The ABC of university life (2019/20 cohort) - Will NewModelArmyMayhem18 forgive me?

[MrKlaw]

previous thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3701968-The-ABC-of-university-life-2019-20-cohort-settling-in-we-hope

Hope you don't mind - people have pent up comments about cheese graters and traffic cones to get out of their system!

@mumsiedarlingrevolta

Hello fellow rowing mum!

He's attending uni here in the US, Massachusetts specifically. He's in his second year (uni is four years here) and rowed for three years in secondary school. How about yours?

@Witchend, must be a different type to the ones in DSs college!

It's been nice seeing DS this weekend but we haven't done anything special, other than a Chinese buffet. He has been to golf twice with DH and otherwise watched telly in the kitchen, fiddled with his laptop and lolloped about in his room. He just tried to remove me from the kitchen sofa (to whence I am often consigned) instead of watching football with DH and DS2, and then accused me of spending no time with him and he may as well not have bothered coming home .

I think he may be sulking because he doesn't know what he will do all day tomorrow. The mate he planned to catch up with has just cried off (not surprisingly).

DD is still being fairly uncommunicative unless she wants something. Her best friend went to stay with her this weekend, but I have no idea how it went. DD has spent this afternoon doing some work she couldn't do while her friend was there.

@bigTillyMint
Hope so anyway

She's normally pretty accurate on that sort of thing, so she's probably right. She also told me when I was trying to add washing powder to the pre-going shopping order, so if she'd not been sure I think she would have just accepted in in case.

We only use Surcare powder at home as DH is allergic to anything else. I bought DS a bottle of liquid stuff to use. he asked for pods when he was down as apparently only one of the machines takes liquid - he'd had to borrow pods from his flatmates.

@BigTillymint DD said some machines at Collingwood come with detergent!?

DS has confirmed that his friend has dropped out of uni.

Laundry liquid isn't good for washing machines anyway. DD uses pods.

DS says the washing machines at Howlands Farm site have washing powder included in the wash so great relief to hear your DD say the same @Witchend.

Reading the dyspraxia comments here with great interest as we too have someone in the family with this. Looks like he's on another planet most of the time and then astonishes people by achieving A*s in all his GCSEs and A Levels.

@Alicatz66 - How was Nottingham? We went to visit DS last weekend and had a lovely time - took him to lunch, had a look round some shops, bought him a few bits in Wilkos. Where did you go for lunch? We’ll visit DA again so nice to hear of some places to go.

Always seems a shame to drop out when you have worked so hard for two years, but better now than further down the line.

Had a lovely weekend with DS, he was tired went to a family event and he came home with us at 11pm which was a surprise because lots of his friends were there. He ate well but is still getting over something so a bit of a cough is lingering. He loved his room, new bed, bedding, rug and accessories. Was stunned when he went into his room to start with. He insists we painted the walls pistachio but does like the colour

He was on ancient trains coming home no wifi, but did not miss any connections thank goodness. I shall not worry next time. He said he may come home again soon, depending on work etc.

Had brief chat with DS as his gf was visiting. Insists he's enjoying his course (haven't given them much work yet) and that he knows what to do about the bank card. At the moment he is having to send money online to his friend so that the latter can with3cash for him. A good fallback if it works.

@blametheparents . We were lazy as it was raining! We went to "The Nurseryman " .. a pub about 5 minutes from Broadgate .. decent Sunday lunch . When DD visited him a couple of weeks ago they went to "Annie's burger shack" in town which they both loved. He is coming home for weekend on 25th and looking forward to sleeping! We had a comedy moment yesterday as he was moaning he couldn't sleep as he has window open as his room is boiling and there is a bench on the grass near their block where people sit after a night out being loud ! ... so we moved it ! It was like a scene from Chuckle Brothers !

Also interested in the Nottingham suggestions for lunch as our DS is at NTU, he is coming home next weekend (mainly to see his girlfriend ), and we are planning a weekend in Nottingham in November - although DS has told us he has a weekend trip with the Uni the same weekend!
He seems to be settling in very well, lots of friends and different societies, only seems to out 'late' on Wed night which is when the sports clubs all go out, enjoying his part time job and finding lots of bargains from Aldi ... hoping to go on a ski trip and a cricket tour as well ... not sure how much academic work is going on, says lectures are OK and there hasn't been any personal study work given yet , not sure I believe that......

Rags we went to Wetherspoons on campus because we wanted something cheap and cheerful and it was full of parents feeding their kids and very nice. Although their are loads of lovely places to eat, including a fab Chinese inside the shopping centre.

I still don't know how well my DS is settling. Each conversation contradicts the previous one, leaving me a bit worried and confused. His course is not stretching him yet, but will hopefully get better over the next few weeks and uni life is very different to what he had built up in his head. I am going to take him out for a long chat when he comes.comes home next week.

@Alicatz66

On the subject of restaurant/pub recs, has anyone got any recs for Durham - lunch and dinner?

Dd has just phoned (!) rushing for her Monday 9am lecture. There was a practise fire alarm at 8.20am. As you can imagine, it did not go down well with the few that have got lectures (probably showering at that time) and the hundreds who haven’t . She said it was extremely loud which is good 😁

Was it just her block or all of Park View?

Gin may have been whole halls?? No doubt I will get the whole story later! The way she was talking it was loud enough to wake the other blocks anyway...

I will try and stay on this thread as it keeps jumping to the ‘top’ thread about points! 😂

My DS could use a fire alarm at that time every Monday! That said, none of his lectures start before 10am.

DS had a crisis last night on discovering that he seemed to have lots of timetable clashes for his lectures (he is doing a joint degree) and that his personalised online timetable is not functioning. He seemed to have found a workaround this morning involving sprinting across the city between two lectures with no time in between. All seems to have been achieved so far and he has found out who can fix the online timetable.

Most of these lectures are actually optional, which he knows on one level but does not seem to have quite processed. And the ones that aren't are recorded, so I think he'll calm down a bit about attendance soon. He seems to even be attending lectures for modules he is not studying, just because he is interested in the topic or the lecturer. (All a bit far from my experience, as the number of lectures I attended at Oxford is in single digits - but they were very much optional and largely irrelevant in my long-ago day).

I'm really trying to resolve not to give him too much advice, as he does seem to be managing to sort things out for himself in the end. I'm also going to try and keep communication largely to texting as it doesn't seem to make him spiral into panic as much as phone calls do (or at least, the panic is not so obvious!)

I've just booked a hotel to visit him for his birthday next month, so suggestions for nice places to eat would be great if anyone has any.

Schrodingers my Dd is doing a joint degree and they had a specific team that met with her and sorted out there were no clashes within her chosen modules. Is he sure there is not a team that do this at his university?

@bigTillyMint I had a lovely lunch with DD at the Riverview kitchen - and they had the most amazing cakes and brownies which we didn’t have but I’ll be back for one of those. DH ate out for dinner with DD at Lebaneat on North Bailey and he said that was really good. That’s all I know so if you find anywhere else that’s good pass on the details!

@ZandathePanda: yes, and he met with his tutors for the joint degree and all the other students last week - this is when they discovered the clashes. The solution was to film some of the clashing lectures. In this case, they don't exactly clash, there is just no time in between them and the faculty buildings are some way apart. He's at Oxford, where lectures are a bit different than most other unis - the main teaching is tutorials that happen at college level, while the lectures are organised at university level and are mostly not compulsory. But they should clearly have sorted out clashes between these introductory sessions.

The main tutor responsible for his joint degree across the uni is in his college (though he is the only student doing it there), and she sounds nice, so he is confident she will sort things out.