2nd Year at Uni disaster

[aroundincircles21]

My son is in his second year of uni and i've just found out that it's not going well. I was aware that he struggled in the first year mainly adapting to the overwhelming changes to his life and not making many friends etc. It has become very obvious that he is a home bird. He stuck with it and completed the year, albeit with most essays being handed in late but now he has missed doing a couple of essays completely and is unlikely to make deadlines for another two currently due in soon. He has had an appointment with Welfare services who have advised seeing a GP and possibly getting a certificate to waive the penalties he has incurred on his work due to depression.

The things that I know are: 1) he always received extra time for work at school due to an assessment for dyspraxia. He was assessed at both 9 years and 14 years. We tried to revisit this again last year via the same educational psychologist but never succeeded in getting the appointment (he works out of the country most of the time) and then I was just hoping that he was developing strategies to cope without taking the matter further 2) he neither loves nor hates his course, he likes some of it but not all and always struggled with essays 3) he hasn't made as many friends as he had hoped at Uni, in fact he's always found this quite difficult although has a strong small unit of old school friends that are now scattered at various Uni's 4) he has no idea what he wants to do after Uni although Military service has been mentioned

The things that I don't know: 1) He seems to have got himself into a hole that he can't easily get out of and neither he or I really understands why its happened or what the root cause is 2) How to move forward in the short term & whether the year is redeemable 3) Where to begin to identify the root cause and therefore the best long term plan 4) how much of an impact any of this might have on his medical record and therefore any future plans.

He is not generally a lazy or difficult person - he is definitely usually a people pleaser so although I would acknowledge that it could just be a case of a student who couldn't be bothered and must now pay the price I'd be very surprised.

Sorry this is a bit of a rambling post but I just feel a bit lost.

Is he at s UK uni?

With a dyspraxia diagnosis he should have extra support in place. Are the uni aware of this diagnosis? If not he needs to tell them and get a learning plan in place.

A diagnosis of depression may help in some courses you can take an interruption which will give him time to recoup a bit without more deadlines pilling on top. This depends on course and uni I think.

With regards to the missed course work he needs to set up a meeting with his personal tutor to asses where they go from here and how to avoid it happening in the future.

Most unis also have wellbeing services of some sort he may also want to get in contact with them to help with the readjustment to uni life and general mental health issues.
I hope this helps and I hope your son gets the help he needs

I'd suggest that he talks to his tutor or course leader, because any advice will have to be tailored to his programme and his university.

In my university, he'd potentially be looking at suspending for the rest of the year and coming back to restart second year in Sept. This would require him to have proper medical evidence that he was affected by depression this academic year - self-diagnosis would not be enough, and neither would the fact that he knew he had dyspraxia but didn't contact the Disability Team to arrange for reasonable adjustments such as additional time.

I do think he should think carefully about whether this really is the right course for him - it shouldn't be "I started so I finish". Maybe there is university and/or course that would suit him better - perhaps closer to home? If the new course had a sufficient degree of overlap with this current one, he might even be allowed to transfer into year 2 of the new course from Sept 2020. But if he isn't sure what he wants, I'd suggest taking a break from a study for a year or two and working.

(My personal view is that students shouldn't go straight from school to university - much better to start after when you're a bit older and much clearer about what you want in life).

Thanks both for the advice, it's helped get my thoughts in order. My feeling is that he may be suffering from some depression but that the root cause is probably dyspraxia. I should have seen the warning signs last year! I'm now trying to arrange for an up to date assessment but it'll take some time. He has an appointment with a GP next week but I think Dyspraxia is little understood or known - it usually gets mixed up with Dyslexia which he definitely doesn't have! To be clear, he doesn't have a dyspraxia diagnosis as such. His previous assessments just determined areas of weakness that were of a 'dyspraxic nature' and allowed him extra time for exams. He did tell the uni when he joined but didn't have the relevant up to date assessment in place. I should have dealt with the issue then but was optimistic (overly it seems) on his ability to cope. Sadly embarrassment has made the matter worse as he's hidden the problem from me until now.

He has spoken to welfare at his Uni and they seem to be trying to help with the penalties he's received for late work but not the root cause which, in my view, will persist. He was advised that he didn't need to speak to his personal tutor, which I find odd.

I definitely agree that he would have benefitted from a year out and would prefer that he took time out now to consider his future, however, I think he just wants to try to rescue this year with a view to getting the whole process over and hopefully have a degree to show for it. Unfortunately so many employers insist on a degree, any degree, that it's become a necessity in the eyes of a lot of young people.