DS has applied to a "no cooking" university. He loves cooking. This is madness, isn't it?

[Thesearepearls]

Just that really. DS's first choice university (we've just done the application for halls) is a no-cooking university. The cooking facilities comprise a toaster, kettle and microwave. There is no cooking allowed for the entirety of his university course.

If you'd asked me what DS would do in a future life I would have given you two choices. The first is singing (he was a cathedral chorister and loves classical music). The second is that he would be a chef. He is absolutely gutted that he won't be able to cook. He cooks for us all the time. He's really keen on it and he is beyond disappointed that the next three years of his academic career will involve zero cooking.

It's total madness isn't it?

I have a relative who is a head chef in a posh hotel. He subsists on Haribo and Nando’s in between his 14 hour shifts.

Not much chat about cinnamon

Pengggwyn like I say, there are ways and means, we certainly found them Students are endlessly inventive...

frogsoup

Fab. But the point remains - he isn't getting a kitchen, is he? So, he can either accept this, or go somewhere else. Not complicated.

It is clearly more complicated than that Like I said, one likely possibility is that he is worried about university, and fixating on worries about a kitchen is an easy way of not facing deeper fears, and justifying bailing out. Not taking up a place at the best physics course in the country may be justifiable for all sorts of reasons, but really not on that basis!!! Op should not be colluding in this nonsense. Teenagers are still growing and need saving from themselves sometimes. At the very least she needs to get him to dig a bit deeper about what the issue is, because it sure as hell isn't really about the availability of a kitchen or otherwise. If he were really serious about cooking he'd go to Cambridge, hide a hob in the cupboard and cook three course gourmet meals come hell or high water, and be proud of the fact, not expect a fully kitted out luxury kitchen!!

frogsoup

I think you may be digging somewhat deeper than is justified by the information given, frog.

Effectively, this thread is either evidence for how motivations are more complicated than they seem, or for how our generation of parents have utterly failed to instil resilience and resourcefulness in our kids. A real chef would find a way of cooking with only matches and a few sticks!

He hasn’t even been accepted yet!

Op said he only has a conditional offer.

Not really pengwyyyn, what intelligent 18yo who'd worked that hard for a Cambridge place would throw it away over a kitchen?! It makes no sense at all. Hence the likelihood is one or other of the two options I just outlined.

frogsoup

One who really loves cooking?

Anyway, I don't think he has any intention of throwing away his place. This is his helicopter mum making a fuss about nothing. They'll get his results on 16th, he will either get the grades or not and he'll ship off to eat in formal hall like everyone else, or not. Mountains and molehills.

I can't believe this thread is real!

Formal hall food is amazing

Cooking is boring when you have to do it for yourself every day

can't he just cook when he comes home for the holidays?

Both you and him sound terribly precious and I agree it has to be on eof the most MUMSNET threads ever

Or, frogsoup it's about a mother who's convinced herself that Cambridge University is full of imaginary people saying things like, Has your college got a cooker No don't be daft we're at Cambridge we have lots of really clever stuff in our heads and of course we don't cook, Cooking is for menials and she's wildly overcompensating by making it All About The Cinnamon, which only she and Heston really understand.

OP, I don't think you're really helping him by encouraging him to think like this. Support him in taking a year out to work in a kitchen somewhere in France or London if you think he's not ready to go to university. But there's no point heading to Cambridge in October already determined to hate it - and egged on (hoho) by you - because of something he probably won't have much time to do once he gets there and starts working and socialising. The terms are short and they're very full on for Natscis.

I also think this is bound for the Daily Fail if it wasn't already started by a DM journalist for that very reason-

Haven't RTFT but it's clearly ridiculous to say there's 'a university which doesn't allow cooking' when the reality is there may be one or two oxbridge colleges which - probably because of age and insurance issues - don't have proper cooking facilities. The colleges are many and various, it sounds like he's made a poor choice if cooking is important to him. Maybe he can befriend people from other colleges - some of whom will be living in houses esp after the first year - and cook for them sometimes?

DD is away doing a summer placement at the moment, one of her fellow interns was struggling with self catering. He asked if she'd cook and he'd wash up ... she said that while it would suit her as she hates washing up, no way mate, you need to learn to cook!

Nope, I don't buy it. Like I say, if you love cooking you'll find a way, not say oooh I don't have my luxury kitchen available so I won't cook!! I speak as someone who loves cooking more than almost anything.

I'm with you, frogsoup, there's more going on than not being able to cook for 24 weeks a year. I'm just surprised his mother's colluding with it. Tell you what, OP, I live a 20 minute drive from Cambridge, he can come and cook a gourmet meal in my kitchen any time he likes.

Ha, I remember my room neighbour offering to wash up after I'd cooked. He washed two plates, two knives and two forks, and left me all the pots and pans

Yes I hope you are right Naicehamble and that this is more about the op and her bizarre preconceptions about Cambridge than the ds.

@pennycarbonara autocorrect fail I meant to put carrier bags.

Calm down Bev Goldberg, I'm sure your little shmoopy will make it through.

Claps hands for the boring thread of the week!!!!

Or, maybe the concerns over the cooking are actually intended to mask A level results that are not up to the grades required.
A friend's ds did something similar. 'decided' that Oxford was 'not for them'and announced their intention to go through clearing to go somewhere different. On results day, it turned out they needed clearing as results did not teach the conditional offer. Off he trotted to a different, but very good university where he was very happy, achieved an amazing degree and has the career he always wanted. He's recently admitted that he deliberately messed up one of his a levels because Oxford had been his parents dream, not his.

If his grades aren't up to snuff and his second choice actually requires higher grades, it seems like he didn't quite think things through when he was making his applications.

Never mind. He'll probably be fine, make friends outside his college who have kitchens, and be able to cook in the vac.

While we're nailing misconceptions about Cambridge... the 8x3 is 'full term' when all students must be there, but 'term' is significantly longer and in practice students may have to be there for most of it. E.g. DD's mocks were before the lent full term started, and quite a lot of supervisions were held after full term ended. A lot of other unis, it seems that students can disappear after their summer exams... she'd have been among the very last home this summer (if she'd actually come home instead of away to work).

Personally, I am betting the ds is a bit annoyed or disappointed by the lack of kitchen. However I think it's the OP making a huge issue out of it.

Maybe so sort of fear of him leaving home. But she mentions that cooking is what they share. She has no interest in his other interests and won't even look into what his course is centred around.

I think it's actually the Ops issue and she imagined cooking one of the things they could talk about when he is away. Except, it's not going to work out like that. It probably wouldn't have done, even with full functioning kitchen.

I took the kids to see the Incredibles 2 movie and there was a short film just before.

A Chinese mother loved making dim sum and one of the bits of dough turned into a baby. She looked after it,loved it and the sequence showed it/him growing up surrounded by food, sharing a sweet pastry on the bus etc. Then she cooked him a feast and all he wanted was a can of coke. Then it got worse. He got a girlfriend and the day he moved out was the last straw so she ate him.

Lots US universities don't have cooking facilities in dorms (or poorly maintained ones no one would use) and force students to be on a meal plan. It isn't a big deal, like a gazillion pp have said he can cook when he's at home (and our say that as someone who was cooking from an early age)

If he loved it that much he would have looked at what facilities they had. Or did he just assume it was going to be a fully equipped kitchen with everything he could ever want.

When I applied to Cambridge I didn't look into cooking at my college because I, quite reasonably in my view, assumed that if I was living somewhere I would be able to cook there. It would never have crossed my mind that the college would try and outright ban it.

(FWIW it can be more than the 8 week terms. I stayed at Cambridge over some of the vacations and plenty of other students did likewise.)

The terms at Cambridge are very intensive. They do not want students being distracted by having to do paid work at fixed times

But they don't mind students spending hours and hours rowing. IMHO the working rules are one of the most backwards and anti-poor things at Cambridge. I was lucky, I got a bursary from outside the university, if I hadn't had that I would have struggled to make ends meet and almost surely have either worked in term anyway or been forced to drop out.

But that's off-topic, and I don't think it's a concern for OP anyway.