3 days into uni and dd is not happy - what can I do?

[Janus]

Dd started on Friday, all seemed positive, went out for a big night out, etc. The next day she started texting that she felt tearful and rubbish. I thought this was partly a hangover but it went on and she went out just for food with flatmates but not out after. Sunday seemed ok, no real talk about hating it, out for a few hours in the evening.
Today is the first lecture day and she’s already texted to say the timetable is awful and she wants to come home.
She is doing radiography so it’s going to be different to many others as it will be much more hours and placements so she won’t be able to go on mad nights out and I think she feels this will alienate her from flatmates.
She is only an hour and a half away so part of me wants to tell her to stick the seek out and come back at weekends l, hoping she will gradually not want to do this. However spoke to a friend who is a lecturer yesterday and she said to not do that as it teaches them to come home every time they are struggling.
Any ideas? I haven’t actually rung her as I thought my voice would upset her but I have told her to call on a break so want to offer some advice when she does call.

I think there is always a conflict between full on courses like Enginering and other practical courses when compared to arts courses with less contact time. My DD had some 9 am starts doing MFL. She’s unlucky that she’s in with flat mates with pm lectures. I’m a bit surprised they are all after lunch though.

In second year DD shared with a medic and two engineers, plus a history and an economics undergrad. They all had a variety of timetables. When you move through university, medic undergrads find each other. As do veterinary undergrads. However halls is different and there really will be other students with demanding timetables. It’s good to mix with others to begin with.

As for coming home in reading week, my DD always did but I recall it was never in first term. Later she used it for work experience! Loads went home from her university. She did some prep work in reading week but she managed her deadlines without using up reading week for catching up! I think she should come home if she’s settled, is up to date with Work and it’s a nice carrot to dangle!

This was my DD last year! She called me in tears more often than not from September until his Easter when FINALLY she settled down. She loved uni but she hated living with her four housemates - she didn't get in to halls so we just weren't prepared for her to be living in a house

At first it was all fun and games and exciting but within a week it was tears etc as she realised that these people were basically very hard to live with - as I'm sure she was.

I had her on the phone to me most days in tears it with some issue or other.

If I said ' just ignore them' once, I said it a thousand times. I was just encouraging, offered a few solutions and basically told her it would just take time etc etc - and it did. Your DD needs to just inch her way with this - build up friendships on her course etc and give herself time.

@GameOldBirdz your experience might be that students who go home during reading week don’t get any work done and do worse than students who stay at university. However my dd’s Oxbridge college empties out during reading week and the students’ work did not suffer. It is quite a sweeping generalisation you have made.

I'm glad she's finding it a bit easier. I don't know if you're on Facebook but there's a group on there called What I Wish I Knew About University and there's a few on there finding it tough.

Some good advice being given. I hope she enjoys the rest of her week

@bevelino

@GameOldBirdz your experience might be that students who go home during reading week don’t get any work done and do worse than students who stay at university. However my dd’s Oxbridge college empties out during reading week and the students’ work did not suffer. It is quite a sweeping generalisation you have made

LOL

At the Cambridge College where I did my PhD (and taught), very few students went back to their parents during reading week.

At the RG university I teach at now, we see a notable difference in the quality of reading week work between those who stay at university for the week and those who go back to their parents. It's been the same every year since I started here so, yes, a generalisation but grounded in data.

OP, glad your DD's doing a bit better now

My Dd started 2 weeks ago and has found it overwhelming. She's been quite home sick but since she's got into her timetable she's settling down. Your Dd is only 4 days into living away. I would say she needs to give it more time

Does Oxbridge have reading weeks? We didn't at Oxford when I was there. I would have loved one, but I suspect we would have been set essays to do during reading week in any case!

Does Oxbridge have reading weeks? We didn't at Oxford when I was there. I would have loved one, but I suspect we would have been set essays to do during reading week in any case!

It varies course to course. There isn't a university-wide reading week at Cambridge but the course I taught on basically didn't have any lectures/seminars/tutorials scheduled for a particular week and students were given an essay to write to be handed in the first day after this quasi-reading week.

I think the term "reading week" is very misleading because some students see it as an opportunity to pack up, ship out to their parents', and do bits and pieces of reading around meeting up with friends and catching up with family. Actually it's meant to be a chance to catch up on university work and, in some cases, actually do a discrete piece of work over the week.

Ahhhh. That makes a lot of sense - 'don't stop working, but no commitments in this week.'

I found those early weeks hard, it seemed everyone else had close mates and I was just tagging along. Then I found my people. And they’re still my friends now.

It’s hard if it’s not meeting expectations and I guess these days she’ll be seeing other mates on social media having a wicked time. But those insta posts won’t show them crying or binging on gingerbread or wallowing whole singing timelessly to Alicia Keys or checking their pigeon holes daily in the hope for a letter or postcard.

Let her get into the course. It’s too soon to tell. Plus, as a youngster she’ll have a better chance of a job at the end of it. (Bitter because my lovely friend completed that same course as a mature student but couldn’t find any radiography job that was flexible for her childcare needs).

A letter or a postcard or Alicia Keys? Times really have changed. I bet students hardly know what a pigeon hole is these days! Let alone Alicia Keys. They know the world shows only happy pix! However the truth is that the vast majority do settle down quite happily.

It isn’t a good decision to go into a rented house from day 1 and if a student is faced with that, I would definitely defer if possible.

Thank you again. DD seems a tiny bit better again today. She didn’t go out last night as she had registration at 9 and then lectures today until 6 (with a 2 hour break in between). Her flatmates have 7 hours a week, A WEEK, so are telling her things like ‘you are ruining your freshers time’ but she’s going out tonight as she has a short 2 hour day tomorrow. I so wish she had someone from her course in the flat but that’s how it goes.
She has found the same 2 girls today and said both of them are lovely and in Halls literally across the road so I think she’ll be hanging out with them pretty soon.
She needs some original documents for DRB check so we are meeting her half way on Saturday to have lunch and pass the documents over. I thought this was a good compromise as at least she’s not seeing the comfort of home!
Up again at 4am, I’m a walking zombie! Think I’m going to just grab some ready meals for tea for the whole lot of us as I can’t even face cooking a meal.

I'm sure she will start to feel better when she gets to know other people on her course. The same happened to me - I was a bit lost in freshers' week and the people on my corridor were awful. I couldn't cope with them partying all the time and coming in at 2 in the morning yelling and screaming (and shouting through the doors at me and another girl about us being fat and ugly). It went on and on and I ended up having to report it, but I was doing a lab based course and soon got to know other people who were more like me. I made good friends and am still friends now.
I think once your DD starts getting assignments she will bond with her course mates - they'll start getting together to talk about their work and so on and then they'll do other things together too.

I think a lot of people arrive in freshers' week and go completely crazy because of their new found freedom and take ages to settle down to actually doing some work.

Hang in there OP.

Hi Veggie, thank you. Her flatmates came in screaming loudly too. How did you cope living with them for a year then? Did you just go and spend evenings with the people on your course? I think she likes the people she lives with but is annoyed they don’t accept she can’t do what they do. I’m so worried they will all then start to just ignore her.
My brain is just working overtime, I can’t seem to make it just shut down!!

Could she visit the accommodations office to ask if she could be waitlisted for a room in halls with fellow course mates. Having a very different schedule is likely to prove problematic even once course timetables start in earnest.

DD had much the same last year. Lots of 9.00am starts, and an out of the way placement which meant setting off at 6.30am.

Most flats/students will calm down after freshers week or about 6 weeks in, when students run out of cash. This did not happen in DDs flat as parents kept topping up. She should have asked to move. Lots do. Some because they find their flatmates dull, others because they want a quieter life. Party flats tend to be known so accomodation can advise, but your DD could also ask coursemates to tip her off if vacancies are coming up in their flats.

DD tried to hang on and make a sucess of it but it only got worse. There were three girls in her second flat who were lovely and who could have been real friends had she moved earlier. One big mistake was not to go home during her first term. Most did. Indeed many retured home most weekends. Something to look forward to, and a bit of decompression would have made a huge difference.

Second year, nice flatmates and a whole different vibe. She says last year was the hardest year of her life.

Good luck.

She did ask the girls on her course if there was any room in their flat, there isn’t. But she did say she’ll ask them to think of her if they get wind someone may leave!
I guess if she has their flat to go at least that’s something so I need to stop worrying maybe.

Just wait. There will be lots of swapping around between now and Christmas. Plus her own flatmates might calm down.

Good though that she has met some people she feels comfortable with. It took DD longer and left her feeling very isolated whilst the lack of sleep was torture.

It's hard isn't it? DD still does this sometimes and is in her third year! But I know for a fact she has friends and is having fun. So. Stick it out. Once she gets into the swing of things she'll probably be too busy to dwell.tell her to join a club so she has another pool of friends.

OP I really feel for you-this was my dd 2 years ago, it's SO hard for both of you. I took all the advice about resisting the natural urge to swoop her back to the nest, and eventually it got better. But it did take a term at least. TBH even into 2nd year , when she had friends and things were going well, she was always sad to go back ( 2hr train ride away). Growing up is tough, at the end of the day it's your job as a mum to help her grow away. Bloody hard, big hug. My Dd now in 3rd year , abroad , & going through the whole thing again, so I'm revisiting all the advice as you're getting now !!

The arts and humanities students will calm down and will get tons of reading and essays, just not quite yet.

I did a STEM subject and was in halls with english and philosophy students so remember the feeling. I was always the only one with 9am starts and afternoon labs, but they had HUGE essays to write and they did all calm down and knuckle down later into the term.

OP.. how many weeks is she on lectures for and how many is she on placement for?
Is placement near Uni?
She may make lots more friends and find it easier on placement.
I’m a radiographer and my uni was 60 Miles away from placement (I was a mature student at 24 so traveled the 50 Miles to uni each day and the 10miles to placement)

My ds1 spent 3 days in residents last year at uni and then he to come home, he couldn’t stand noise and partying that was happening. He now commutes for an hour each day on train (much cheaper too!)

She has lectures until October, last week is reading week. Then she’s on placement until Christmas but the hospitals are near us so she’s talking about staying at home in the week and going back to the flat at weekends. This sounds dreadful to me (haven’t said that to her yet) as her flatmates will just give up on someone who’s not there during the week. I think I’m hoping things will turn around and she’ll love it so much she’d rather commute all week. I can’t even think about all of that yet.
She’s out tonight, I’m really hoping she has a good time.

OP I feel for you - DD had very difficult time last year, flatmates coming in drunk in early hours, kitchen a health hazard as no-one cleaned, a lot of nasty behaviour. She ended up living with friends most of the time. Advice would be to move accomodation if it is awful, she may then have a completely different experience of uni. This year will be different as she is in a house share but last year was a nightmare. Really hope things work out for you.