. practical
b. supportive
c. no big deal

BackforGood · 12/09/2016 13:12

Another who went (and siblings went) in the 70s and 80s, and parents dropped their dc off at the start of term. Nothing new there.

Not my experience with any of my dc, nephews, nieces, God children, friends of dc or dc of friends (so quite a lot of people who have gone to University over last 5 years or so ) at all that they stay in their rooms and don't socialise.
DS had a shared bathroom in halls (although it is becoming increasing difficult to get that option it seems, looking round with dd this year).
Yes, they can stream TV onto their laptops, but tht's just technology moving on. We used to all queue for the payphone to call home on a Sunday - I think they've got it a bit better than us .

Totally disagree with your OP though.

luckylavender · 12/09/2016 13:12

My parents took me from South Wales to Manchester in 1980. My son in now in his final year in Manchester and we live on the south coast. We take him. We don't stop and fuss. He's in a house now, but in his first year lived in the same Halls that I did, not at all updated, small cramped, bathroom on the corridor... .

PacificOcean · 12/09/2016 13:24

Almost everyone I knew got a lift to uni - that was 25 years ago.

The reason they have en suites these days is so that the universities can make money by using it for conference accommodation in the holidays (which is a good extra source of income for them).

The reason I feel sorry for students today is that a lot of them have jobs (in term time as well as the holidays) to help pay bills. When I was a student I didn't know anyone who worked in term time.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 12/09/2016 13:27

My parents took me to uni in their car, 30 odd years ago. As did the parents of everyone on my landing in halls.

Not sure what world you lived in OP, but it's always been the same as far as I'm concerned.

JemimaMuddledUp · 12/09/2016 13:34

I was the only student in my flat (mid 90s) who turned up on the train and not with parents. I remember one of my flatemates' mum being really concerned that I'd turned up on my own and buying me some chocolate when they went to Tesco!

So it definitely wasn't the done thing then to turn up without your parents.

OhNoNotMyBaby · 12/09/2016 14:13

Blimey Barksdale ! That was all a bit unnecessary .....

I would have loved to have been taken the 400 miles by car. But I was dropped at my local station with a "see you at Christmas" and that was it. 2 suitcases across London on my own as an only just 18 year old. That continued for 4 years.

Tbf, my parents were in the middle of a divorce but I had no support, no help and they never rang me.

I absolutely loved uni. And I agree with you OP. IMHO we had a lot more fun in those days. Everything was new and different and exciting. We didn't have mobiles, had very little money and basically just threw ourselves into the adventure.

I think part of the trouble these days is that uni life is not particularly different to 'ordinary' life. I am sad that my eldest hasn't got the 'fun' bit, but my second definitely has.

OvariesBeforeBrovaries · 12/09/2016 14:16

we had a lot more fun in those days

I don't get this. How can you possibly know?

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