Heading towards year 3 exams (uni 2017)

[Xenia]

Continuation of www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/3538808-heading-towards-year-2-exams-uni-2017 as we have reached page 40.

Hard to believe they are all in year 3 now and many will finish university in June 2020.

Absolutely agree
It's stupid and unfair

One of ds's friends is doing a STEM subject in a 'top' uni posted. He said that the paper of his online closed book/timed exam yesterday had been previously published online word for word. The clearly lazy examiner had just set a former exam paper. This is not an essay subject so 'correct' answers wont be identified as plagiarism.

Not sure how 'academic integrity' comes into that one.

I think there are a number of potential issues. Which does not mean it is not the best approach in the circumstances.

What about the girlfriend/boyfriend on the same course in lockdown together, or the group of housemates who stayed in their University town. Some will be honest, some won't.

And what about those with less than ideal study conditions. One friend is currently hosting an international student who would have struggled to get home. It seems to be working out, although the house is now pretty full with students and adults working from home. (My friend want her kitchen table back!) Some students in that situation will be struggling. Or struggling with living on their own once friends and flatmates have departed.

It will also highlight deprivation. Universities have responded differently, with some setting relatively little work and others setting masses. From what we hear, Imperial are one of the latter, and their exams, at least in medicine, will count. Yet Imperial attracts a good number of bright students from deprived London inner city backgrounds, often from ethnic minorities. It is already known that overcrowding is a real barrier to school students from such backgrounds doing well and in normal times there are various schemes to provide alternative spaces. (Overcrowding statistics from boroughs such as Tower Hamlets are shocking.) Taking an exam in an overcrowded household, perhaps with poor or non existent wifi, would be detrimental. I hope this is understood.

DS4 now finished and heading home from Durham soon, but there are plans to go back when his friends (many are doing fourth years) go up next term, before his own term starts at Oxford. He certainly seems to have put in shifts for his online exams - I read law and don't really see how you can answer legal problems properly or write essays without doing work beforehand. Only at a really superficial level at any rate. Incidentally, the best of luck to your DD Carriemac, the Oxford law exams are one of the toughest calls of all in terms of volume of exams taken at the same time, and my two DDs say they'd have found those nine exams online/ from home almost impossible (might also be a bit of a comment on our squashed home/ barking dogs etc!).

Mine is a cross post with Needmoresleep's, so the comment at the end looks bad. Fully understand the reality of proper overcrowding and deprivation, obviously.

to be fair to Oxford - they sought detailed feedback from everyome doing law exams about their home circumstances, IT and Wifi access and have the resources to be very supportive to the more deprived students.

I thought of this thread when I just read this case - yet another lawyer struck off - this one later fund his client was dead so could not have signed the document on that date - www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/solicitor-backdated-signed-document-not-knowing-injury-claim-client-had-died/5104407.article?utm_source=gazette_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Underspending+reassessment+ruling+%7c+SRA+defends+prosecution+%7c+Contact+tracing+app_05%2f28%2f2020. That chap has been struck off.

I am sure law degrees and other law course and lawyers do emphasise gain and again not to cheat and not to lie and not to backdate documents but it does need to be hammered home again and again.

Anyway good luck to all those still doing exams. My son has had to tell his housemate today he will not be back in Bristol yet as he is still doing his dissertation. I think he hopes to return next week but not sure exactly when.

Never thought I'd add Exam invigilator to my CV
DD stater her online exams this am, just as our water supply stopped ! Luckily we had some bottled in.

Oh no, Carriemac. Thank goodness it wasn't a power cut! Hope all goes well.

Good luck for the exams. One of mine is collecting his things finally today - driving there without stopping and same home later today so should be okay and safe. I think his twin is going back until end of term tomorrow and no that does not mean his dissertation is in yet - it is still not due nor in but apparently the references (all that is left - it is already thoroughly checked) can be done on the train as the carriage will be empty and the wifi will be fine.

Refrencing in a train ! Brave :)

Hope it's ok to drop back in again. Glad things are going well on the whole for all your DCs and hope you are keeping well in these difficult times.
My DS has now finished third year. Online exams completed, reports and projects submitted electronically and now just results to wait for. He has chosen his specialism for his Masters year and now waits to see how that will be conducted. As with others it look like all large lectures will be online next year but details still to be confirmed about labs and small group tutorials.
Life continues to be strange here but like all we're finding a way through. I hope outstanding exams go well amid dissertations get finalised and successfully submitted for those not there yet. Keep safe all.

All well here, the BF is a very pleasant lad, and DD is still working hard on her project which has a Wednesday deadline. She's been in contact with the company she interned with last year who'd offered her a job for this summer, it looks as though they'll be happy for her to do some design work remotely which is good. I may have an office-mate for the summer!

She'll have a couple of weeks break before starting that, they're planning to do some good walks. DH and I went to check out one of them yesterday and found that an idiot had set light to the moor with a barbecue the previous evening - loads of fire engines, helicopters working constantly ....until some other idiots decided to fly drones over to take a look which grounded them.

The woods below the moor were lovely and shaded though, and not too busy.

@ErrolTheDragon, can I ask - when your DD & BF came to stay did they self isolate? I'm not sure what should happen when/if DS returns.
I 'think' I read somewhere that if students return home they should self isolate, as it's a mixing of two households.
Mind you, as yet he hasn't decided what's happening, so I may be thinking further ahead than is required.

We just avoided close contact and focussed on sensible hygiene really. They'd not been going out other than walks before so it was highly unlikely they'd have cv, and same applied to us.

DD has an exam today. She's sleeping a lot on her medication, so we're hoping the extra time she has will help. She seems quite positive about having a go.

I'm in charge of snacks and drinks.

Referencing on a train is ridiculous. His train will be leaving shortly. He is also assuming he will be near a working plug as is almost out of power. He always seems to pull things off at the last minute but that is certainly not my approach.

I agree with the approaches above. We have all pretty much been very careful - in a sense I have been doing this for years as work from home and gave up meetings etc 2 years ago and business travel (and only caught 2 colds in 2 years which shows it works I suppose)....

My son saw his girl friend at a distance yesterday and they had a fair bit of time together (both collecting stuff but her father who is at risk kept a good distance which is wise). Both my twins have not much left the house other than sensible exercise for 10 weeks or so I am pretty happy they are unlikely to be a risk. one has said he will refuse to go on some Bristol protest thing when he's back his friends want him to. I said how are you going to resist that (I know peer pressure can be hard) and he said if they are really good friends as they are they will understand so that's good. he was one of the first people I know to buy masks and gloves in February actually and is the best hand washer I have ever met so I think he will try to keep quite safe. I will be a lot happier when his dissertation goes in.

Meanwhile our water pressure has been dreadful, I spent ages in the loft dealing with the closed system pressure and mending a strip light and now realise it was a more general external issue and first thing today we had no cold/ drinking water at all with no time for restoring it. I called up. Anyway it seems to be trickling through now so I won't need to a stand pipe or to find a local river I suppose....... We had masses of water earlier this year. I have a completely full barrel in the garden. The Water companies need to do better at storing it when there is so much of it ready for hard times. I remember a very hot summer probably 1977 when we were not even supposed to flush the loo and there were similar issues then. The water companies never seem to get it right.

Good luck to your DD today, SmaCM.

We've had similar conversations with DS2 about when he returns. We've said we'll isolate together for 14 days because he'll have travelled on planes.

Your 1st paragraph gave me a wry smile, Xenia. DS1 is very much a last minute dot com personality, totally the opposite to me, his dad and his brother. Somehow, he always pulls off whatever deadline needs meeting!

Horsemad, I don't know if you've spotted it, but the Style and Beauty thread has started up again. 😊

We had no water yesterday for a few hours, honestly after the wettest winter I can remember what have they done with the water that fell?
DDs first exam badly, only 8 more to go...
@xenia the dissertation submission will probably have some leeway, my uni lecturer friends seem to be bending over backwards to facilitate students at the moment.

I think the water companies in the south of England don't have unlimited capacity, and the population has grown. Though obviously, fixing leaky pipes would help.

The reservoirs up here don't look too depleted yet, presumably they got filled right up in winter esp February which helps. Seeing tons of water having to be dumped onto moorland because someone didn't have any sense was galling though.

Thanks Errol, this is my take on it also. DS has not been out apart from the local shop once a week and to take exercise and none of us are shielding, so I feel we should all be ok if he does come home.

@latedecember1963, thanks, I shall pop over there. 🙂

@Xenia, the hot summer was 1976, blimey it was hot! Can remember getting up at 5am to ride before school before it got too warm! Crazy.

Yes, it was summer 76, but I think 75 had been hot and dry too which may not have helped.

I can't remember a dry, sunny spell of this long at this time of year before (though that could be my memory!). But it's due to break a bit tomorrow for a while (coinciding with DD finishing her project of course) - cooler and with some rain here though not sure if the south will get much.

We definitely need some rain, the lawns are parched.

DS saw the thing on the news about potential water shortages and is seriously urging me to fill the garden shed with crates of bottled water. I think he's worried that civilisation is beginning to crumble and we're heading for a Mad Max type world by July. I've tried to convince him that the worst it will get is a hosepipe ban and if it comes to it we can drink the manky garden pond so he's been satisfied by a promise to get some sterilising tablets.
My efforts at prepping for Brexit and Covid have resulted in a cupboard full of chickpeas and pineapple chunks that nobody will eat so I'm more inclined to face the next apocalypse unprepared