Should I say something?

[examworries20]

DS has just started his second year uni exams. They will last for 2 weeks. He seemed to cope well last year which was a great relief as he had always been the type to wing it at school, leaving everything until the last minute. I thought he must have finally matured and developed a work routine. He is very independent but texted my DD last week to say he thought we would disown him after he got his grades this time (we are not tiger parents and have never pressured him so was a weird comment to make) We don't try to interfere and only know what he's told us about last year- he got a 2.1 apparently.
He never really talks about work when he phones, just about his main hobby, social stuff etc. but when we last spoke a week ago he said he was worried he couldn't work 14 hours a day like his friends could and was blaming his school for not teaching him how to work consistently (we did try through high school to no avail!). He tried to brush it off as a joke but something didnt sound right. He is doing a very heavy course at Oxbridge.
For the first time I have a gut feeling that is really worrying me. I know he is an adult but I don't want him to end up with a health issue or fail his course as he would be devastated as it's all he has wanted to do for a very long time. We are several hours drive away.
Has anyone experienced similar? What did you do, if anything?

honeymom I'm not sure that re-doing a year is possible here, although re-sits in September might be. Not all universities allow a student to re-take a year and if re-sits don't result in the required grades then a student is out. But if this DS managed to 'coast' through school onto a hugely competitive course at a hugely competitive university and get a very creditable mark in his first year exams then he must be incredibly able. He might need to up his game on the labour front fairly rapidly once this particular hurdle is out of the way but there's very obviously nothing wrong with his brain. I very much doubt that he could have achieved what he's already achieved by being a lazy toe-rag, I would think his peers are piling on the pressure unconsciously by never moving from their desks.

Most (if not all) universities offer the chance of a September/August resit of failed exams/assessments either as a first sit (if there's sufficient reason for failing such as illness etc) or capped at 40% (the pass mark) if it's just through not-doing-the-work failure.

Yes Foggy, but you can't automatically re-take the year if you bunk the re-sits, that varies according to university and course.

So if the university he is at doesn't let him resit the year, he can apply somewhere else. It's not ideal but also not the end of the world?

Exam pressure does crazy things to people. You'll probably find he is fine. Now he's had some time to reflect.

honeymom I think you're making it sound a bit easier to transfer than it actually is, on all sorts of levels. I'm not one to make difficulties where there are none but the reality is that there's a good deal at stake. Hopefully OP will find her DS as hayita says, in the throes of standard Oxbridge exam wobbles rather than anything more serious and glad of his visit and cake. At least if OP goes physically she'll know the worst in any event. I can't see what message it sends other than that she cares about him enough to go - she's already said that she intends to keep it airy, which seems very wise.

Upthread, someone advised that the OP talk to her DS's tutor. I'm just trying to point out that this is a huge no. But that there are possible remedies.

At the 3 RG universities I've worked at (and been HoD, so have had some say in these matters), if a student fails by just not working hard enough, not attending, etc etc, then they are given an opportunity to re-sit for a capped mark. That is, they can achieve no more than 40% .That is the pass mark for an Honours degree.

If there are mitigating circumstances which clearly affected marks, then the case will be considered for a "first sit" or "deferral" where the full range of marks will be allowed.

A resit is sometimes called a referral; a retake as a first sit is sometimes called a "deferral."

This sounds like typical nerves, and as someone has said upthread, a student who's coasted before, and so now is in for a shock. Happens a lot with rather clever-clever boys & young men, IME. This society's sexism still enduring means that young women are far less likely to feel they don't have to work hard to earn their successes.

Life lessons in all sorts of ways ...

I don't think it is easy. I was just trying to reassure the OP that it's really not the end of the world.

There are always options

From what I see, it's because secondary school curricula are failing. Successive bastarding governments and idiot Education Ministers (who can't spell) are forcing teachers to teach to the tests. Hearing from the children of friends about how they are taught my subject (a "facilitating" Humanities field) in lists of bullet points of what must go in the exam answers.

Yes, this ^.

It is truly shocking to see how much high ability students have been taught to tests and how they collapse when asked to use their skills for something they haven't seen before.

I agree that this is a big cause of stress and anxiety at university because we have to get them thinking and working more independently, or else our degrees will be worthless. (We have already dumbed down a lot compared to even ten or twenty years ago.)

It's exam season and I get flooded with emails from students who took my course, asking me what will be in the exam, whether they have to learn this or that, whether they would get this or that question on this year's paper. They have completely lost track of the fact that they are meant to understand the material and be able to apply it ... in their professional lives they won't be able to say, "Sorry, I can't do this as I've never practised doing something of exactly this type before."

Well the cake has been delivered and I was relieved to see that DS seems to be coping much better than I had feared. Perhaps experiencing this undoubtedly uncomfortable time and any fallout may help him to focus future efforts and end up being a good thing.
I'm glad I went to see him though.

But what IS the secret of organised consistently hard-working offspring? Nature, nurture, school? I must have missed something along the way as his classmates have apparently worked this way without demur for many years, grrr. A topic for another thread though.

Hayita, perhaps DS should be on your course! He loves lateral thinking and applying knowledge but isn't so keen on knuckling down and getting on with just learning high volumes of factual material.

Yes, but never compare your inside with someone else's outside. You know when your DS has been slacking, prevaricating, wandering round the house, whatever. You can't compare that with other people's high achievers, you aren't comparing like with like.

Good point.

Lovely news.

Perhaps the point is we are all different, and approach things in different ways. The trick may be for your DS to recognise his strengths and weaknesses and then consider how to minimise the latter. And what career options will make most use of his strengths. DD is dyslexic, and study skills support has given her quite a good understanding, but perhaps it is something everyone should actively consider.

Our DC are young adults but this does not mean we can't support. Just differently. I have had recent experience of supporting parents who have been reluctant to accept a reversal of the parent child relationship. It made things much harder for everyone than they need to have been. Perhaps the student period is a good time to start supporting our DC as fellow adults, but also to give them a chance to understand where we ourselves might need support from them as adults. That is to say, rework the relationship into a constructive adult - adult relationship.

And second year exams seem tough. It will be good when they are over. Only one left for DS.

I'm really glad you found him ok and hope you feel a lot better yourself.

Also might as well say I don't think you need to worry now. The volume thing is an absolute pain but whatever his approach (and he sounds very like one of mine) he's evidently pulled results out of the hat regularly over his lifetime so whatever he's done does appear to actually work!

Ah great news, I'm glad all's well. weird how you can genuinely care about the welfare of a DC of a stranger on the internet

They are all different. I have two that look so alike they could almost be twins, they are two years apart and both academic. Yet their approach to work is very, very different just as their personalities are different.
I worry far more about the very driven high achiever than the more laid back "just do enough" one.

goodbyestranger - Yes DD is doing a course at an Arts University. They consider that the first two years are learning the skills and attributes they require to complete the third year. All the work and projects were marked in years 1 and 2 but the final year stands alone. The main pieces of work in the final year are a massive project which took a huge amount of time and expertise (not a final fashion show but this would be similar) and a dissertation. I would also say that this course is unique and there is no comparison - anywhere! Therefore the final year is intense with numerous deadlines and high quality final work is required (fair enough). It is also a course where students have to rely on each other and external resources to do the project. Therefore there is a lot of stress because students are not totally in control of their own projects, or indeed their own destiny! She feels she could not have done any better so we will just have to wait and see.

DD1 found Y4 the most challenging. The deadlines and volume of work were upped. Plus finals. It felt especially pressurised after the Y3 year abroad. Y2 was also a doddle by comparison. Although I have no doubt others would not agree. It rather depends on modules and how each student engages with the courses and lecturers plus the philosophy of each university.

That's what I thought bojo. I don't think it's a fair comparison to nine or so three hour written exams over ten or so days, although I quite see that it involves stress, but of a different sort.

It is unlikely that arts courses will replicate academic courses regarding type of examination or in written papers. What would be the point? It does not mean the young people doing them are somehow less worthy and less deserving of understanding and I am sure many parents of young people on these courses have worried about how their children are coping over the past few months. Preparation for projects is a very long even if the final execution is only a few weeks. It does require constant work and a mature approach because it cannot be swotted up at the last minute.

We all know that we have a fantastic visual art industry in this country with many talented people. Fortunately, success does not depend on people doing 9 exams in 10 days. At least when students sort out their own projects they do not badger lecturers on what the questions will be! They ask the questions and answer them!

Borojo, DC and courses will all be different. An arts course would be DS' personal idea of hell.

The reason I asked OP up thread whether her son was taking a STEM course was for DS, year 2 exams are the ones that really matter.

The first year is relatively gentle and the first year exams don't count for a lot. Essentially marks from the four exams count as a single module. You then take four further courses in each of the next two years and your degree result is based on the best five out of nine.

Year two is a big step up. On DS' course it is where they tackle the technical stuff, which in his case includes a couple of quite tough maths modules. Year two also matters in that if he gets good results in a couple of papers, on top of good results in his first year, he can apply for jobs or post-grad confidently saying he is set for a first or 2.1.

It is made more difficult because there is no mark scheme, and often no past papers. One lecturer told them explicitly that the format of his exam would be different from previous years. You are being tested on your knowledge with relatively few reference points. It is not like school where if you are in the top half of the top maths set you can expect an A*. The material is tough, the test is a bit of an unknown and the result matters. I get the feeling that the University is also "cruel to be kind" and a fair proportion will be judged not to have made sufficient academic progress and be required to resit of repeat the year. This certanly happened to some of DS' friends last year. Presumably better that than failing the third year.

DS tells me the third year is then easier as it will mainly be options he has chosen based on the technical material he has mastered in the second. Plus if he gets some good results in his second year, and the job or post grad offer he wants, there will not be so much riding on those results.

In short, it is not surprising that a DC facing second year exams would have a crisis of confidence. How they do is very much up to them, their ability to master the material and the work they have put in. No teachers or parents to provide hand-holding.

Still, almost done here and no disasters yet. All I could contribute were reasurring texts and a small unexpected gift. But I think these were appreciated.

bojo two of my DDs are gifted artists (well, A* at A2/ highest mark on the exam board type of thing) despite doing that as a sideline so I do get what's involved, at least vicariously (more a stick woman artist myself). But what I don't get is why you're so insistent that projects and coursework at an art school - even an extremely well regarded art school - replicate the very intense exam period at Oxford and Cambridge. Any numpty knows that creative subjects can trigger all sorts of crises and stress but nevertheless the process of assessment is different, and this thread was about OP and her son going through the particular Oxbridge process with all that involves in an exceptionally volume heavy discipline, not about your DD and art.

Also, as an aside, can I just say that you are pigeon holing talents somewhat!

Home straight Needmoresleep - your DS's exams sound equally grim.

needmoresleep, you are generalizing from your DS's situation when other courses/universities function very differently.

In Oxbridge STEM there really isn't an enormous gulf between first and second year. Results from the second year are also not desperately important as many students do four year degrees. And the endless pressure to land internships etc that your DS feels is something i really do not recognise.

The third and fourth years at Oxbridge are not easier than the second, btw. The level of the material steps up again and the overall degree classification relies on these results, so lots of pressure. Also Oxbridge STEM typically puts into final year papers material from first and second years, i.e. you are expected to know all the material taught, it is not modular.

There are plenty of past papers available at Oxbridge, although it is true that they are far less formulaic than A level papers (or papers at at lower ranked universities).

esornep. I did not mean to generalise. I just wanted to give an example of where second year exams can be tough. And why DC might legitimately feel themselves under pressure and look to friends and family for support. FWIW is not taking a STEM subject but a three year quantitative subject at another highly ranked institution. Neither do we know what OPs son is taking, other than he is finding his second year tougher than his first and is questioning his existing study skills.

I could probably find some statistics, but various banks and other major financial employers use internships as a major part of their recruitment strategy. I have heard figures of about 60% of graduate recruits coming in after sucessful internships. There seems to be a lot of competition to land good ones, and the application/selection process is lengthy. It may be that simply being at Oxbridge reduces the pressure to land one. Once in an internship the aim is to land a permanent job so you can find yourself working very hard. I think there was a story a couple of years back of a Goldman Sachs internee dying of exhaustion. Its a tougher world than the one we knew.

OPs I am glad your DS turned out not to be struggling to the extent you feared. However I am sure you were right reach out to see how he was handling the pressure. I have two DDs who like to vent to me, it can be difficult to tell whether it is as bad as they make out but I always do reassure myself that things are not beyond bearing without it affecting their mood / mental health and on a couple of occasions that turned out to be the case. As parents of university age children we need to stand back but also to be there if needed.

It is completely wrong to think that all university courses have the same sources of pressure. I have DD who did a heavily tested STEM course, the exams required a lot of rote learning of complicated facts,scientific names, properties, periodic tables etc. which had to be underpinned by understanding of the complex science. Lots of students failed or did badly, retaken module and years were not unusual. The other is on a humanities course which is not heavily examined, though there are modules assessed through presentations, essays to be completed within a short one day timeframe under stricter conditions than usual, open book exams as well as essays. Of course there is pressure, not least the pressure to come up with original ideas and develop sound argument backed up the research of the detailed evidence, but it is a very different sort of pressure to the relentless cramming of massive amounts of fact with the very real threat of failure if you don't get it all into your brain. Both courses are not Oxbridge but in the top ten courses in the various league table measures for the subject. I am a humanities graduate myself and recently did another humanities masters so I would never underestimate the intellectual skills required and developed, and the pressure of burning the midnight oil in compulsive obsessive essay grinding but compared to the challenges my DD had to meet in terms of the examined modules, I don't think you can compare.

Of course hopefully a student is doing the right course and has the skill and ability and everyone feels pressure differently but then that is precisely why you shouldn't and couldn't extrapolate experience of an MFL course to other courses, STEM or otherwise