Starting lectures at uni 2017

[HSMMaCM]

The other thread filled up really quickly, with exciting talk of laundry, mattress toppers and lost property.

Here's where the rest of them settle in, get through freshers and the work gets serious.

if they are eating meat & fresh vegetables

Eggs and various sorts of beans and pulses aren't expensive. Then making dishes with mince isn't going to break the bank - again, especially if you add beans or lentils to bulk it out. There are a lot of different types of veg too - buy in season, but from Aldi's 'Super six', buy at end of day and freeze what you aren't going to eat then, etc.

Fill up on cheaper things - cereals, jacket potatoes, pasta, noodles etc.
Balance it out - treat yourself to something more expensive one day, then have beans on toast or egg in some form the next.
Definitely take sandwich or pasta or wraps or whatever with you rather than buying sandwich out or stopping for takeaways.

If I look at our family budget, we don't spend anywhere near £5 per day, per person... in fact not even half of that.

Ooops, son been told not to say "oh my God" by someone on his corridor ( a very religious boy). I don't think any of us swear much in this family but he had better mind his language around this boy.

Good job DD isnt on his corridor

Oh joy. I remember the trial of having to cater for just me only too well, and hope my DC are better prepared than I was. We are going to visit DD at the weekend, so I asked her whether there was anything she wanted us to bring. Apparently she is suffering from a poor sleep experience and wanted a mattress topper to stop her mattress digging her in the ribs. Now I'm worrying about how much weight she may have lost!

For those worrying about the fruit/veg content of their DC's diet, have they considered a Nutribullet (or similar) as a coming seasonal gift? Since DD and said device have gone away our bills have significantly diminished. She is vegan and got through masses.

DS did his first washing today. It took several phone calls to work out what to do!

DS has had several midterms already and has sailed through them up until now, with >95% in all so far, but he had an absolute killer of one today. It was a Human Geography "Geographies of Global Change" midterm and this exam was allocated a 50 minute time limit, in which they had 2 essays and 5 "compare and contrast" questions. 50 minutes?!!

He said he knew all the answers and feels he would have aced it with an hour and a half, but apparently his hand is now killing him and his paper was "barely legible" and his handwriting is awful at the best of times

I reassured him that everyone else would have been in the same boat, but he's a bit shell-shocked.

This thread is great. My DS is in the " no news is good news gang" which I hate- 2 5 min calls in 2 weeks from a previous home-boy.
This thread has re-assured me that's more comforting than sad teenagers far away.
He has freshers flu - lasted 10 days- which has turned into a cough.
Me via text: How are you?
DS: I am ill- coughing all night. Medicines not working.
Me: please go to doctor
DS: I have no time, I do not know where the doctor is or know which GP I am registered with.
Me: fights urge to get on a 3 hr train journey. x
This is hard.

Aww, timeforus sorry to hear your DS isn't well, but glad to know he's generally happy with things.
It is hard having them so far away isn't it? Our journey would be about six hours by car, roughly similar by train as it's not a direct route.

The timing restrictions on that mid-term exam sound crazy lazydog 😮 But I expect your DS did better than most in the circumstances!
Not much mention from DD of any tests or exams. I must ask her more about how the work is going - she posted me some pics from a recent practical. They were very good as she is good at observational drawing. I always found that sort of thing quite difficult - drawing sections of various rocks viewed under the microscope in my case.

lazydog, where is he studying? That sounds horrendous - both the exam and several mid-terms already, but he sounds very bright, so hopefully he will be OK.

Juggling, drawing bits of rock? I would be so crap at that

DD is worrying a bit about an essay she has to do as it is the only "practice" one before the one that counts towards first year marks.

Good to hear what's going on in all our DC 'a lives.

The airers recommended by goodbye were a hit!!!

DD has blagged some work experience with the RSC too. Yay.

Hi Tilly, yes I think both the motivation and the skill for that task were somewhat lacking in my case. I guess DD's practical reminded me of it all, but hers were slightly more interesting sections of plant cells, at least they have some proper organisational structure - rocks are frustratingly random. My godmother had done similar practicals with rock sections when she was a student and she once showed them to me, and hers were awesome!

Delighted to be of service Carl!

simbobs mattress toppers is another thing I've discovered for my student DC, finally. The latest DC actually had a brand new mattress which was a first (so far it's always been the thin stained variety) and by the time the mattress topper was on he'd have needed a stool to climb up to bed if he wasn't so tall.

Joan I've just been idly ranging over our family swear words of choice and would say there's a whole load out there which don't involve God, so should be completely legit for incidents such as toe stubbing, spilling coffee etc which clearly call for some sort of appropriate expletive. Your DS could write a list and pin it on his board, if he has one :)

It seems there's quite a variety of exams assessments which count/ don't count
Ds is doing a 4 yr MA degree in Scotland and the first 2 yrs of course and fairly general. Although his degree is Geography/Environmental science, he's also chosen a module in Philosophy to make up the required points- so quite a varied selection of subjects
So far he's had assessments in geology and geography which he's been very pleased with and has a philosophy essay to complete by beginning of December....however no exams as such. I think the majority of his course is continuous assessment which is great for him and his dyspraxia/dysgraphia.... now all course work/essays is computer based rather than a scribbled, unintelligible mess!!
How are others being assessed? His sister went to same Uni and didn't even have 'finals'....'just' a 15,000 word dissertation and several essays

timeforus17 - Hope your DS gets rid of his cough soon. My DS just shook-off one that lasted 5 looong weeks, but for the last 2 it was only an issue at night. Drove him crazy but at least he knew that was a sign of gradual improvement!

bigTillyMint - We're in Canada and they start uni a bit earlier here than the UK, so he's been having lectures for 6 or 7 weeks. He's glad that it's not all riding on one huge exam at the end of each course - but having such a ridiculously unreasonable midterm was a real shock There was another one that was as short, but that had an appropriate number of questions and he finished before the time was up.

He is bright, but it's also a combination of the fact that he works like crazy (TBH there's not much else to do - it's nothing like the boozy social scene I remember ) and also the course isn't hugely taxing yet. (They take 4 years to get a bachelor's degree here, not 3.)

I wouldn't be so upset for him if I thought he'd not put much effort in, and was just coasting on natural intelligence, but I know he'll have studied as hard as could possibly be expected, and yet still feels stressed out now because he needs to keep a really high GPA to keep his scholarship. He had a really anxious start to uni and I'm just gutted that this might be a bit of a setback.

Hopefully probably it's bothering him less than it's upsetting me!

RSC sounds great.

Thanks for the heads up about looking for signs of exam stress. DD hasn't mentioned any yet.

DS also has freshers flu and sounds pretty rough, non-stop coughing and sleeping really badly. He has mountains of work which he is just managing to keep on top of but sounds quite run down. I just want to go and look after him!

RSC placement sounds fantastic.

TBF I don't know what DD will actually be doing at the RSC. Could be cleaning the loos!!!!

She's not even sure where she'll be staying. Apparently last year someone was put up in digs. If not it will be the Premier Inn.

Even cleaning the loos would be fab. What a great place to work

On DD's University pass is a keypad, so they can be tested easily. They are required to learn technical terms etc before their main three hour anatomy session, and are given multiple choice questions via the keypad before they start. Similarly some lecturers quiz them at the end of a lecture to see how much was retained/understood.

It sounds really useful. Students come from all sorts of school backgrounds, a lot on contextual offers, and they have a huge volume of stuff to learn. Many have always been top of the class at school, and some are then shaken to be getting low marks, despite hours spent looking at books. It seems to be a case of learning how to study smart, and to understand the level required. So much better to have early feedback that you might have to up your game, than to discover this in the January exams.

Oddly it suits DD. As a dyslexic she has always needed to listen, understand and retain in class, and not rely on notes. At least when she manages to push the right button.

DD will be assessed with a mix of practical exams, written exams and course work - this year it's pretty much 50/50 between exams and CW but in year 2 it's 60/40 then year 3 is 50/50 between written exams and coursework; year 4 is 30/70.

Hi everyone, I've dropped off the thread due to work being crazy so I am catching up. How are you all and how are the DCs settling?

DS came home for a couple of days last week as he had his Gold Duke of Ed presentation. It was a bit odd for the first day as he felt like a visitor and was strangely polite but by three days later, it was all back to normal again, wrestling with his brother. He brought home literally every item of clothing to be washed, lol. He also brought home a large number of heavy books and actually managed to read some and do work. He is struggling a bit trying to work out how many of the 8 book chapters/articles per lecture he should read but otherwise is loving the course.

Top tip for those doing essay subjects, find out what academic support courses are being offered by the library and sign up ASAP as they get very booked (eg EndNote, Writing critically, structuring essays etc).

I have no idea how DDs course is assessed though I think they have exams and some essays are Summative. I think she said exams in Jan?

It all seems more presured than my first year!

BTM, the difference may be that the Milk Round is not what it was, and instead a lot of employment prospects hinge on getting a good summer internship at the end of your second year. Decent results in your first year really help as these are the most recent exams employers have to go on.

Also students nowadays are much more aware of the cost of University. The downside is that they can see themselves as entitled consumers. The upside though is that they recognise that higher education is an expensive opportunity that they should make the most of.

A third reason to work hard in your first year is that this helps keep doors open. My DC have been lucky in that they have both had a reasonably clear idea of what they want to do next. DD does not particularly want to be a GP, though this may change, so wants to have the option of academic medicine. DS similarly worked very hard from quite an early stage as he wanted to be eligible for various third year options, and then for a Masters.

But the simple answer is that they are growing up in a tougher world. Many of us had it pretty easy. Many of them may not. I may have spent too much time living in Asia, but education and a good degree provides an important bit of extra security.

Sorry that all sounds a bit heavy, and I hope our DCs have the same opportunities we did. I am just not sure they will.

Helpful to know that summer internship and other Uni experience in related work and placements could be really helpful to them NeedMoreSleep, these are all useful things to bear in mind.

Haha ha, just been chatting with DS on Messenger and he complained his Southern fried chicken from Tesco has gone up 15p!!

And, he is buying 'budget' Weetabix too to save money!