Delaying uni start for a couple of weeks - anyone have any experience of this?

[Alijane46]

Any advice really?

Daughter is due to start Nottingham Uni next weekend but unfortunately had her appendix out yesterday, bad timing or what!

Who do I need to contact to let them know her start will be delayed by at least a week if not two depending on her recovery.

I’m also worried she will miss the essential settling in and making new friends first week.

She doing a music degree and wanted to audition for the various musical groups/societies during freshers week, should I contact the music department to let them know that she might not be up to auditioning for a few weeks. Apparently flute and sax playing requires a lot of core strength which at the moment she has none of!

Any help or ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Contact the admissions in the morning. They'll tell you what to do.

My future flatmate lost her grandad in the middle of freshers week so missed the rest of that week and some of the first week so I have some experience of the extra admin involved here. (I took a lot of notes in introductory lectures/meetings)

She will be assigned a Personal Tutor/Academic Advisor (names vary from uni to uni). They should be her/your main place of contact. However, be prepared that they may not be able to speak directly with you (since your daughter is an adult). Were you her “named contact” on UCAS?

If she is going into halls, you may need to contact them to say she is still expecting to take up her room.

I would second contacting Admissions (for the subject specifically) tomorrow and getting a plan in order.

Really she needs to contact them herself if she’s able, a lot of university staff won’t be able to speak to you without her prior consent as she’s over 18.

She should contact her department directly and they’ll be able to advise on exactly practises for that uni.

If she’s going into halls she also needs to let them know she won’t be arriving when scheduled - the general number for halls should be fine.

For the societies etc she was planning to join, are they university run (by lecturer and university staff) or student run? If student run, she could contact them directly on their Facebook page or there will be appropriate contact details on the student union website to let them know she’s interested but won’t be at auditions and will they consider an audition when she arrives. If university run, she should be able to get this message passed on when she contacts her department.

University lecturer here.

You should contact the Music Department administrator. S/he will advise you from there. You should also contact the Warden or Dean of the specific Hall of Residence she’s going to.

Your daughter will need to do most of the contacting, but you should be fine contacting the Departmental secretary or admin person.

Ask if they know yet who she’s been assigned to as a Personal Tutee. Her Personal Tutor is her go-to person for dealing with non-module specific matters to do with her course, her study generally and her welfare.

Your DD should follow this up by email with the reason for non-attendance and an estimate of when she will be back on campus. This should be pretty straightforward - it’s always a condonable absence (going on a family holiday is not, for example!)

She will miss quite a lot of orientation and introductory sessions, both course content wise and socially.

So once she is on campus she MUST take responsibility and make an appointment (by email is easiest) with her Personal Tutor to start the catch up process. She will need to be proactive about this. It’s rare that she’ll be chased or have everything spoon fed - she will need to do the catching up herself. Her tutors will help but she cannot expect a series of one to one catch up sessions. (Just trying to manage expectations here - she may not expect this at all).

It would help if she can find out her university log in for all the university online systems. At my place (not Nottingham!) we put everything module and. Purse related on the VLE - the University’s Virtual learning environment. It’s sometimes called “Moodle”. Then she can download the course or Departmental handbook, and the module outlines. We also put up readings or signal where they are in the Library and we also upload lecture PowerPoint slides after each lecture. However, we don’t do this for seminars as those are where the students lead the discussion and do the work, guided and assisted by the tutors.

Course related not Purse!

Also - student-run societies- your DD will miss the Freshers frenzied joining of everything but that doesn’t mean she can’t get involved. There will be auditions and other activities all year.

When I had my appendix out it was a good 4 weeks before I was able to comfortably walk round the small office I worked in. 'A couple of weeks' might be ambitious. Hope she recovers quickly.

No advice other than to say I hope your DD gets better very soon. What bad timing. It is a stressful time without this to add to it.

DS is off to Nottingham and has had severe tonsillitis this week with a visit to hospital for it on Thursday. Filling him with antibiotics and vitamins to try and get him better for next weekend and keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t recur.

Good luck to your DD xx