DD angry at mature student for inappropriate email

[KeepCalmPlease]

NC just in case.
Daughter is angry this eve as a mature student on her course has mistakenly replied all to the class, instead of just her lecturer. In the email, apparently they brag about finishing their assigned work early, and then flirt about a shared hobby with lecturer. Daughter wants to bring this up formally with the institution along with other friends of hers. I haven't seen the email so I'm not sure what "flirting" is but I suspect the mature student, being older, just shares a hobby with lecturer (and likes being teachers pet).
My advice to her is just ignore the mistake, keep your head down and make sure your own work is done. AIBU?

I'm not sure why DD is so exasperated by this. I'm sure many emails fly about all day in academia.

Apologising for the tone?
Behave yourself @KeepCalmPlease

The email said "oops sorry everyone, I accidentally sent to all yesterday"
Not "sorry I shouldn't have bragged about my immense (and mature) brain that's so big I have to wheel it round on a trolley and do my assignments even before they've been set I'm so clever and btw I shouldn't have said I fancied Ms. Lecturer in the email either".

Did it now?

Still not her business. This says a lot about your daughter. Why would she want to make an awkward situation worse?

What a lot of bitchy responses on this thread , really mumsnet at its worst . There is no suggestion that the dd started this but she was being whipped up by the what’s app messages ( frankly a lot of much older school mums do this every day) . Sensibly she obtained the view of an older person ( her mother ) and also let her overactive and impulsive teenage brain settle over night by which time she realised her over reaction.

Frankly the ‘mature student ‘ is clearly not very mature at all if she was sending flirty inappropriate emails to her tutor and worse copying them to all so I hardly think they can get on their high horse either .

Did you go to university? Because both you and your daughter seem to think it’s the same as school. There is no way the lecturer asked her to send that email.

Nobody has said the mature student is on any kind of horse.

Nor is their any evidence whatsoever that the email was flirty or inappropriate.

What a lot of drama over nothing.

Well the OP has updated and said that she has seen the email and that it was flirty and I suppose I should have said that the mature student isn’t wholly in the right either.

And no-one ever exaggerates on the internet so it must be true.

And so what if it was?

Fair enough but there’s been a lot of extrapolation and exaggeration regarding the OP and her daughter on this thread as well . We can only go on what’s written and respond to that.

and if it was that is unprofessional and inappropriate, I can’t believe that anyone would think otherwise. As a mature student myself I cannot imagine flirting with someone who is in a position of influence as lecturer and student are.

Well the OP has updated and said that she has seen the email and that it was flirty and I suppose I should have said that the mature student isn’t wholly in the right either.

She said 'a bit flirty' and I'd bet that's a bit of damage limitation on behalf of her daughter...she seems unwilling to admit she's in the wrong!

Plus, it's quite subjective. Especially over email.

A grown woman might have flirted with a grown man over email. What’s wrong with that? It’s university, and she’s a grown woman. It’s not school and involving a 14 year old girl. The mature student has done nothing wrong and because of a simple error, she’s now the laughing stock of her group with people like OP’s daughter ready to get their pitch forks out.

Honestly, what a fuss about nothing!! There's are so many more things to get upset about, but at least DD is "satisfied" now. The world can continue again 🤦🏻‍♀️

this. the fact she's reading it as flirty would make me think she fancies probably the lecturer. Tell her its fine to alert them to the fact its been sent to everyone, but beyond that it has nothing to do with her and no one will care.

Yes, you can see where daughter got it from! But a complaint would have made the tutors laugh amongst themselves, so all good..

Well I'm delighted that your daughter is satisfied. Phew!
Who on earth does she think she is?

Well the pitchforks have definitely been out on this thread haven’t they , talk about frothing and name calling?

And, if it was flirty in tone, yes I would expect better of a ‘mature ‘ student and anyone who can’t see that it’s inappropriate to send a ‘flirty’ email to a lecturer is frankly baffling . They have put the lecturer in an at best embarrassing and at worst compromising position .

Also the students are probably still at home as it’s the university holidays and sensibly she ran it past an older person who told her to ignore it and get on with her own work , what is wrong with that? We are not all fully formed at 19

I can understand it, she has just finished school where it would be horrifying for a student and teacher to be talking like that. So it might take a while for her to realise that they are all adults now. This is all new to her!

I must be a total nosey hole but I’d love to see what was actually in the email!

Unless the shared hobby was cheating on exams, I can’t really see what would be complain about.

The students need to be careful, this bullying doesn’t reflect well on them and they could legitimately be complained about.

In another context , for example an office with a clear hierarchy, I could see why something like this would be the gossip of the day and piss a few people off.

In a workplace context, if a colleague went to the boss behind the teams' back and said 'I've delivered my work better and faster than any of my peers' then it's easy to see why their peers in the team would be pissed off. They are all fighting for the same one or two promotions, and bigger shares of the bonus pool and the payrise budget. There is genuinely a sense of competition among colleagues. One person's advancement can mean another person gets stuck in their position for years, unless they leave.

Where undergraduates are concerned it matters very little how well someone else does. It affects how well you do, not one jot.

I guess what some of us are saying is that we've no evidence that it was flirty.
It might have just been friendly which is absolutely fine.

However, even if it was a flirty email it has absolutely nothing to do with the OPs daughter.

Dd is satisfied 😂 imagine if she had actually complained about an email not sent by her or to her or about her or in anyway concerning her. She would have massively embarrassed herself.

But she didn’t did she , she sought advice and took it . Actually she did the right thing checking her initial reaction .

She’s just a young person and young people can be impetuous and judgemental and anxious . Frankly look at the posters on here who are frothing and calling her names and accusing her of being jealous or a bully or a princess. Look how easily they have been whipped up and they don’t even know these people from Adam . They haven’t even seen the email but they are happy to take sides and stick the knife in , it’s like a medieval court, they’ll be calling for her to be put in the stocks next and these are meant to be mature people ?!

Well maybe her mum needs to sit her down and explain to her that school is very different from University. The main difference being EVERYONE IS AN ADULT AT UNI. If the poor little soul still doesn't understand then maybe a picture book would help?

You could also try and get rid of the chip on your shoulder about people older than you getting on better than you in the workplace

Wrong on all fronts.

Firstly it is my son. At no point did I mention a DD. Secondly, I am 1 of 3 managers in my dept., and this is my observation of many, many years at work. There is one going on at the moment. Someone early 50's throwing a 22 year old who works really hard, under a bus with their own line manager, because they don't want the 22 year old to get ahead of her.

I am not invested in my DC's classmates. He hasn't even started yet. I saw 2 middle age men monopolise an open day and talk over the younger students. If that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have opened my mouth. As it did, I stepped in and made sure my son and the other students got to ask questions and speak to the teacher. At the end other parents thanked me.

Not over-invested at all. Just someone who is more than willing to call out people who try to get ahead at the expense of others. It's called being assertive.

I have been a student at Uni and a mature student on the Open University. Personally I don't agree with mature students taking Uni places from 18 year olds. There are plenty of other ways to study when you are older.