Thread 38 Covid Cohort, After Results Day

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

ALL our children are heroes of their own stories, they have thrived through a once in a century catastrophe and they will succeed

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results (life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, please don't within this thread. Please also be sensitive when responding to threads about grades. It's all relative!

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue.

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed) We have decided for anyone interested they will find a thread within the Further Ed board.Possibly a move to Parent of Adult Children Board in future? Post Sept?

Previous thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/4613457-thread-37-covid-cohort-2020-results-thread-heroes-of-their-own-stories

My DD was doing Authenticator AND Office both on her phone and it was crazy (she also still has old school account on there). Finally persuaded her to use laptop as well. All a learning experience!

I still don't quite get how you get this free Office thing. I may be being dim. The Birmingham link goes to a dead link.

If your DC's uni has signed up for the scheme, then entering their *.ac.uk email address here should work... It has to be a uni email address ending in ac.uk, not their personal one.

www.microsoft.com/en-gb/education/products/office

Think we'll just wait until we get the new laptop and work it out! Thanks!

I had to install Microsoft authenticator on my phone recently (to have access to my work email account on there). Well, it was not fun. I already have an authenticator app and know how they work etc so thought I would be fine but no, it was a faff.

In my last job (12 years ago) I had to use approx 10 computer systems which all had different passwords which had to be changed at different intervals and all seemed to have different requirements in terms of capital letters, special characters etc. And we weren't supposed to write any of them down. FML.

If anyone has a Home Bargains nearby, they’re selling those big flowery bags which have been recommended on here, for only £1.79.

I love those big bags Crazy (not flowery ones obviously for ds1). They are my preferred method for transporting stuff to uni because can be scrunched down ti nothing, rather than a hard suitcase.

My late MIL called them market bags, we have a couple (one with part of my yarn stash in, the other being filled with stuff for DS). I agree they are very useful.

We are a bit behind the curve getting ds’s DSA laptop ordered - I’m hoping if we sort this weekend will still be ok as I know the delivery times were fast. Has anyone got any recommendations? Ds seems comfortable the cheapest one is fine and he defn knows more than me! What have others done?

@Isthisjustnormal I only sorted out DDs on Wednesday/Thursday and it's arriving Fri 2nd Sept. I went for an upgrade for £75 extra (so had to pay £275) and have got a great deal as it's a Dell Lattidude 3520 (was originally assigned a Dynabook Satellite Pro C50). That was through Barry Bennett who we were assigned to. It all seems very straightforward (once I decided which laptop to get). Good luck.

I was about to buy these from Amazon - DD would not be impressed with the flowery bags (she doesn't actually like the ones I'm getting either though), but looks like I don't need to spend £31 on 4 bags though!. Do you know anywhere that sells plain ones?

amazon

I got mine in a garden centre but it was years ago.

DSA - we upgraded from the Lenovo offered to an HP, we hadn't given it too much thought but DS doesn't need a high powered machine and the HP was smaller/lighter same spec. Lead time was 10 days from our supplier.

Generally you download the Office bits you want/need from either the Microsoft website, or Mac App store - then when you first run the software it'll prompt you to sign in - and then sign in with your uni email address there... and it takes you to your uni sign-in screen and you log in with your normal uni credentials there to activate it - so we had a P number and password that you end up inputting 9million times a day.

It's worth having a dig about how to use your uni credentials to get logged onto eduroam in advance for the campus wifi (don't get too excited - it's shit at times) - just because it tends to be buried in the deep reaches of the IT support bits of the website. Likewise have a look in the library pages - I found loads of free mind-mapping software the uni had licences for hidden away in there that I could apply for a copy of.

There were times when we were working collaboratively and at a distance during the pandemic that we did end up using Google Docs as well just because that was easier (for things like a group presentation where it was so-and-so did the first few slides and so on) so it might be worth making sure those are accessible as well. I know a few sets of students have made collaborative lecture notes using it that everyone can add to.

I think the pandemic's moved a lot of stuff over to Teams that would have been on the VLE previously - you do get used to which staff store things in which places really quickly so don't overthink that... apart from one of our staff whose VLE module shells resembled the contents of a particularly disorganised handbag (but we loved her anyway so we muddled through)!

Think most of our course who had DSA packages ended up upgrading over the period of the course - it was the weight and battery life that did for people - the scrabble in the older buildings on campus for a seat near a plug outlet as they didn't last the day without being re-charged. I ended up blowing some of the finance I gained from not having to pay for childcare and commuting during lockdown on a macbook which I could get the full day out of and was lighter to carry around. They gave me a huge sheet of licence keys for all my DSA software and I just transferred things over.

The other option you have is to look up the DSA laptop specs online - and buy your own laptop and then get them to install onto your own device - I did that originally and the guy just came out and installed it all and got me going.

So, if you have this free student version of Office, you have to sign in to use it? Every time?

I really don't understand IT at all! I have a work laptop so have never had to sort anything out myself!

One thing this free version of Office didn't seem to include was Teams. I have never used Teams either so have no idea really whether that statement makes sense.

@Piggywaspushed My DD has had MS Office free all through school - downloaded from the school website etc. Did you're DS not get the same at school?

I'm assuming our new laptop from DSA won't have office on so will need to download from uni once she is set up with Nottingham IT. There is a long list of things to do later re IT with Nottingham so hoping it will all be explained then, Although I set up DDs from school so it couldn't have been difficult.

Both my DCs had office from school too, it was always logged on, just as if you had your own licence. The DSA laptop doesn’t have the licences but hoping to get them from uni too.

In fact one of DS’s jobs today is to make sure he has downloaded anything he wants to save from the school account as he gets kicked off at the end of Aug. He’s done most of it but I want to check. It’s hard to tell what’s saved where sometimes with all these cloud based systems.

No heifer! Definitely not!

See I never use Cloud either, and nor does DS. Its all Greek to me!

We thought he had list a load of work at one point because of a strange default way something had saved.

Poundstretcher/bargain buys had ones that were striped/ zig zapped.

Can you tell me how you saw offers on laptops? My DS would need one for his course, if there are good student deals I would be grateful for the best place to buy.

Are those home bargain bags the same sort of size as IKEA ones?

Similar capacity @NCTDN but they zip up and have corners so sit together better when full.

I'm starting to wish we gone for an upgrade to Macbook for DS's DSA computer. Might give the place a ring on Tuesday, he's barely used it and it still has all the packaging.

There were some decent Bank Holiday offers on AO.com sazzy.