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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:

MistressDeeCee · 12/09/2016 14:22

Im at some having the idea that students stay in their room on laptops and don't socialise. Thats what you think

trufflepiggy · 12/09/2016 14:25

I'm still at university and I think you're mistaken on the accommodation front. In my first year I shared a bathroom/kitchen with 25 others and had a tiny damp box room on a really noisy dirty corridor.

Floisme · 12/09/2016 14:35

we had a lot more fun in those days
I can't answer for that poster but I think I said something similar. What I meant by it was having a grant and no debt and - provided I got a half decent grade at the end - a good job to look forward to. Of course it was fun - for three years, I didn't have a care in the world. I was incredibly lucky to go when I did.

waterrat · 12/09/2016 14:45

I went in the late 90s and parents definitely did the drop offs.

to be honest though I agree its probably more shit now as ubiquitous phones/ cameras / instagram etc probably makes them all self conscious and miserable.

Laniakea · 12/09/2016 14:56

Really? I started university in 1994 & everyone was dropped off by parents, I don't know anyone who was put on the train.

Dsis is at university at the moment, her first year accommodation was a room with a sink & a shared bathroom & kitchen/dining room between seven other rooms. Pretty much what we had 20 years ago. Though we did all have to share rooms for the first year - I don't think today's students are either particularly pampered or missing some great university experience if they don't have to share.

All this 'in my day' stuff is incredibly aging!

MoonStar07 · 12/09/2016 15:07

My parents couldn't take me! Long story. But my uncle did drive me wirh my stuff in bin bags! We dumped them in my small room. And I then realised behind the double doors were ten boys and then on my corridor ten girls. We used to all eat together (we were in catered halls). We shared a shower room a bath and a couple of loos. The worst was when the boys came to use ours! Lol

clam · 12/09/2016 15:31

Lucydogz, Do you have children? How old are they?

Do come back when they're due to leave for University and let us know whether you'll be dropping them off, won't you?

That's if we don't see this thread either in the DM tomorrow, or on Matthew Wright.

For the record, we took DS 2 years ago, and will be taking dd this weekend. Heaven forbid, we've also been to visit ds during the term and taken him out for dinner. Shoot us, but we actually enjoy each others' company.

StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes · 12/09/2016 15:33

I went to polytechnic (now a Uni) in 1980 as a 'mature student' as I had worked after school until I was 23 so got a grant based on this. I took 2 huge suitcases of stuff on a 7 hour train journey to get there. I can't for the life of me even remember how I had sorted out my shit flat / bedsit with a kitchen and loo as I was too old for halls.

BorpBorpBorp · 12/09/2016 15:40

Those of you who travelled by train - how much stuff did you need to take? When my parents were at uni, they had pillows and bed linen provided and all their meals in halls. Most halls now you have to bring your own duvet/pillows and even if you're in catered halls you only get breakfast and dinner, so you need some cooking stuff.

bigbluebus · 12/09/2016 15:58

WHen DS went to Uni last year, DH took him in the car. No way could he have carried all his own stuff - and he didn't take anything that wasn't essential - unlike one student who turned up with both Mum's car and Dad's car loaded to the hilt whose Dad was heard to say "Just one more car load should do it!".

Parents were only allowed 20 mins parking on campus though so DH was allowed to help carry DS's stuff up 2 flights of stairs and was then shown the door by DS. DH had to stay overnight in a hotel as is was too far from home to drive there and back in a day. He rang DS the following day to check he was OK before he set off for home but did not meet up with him again. We didn't see DS for 8 weeks when we went to visit because it was his birthday. He only comes home at the end of each term.

So I don't think it is fair to say that all students/parents behave as you describe but I do know some who have gone off to Uni who might as well have stayed living at home as they seem to spend more time home than in digs.

Topseyt · 12/09/2016 16:36

I went away to a Polytechnic (also now a uni) in 1984.

It was absolutely normal even then for parents to drop their children off at the start of the year. I don't remember anyone who wasn't dropped off, bar just a couple who had their own cars.

My DD1 is now at a different uni, but in the same city where I went to polytechnic. We drove her there at the start of her first year. Dropped her off, had lunch and then drove home. DH still takes or collects her at the start or end of each year.

The reason I feel sorry for students these days is mainly the shocking level if debt they will incur. I was amongst the last few years when students did not have to take out loans or pay tuition fees. I feel rather sad that my DD and her contemporaries won't have that advantage.

Topseyt · 12/09/2016 16:38

of debt.

loobylou10 · 12/09/2016 16:49

Your OP has really annoyed me. I am one of those 'mummies and daddies' who took her eldest son to University 2 years ago. We helped him transport his stuff, helped him move into his halls and then went and did a first supermarket shop with him. Why? Not because he is mollycoddled but because we actually like him and wanted to help him out. Stop being so bloody patronising.

DiegeticMuch · 12/09/2016 17:05

My parents took me in the early 1990s and helped me unload the car, but didn't hang about. It was the same for my friends.

My dad and his school friends took themselves on the train because no one's parents had a car (early 1950s, working class grammar school kids mainly). My grandmother didn't see my dad's room at university as far as I know - she probably couldn't have afforded to go there on the train with his younger siblings in tow.

Howyoualldoworkme · 12/09/2016 17:17

I work in a University and DH is a lecturer.
I don't see a problem with parents dropping students off and picking them up at the start and end of term. They all seem to have loads of 'stuff'! A lot of which seems to end up in various lost properties across campus! We dropped my two DS off at their halls in the 90s, didn't hang around though
What IS the problem however is the involvement parents seem to want in their university life. Emailing lecturers to question marks, querying the course, just general helicoptering.
Meanwhile a lot of their PFB Snowflakes can't organize their way through a turnstile!

VanillaSugarandChristmasSpice · 12/09/2016 17:21

I live near (ish) to Cambridge and was having lunch with a friend when we overheard two recent graduates discussing a friend. Apparently his mum still phones him every morning to make sure that he's got up to go to work.

True.

Absolutely true.

mummytime · 12/09/2016 17:31

I feel sorry for them because those all ensuite halls: don't tend to provide meals, and are expensive.

MargaretCavendish · 12/09/2016 17:32

Why? Not because he is mollycoddled but because we actually like him and wanted to help him out.

Yes, this is what I think. I don't have children at all, let alone teenage ones, but I would offer to drive a close friend if they were moving, say, from one shared house to another and their alternative was to take all their possessions on a train. In fact, now I think about it, I have done that for a close friend. I imagine if I ever do have children (which is very much a 'fingers crossed!' situation at the moment) I will care about them as much as I do about close friends, even when they're adults. Based on that, I think I'll be willing to do them a favour on a pretty big day in their lives.

clam · 12/09/2016 17:40

What IS the problem however is the involvement parents seem to want in their university life.

I think you mean "some" parents.

WindPowerRanger · 12/09/2016 17:49

When I started uni (admittedly decades ago) you were put on the train with your bags and left to it.

When I started (mid-80s) a large majority of students at my Uni were driven there and dropped off by parents. The parents were sent packing the moment the boot was cleared though. I also worked all through my final year.

When my parents went (late-50s) I'm told everyone sent their bags or cabin trunks ahead by rail (remember Red Star?) and traveled there by train with relatively little luggage.

It is less about mollycoddling than about how people are used to traveling and what is most convenient.

Howyoualldoworkme · 12/09/2016 18:01

Yes, my apologies, SOME parents

TheFairyCaravan · 12/09/2016 18:12

Another thing I've apparently done wrong, but something else I don't give a shit about.

We took DS2 to uni last year. We helped him unpack, took him to the supermarket (as did half of the other parents with their kids), and left him too it. His flatmate did invite us out for a Sunday roast but we politely declined.

His flat, in halls, was horrible. It was shared between 7, 2 toilets, one bathroom and a shitty small kitchen. But he loved it and had a ball last year.

DH took him back, and helped him move into his new house, last week. Still we now know not to do it next year!

stonecircle · 12/09/2016 18:22

Wind power - yes I went to uni in 1977. I remember my dad and I taking my trunk to the station a few days before I caught the train myself. My room mate's parents took her up, which was quite unusual. A trunk and a bag on the train was enough but I don't remember having to take bedding, crockery etc. Flats were furnished with stuff like that.

Thefitfatty · 12/09/2016 18:24

My experience will be different because I was in Canada, but my uni was built in 1645 and all but the newest dorms (built in the 80's and the ladies dorm) split one shower and two toilets between 6 men who each has their own full room and sink in their bathroom. They now have two to a room . The top floor was two to a shower/bathroom. Now 4.
The girls was two huge bathrooms/showers baths etc per floor (about 40 girls). That may have changed now because their were two rapes in the years i was there.
Many people were from out of province so flew in on their own and then took a taxi, but for us "locals" my parents drove me the 3 hours. There were/ still are no trains.
Oh, and we had maids. That's been stopped since.
God bless 1998

AverageGayLadAtChristmas · 12/09/2016 18:29

My uni is five minutes walk from my flat, I don't have parents and I'm very glad to not be in halls

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