New Uni starters 2015 (continued from Preparing for Uni)

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Thought we needed a new thread to continue from preparation.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/2466997-Preparing-for-Uni-in-2015-continues

Suspect all have arrived by now...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34477376

Hope the article is consoling if you have homesick dc!

DD is swamped with work, she spent 7 hours in the library on Saturday and barely made a dent in her workload. I think it is a little overwhelming at the moment. Messages have been brief but regular via messenger and I am thankful for that at least.

We are going to visit for her birthday next week so hopefully it may give her a boost.

I'm trying hard to give her space so she can find her own feet but I am finding it hard to resist the urge to keep asking if she is ok and asking what is she up to.

Sassy I try not to think about it too much - I had a sudden thought in the night that my baby was at the other end of the country & I don't really know how she is. V unsettling. She seem's ok when we talk/text but I don't know for sure.

I am quite frightened this morning - perhaps because my own difficulties as a student have come back to me so vividly. And also because it is only a few months since I saw my daughter put herself under extreme pressure when doing her A-levels. I also feel angry with her for pushing me away when I rang her yesterday, though I also understand why she might feel this was the necessary thing to do.

I just hope she asks for help from other people if that's what she needs to do.

Marianne - hope your DD is ok. I just keep sending little texts everyday with updates on family and friends, and generally 'nice' messages just to keep DD's morale up.
DD is coming home at lunchtime for a hospital appointment later today. After 2 days of 9 to 5 lectures/labs, she only has a 9am lecture today so it has worked out well. I think she may stay overnight and then get a very early train back tomorrow. She is still not sure she is doing the right course but giving it a chance. I refuse to help help her buy any more books until she has made her mind up.

Marianne - I forgot to say DD does send the occasional reply back or just a smiley face so I know she is ok. She is not being very communicative on the phone either. I think teenagers today are really not into talking on the phone - they very rarely use a phone for this!

Hope everything OK Marianne, it's hard being away and unable to gauge things easily.

It's a fine line between keeping the lines of communication open and trying to not be too overbearing.

As long as your DD knows she can always talk to you, that's the most important thing.

Perhaps it's time to go Christmas shopping in their uni town, meeting them for lunch with the aim of getting presents for siblings, dad etc...

I agree with the sending of chatty messages letting them know of news from home.

Yes I try to find innocuous things to text dd about if I haven't heard from her for a while. Just to ensure I get a response but she doesn't feel I am interfering too much!

DD messaged me and mentioned that she was in the library until 12.30am last night! She did however say she was going to try and give herself a night off tonight.

Chatty generic messages definitely get a better response than 'worried mum' type enquiries.

hells you are spot on about teenagers not really talking on the phone, DD messaged with numerous laundry questions for twenty minutes on Sunday and when I suggested calling her instead she said she was too busy

I think I am partly very tired. My daughter has been very hard work at various points during the last year, though she can be great fun and - when not stressed - a caring person. There was a lot to do in a relatively short space of time during September, in terms of preparation. There have been other family problems involving an elderly relative, and some work-related issues for me.

Meanwhile my daughter, who only turned 18 around 6 weeks ago is doing a course in what is, in many ways, a particularly high-pressure environment.

I am about to go on a much needed holiday. If this is more than a temporary blip we will visit her around the end of the month.

DS has rung, sounding worried, to say that he's just had a maths 'catchup' session in which he could remember no maths at all. Oh the joys of a gap year in which to forget it all!

Have suggested he Skypes this evening so DH can share the joys of undergrad mechanics, mine being more than a bit ropey.

Sassy - I think your daughter is at the same college as mine (2nd year) and I can't believe the ridiculous hours they keep - they often stay up until the early hours working and then have a nap in the afternoon! I saw that my dd had been on Facebook at 4.30 this morning - I dread to think why she was up at that hour. They lead such an intense and time pressured existsnce that keeping in contact seems to get forgotten, but from what I've found out from my dd she loses all sense of time and is unaware that she hasn't spoken to us for whatever length of time. I've found short chatty whatsapp messages are the best way to communicate, and she doesn't seem to mind me messaging her that way and is always happy to reply.

mumslife Thankfully DD's college accommodation is less than five minutes walk from her faculty building, it is on the same road and it is thankfully well lit. Hope your DD is coping well.

Scott All DD's lectures are at 9am in the morning so she is having an afternoon nap as you mention. I feel a bit better knowing that other students are in a similar situation. It's understandable that they lose sense of all time when they are living in such an intense bubble.

We visited dd last night for a birthday dinner. It is quite interesting being on a campus in the evening, there were lots of people about with a good atmosphere. The streets around were full of students. My only concern was the volume of music coming from the boy in the room below her. The floor, chair and desk were a vibrating and that happens all day and until about 2 in the morning. He has been asked to keep it down but it's obviously not worked. There is a daily warden at a desk in the entrance but dd is wary of making a compaint. It's very frustrating, DH was very keen to go down and have a word!

She still has a few admin jobs to do which I keep mentioning. She did manage to ring the bank and sort out her Amazon voucher whilst we were skyping. As part of her discovery modules she is having singing lessons, continuing on from her Grade 8. A singing teacher has been allocated and she's been told she qualifies for 5 free lessons. No mention was made of having to pay and she hasn't been told how much they'll cost for the rest of the year. I'm a bit annoyed that the £9000 isn't going to cover it. I keep asking her to find out but so far she's not managed that.

I'm still pretty much leaving her to contact us, I'm worried now that she might feel I'm ignoring her. She isn't great on the phone either, I'm relieved to hear others are similarly useless!

I'd say she's settled but not having an amazing time so far. She is doing a lot of work. Definitely more working in the evening than going out. But she is making friends thankfully.

Email received. Panic over. (Rationally I know that there are going to be downs as well as ups, but it felt gut-wrenchingly nasty in a way that I had not been prepared for.)

I was miserable about the lack of contact last year, especially as I have friends whose children were ringing and face timing every day, but over the summer hols this year in various conversations with dd it became apparent that the lack of contact was only because she was having such a great time (work and play) and that she just didn't feel any need to contact us, which is a sign that she was so settled of course. She did say that she loved receiving messages and the weekly postcards which I send her and so I realise that the adjustment period was just a lot harder for me than her! This year she has already phoned once without any prompting and is still happily replying to whatsapps, I think that is just how they communicate now. The first year is definitely the hardest - after a very long summer break with dd back at home I see that she is still the same person and that her home is still here - for the time being.

Marianne, am so glad things seem better! Sassy, my DS has vast quantities of work too....all very intense. From the hour that texts are sent, he too is keeping very very late hours to keep on top of things.

Second year not so good in some ways. Last year I was under the misapprehension that she was enjoying herself, mostly, it only came out later she wasn't, but this year she openly admits it's not a good time for her.
Sigh.

We have found that a group Whatsapp works well - both DDs and me. So DD1 who has just left uni and I chat away, and DD2 joins in when she wants. Mostly pics of her meals and how shattered she is the morning after!

Re her work - apparently French very hard, Spanish too easy (only 1 other with GCSE and I think they've been put with the beginners) and linguistics hard. I think she's joining societies . Anyway we'll see her this weekend as we're all travelling to see Michael Macintyre

hive erhaps it's time to go Christmas shopping in their uni town, meeting them for lunch with the aim of getting presents for siblings, dad etc...

I'm really looking forward to that aspect of it. DS is in a city that has a "winter wonderland" every year with crafts, skating, mulled wine, lovely food etc. and I've been to it before, but I think we would both like to meet up at it and spend an afternoon hanging out there (DS loves skating, and this will be the first year he's legally allowed to drink mulled wine in public...)

The only thing he's still not doing that disappoints me is getting in touch with an old friend (they were close at primary school, and met up sporadically until about year 9) who is at the same uni and in a hall just 100 metres from his. He says he wants to do it but just keeps not getting around to it. Now they've been there nearly a month I think it will get harder, as he no longer has the excuse of not knowing anybody or thinking that the other boy might not know anybody. I think he just hates proactively phoning/messaging people although he'll now happily talk to people face to face.

Emma, just before the start of term we found out that there was someone else from our area going to study the same course at the same uni as dd. They are even in the same halls. A mutual acquaintance put them in touch with other & they chatted via Facebook but not face to face as far as I know. We did point out that there might be practical benefits, eg lift shares, dropping off care packages etc.

Not sure what the barrier is...