University life for freshers (2019/20) - we're hopping towards Easter with a pandemic to avoid **Title edited by MNHQ**

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Previous thread

Oh FGS just spotted another. Off to Specsavers

@Benjispruce I had the same.

I had 3 cross children. One because she did have snow and two because they didn't.

My DS1 doing 1 year placement from Portsmouth. We were given figures which showed the increase in final grade by those who did placement compared to those that did not which convinced us Students need to find their place which can be difficult. Also some companies pay a full salary while others don't. So far DS1 enjoying his time

Warning - controversial opinion to follow.

I keep reading, mostly on the Facebook page, posts from parents whose student DC are getting bored and not feeling stretched by their courses. What subjects are they studying and what kind of universities are they at? Or are these students exceptionally bright and don't need to work very hard?

DD's science course at an RG university is very full on with a lot of contact hours, plus at least as many self study hours, and she feels overstretched if anything. She seems to have exam after exam, and has a mock exam this week. Whereas students taking courses with as little as 8 contact hours a week and probably only doing the same amount of self study seem to have an easier ride, and are still passing their exams. Then the parents of these students are complaining that their DC aren't getting value for money.

It's pretty clear from this observation why employers don't regard all university degrees as equal.

School (GCSEs and A Level courses) is very full-on, isn't it? By contrast, I think that if you are doing a humanities degree the high number of non-contact hours can be an issue if you're not super-motivated. I wonder whether the students really are under-stimulated or just not really appreciating the need to self-motivate with their studies?

I imagine that not all students choose to super-stretch themselves in their course/university choices either?

It’s pretty clear from this observation why employers don't regard all university degrees as equal

In your own words you’ve said you don’t know what or where these dc are studying, so your conclusion is not “pretty clear”, at all.

And/or the way pupils are taught in school seems to be increasingly prescriptive (that's my observation anyway) whereas university study isn't. So there's a big mismatch for young people to come to terms with?

I think you are right in all of your posts NewModelArmy. DD was told by her lecturers that they aren't taught to the exam as they are no longer at school.

I think I worded that wrong Shimy. My conclusion was drawn from reading many posts on this forum and Facebook. There seems to be a huge variation of expectation from lecturers and students.

Mine has @ 20 hrs contact time per week but tells me she's expected to study / read around her subjects for a similar amount of time so her perception is she's doing at least a 40 hr week .

That sounds about right @bengalcat.

DS and friends now reconsidering their plans to travel in SE Asia after they leave Australia next month. I think they’re sensible to do this, but don’t want them making rash decisions before the full situation is known. Any thoughts or wise words?

LaBelleSauvage123 it's a bit of a waiting game, isn't it? Are they supposed to be leaving the beginning or end of next month? They might be wisest to consider New Zealand and North America rather than SE Asia.

I did an English degree and I think this was even an issue in the Dark Ages (exaggeration for effect).

I was hard working and have always loved reading. I was astonished when I turned up to my degree that lots of fellow students (top RG uni here) had not done much,or any, of the summer reading. Whilst studying modules, plenty of students blagged their way through tutorials not having read the books under discussion, much less the books about the books. Lots didn't hand essays in on time . The only books I personally recall blagging were Moby Dick and Sons and Lovers.

Some of those students got their comeuppance and did poorly but many got 2:1s and 2:2s. Lots pulled all nighters. It just was never my work ethic, The only person I know who got a first was a workaholic, though.

I think the difference now is that the students themselves are more monitored , the lecturers are more scrutinised and 'value for money' has become an issue.

DS is lazy but he does attend all lectures. He is doing the bare minimum expected work but I imagine there are plenty of politics students doing more : I don't think this is related to his intelligence or the institution. He also finds the first year compulsory modules very dull and unis that adopt the one size fits all approach to first year may be boring some of their students. He doesn't like the research paper module at all : it is very dry.

My DH , also in the Dark Ages got a 3rd class maths degree and my DF got an ordinary dgree from Durham! As an adult, my DF is a complete workaholic. He was clearly very entitled at uni and lazy and hated geology (he is now a marketing professor...). My DH was a footballer so spent all the time on that, hated his degree (maths at a RG), found it too hard, so decided to play football and drink instead. I actually think students are less idle that they used to be in lots of ways, so - yes- probably do expect more spoon feeding about what to do in their down time. We have this problem on a micro scale at schools between GCSE and A Level, too.

Newmodelarmy- middle of March

If they can delay decision-making for as long as possible but consider journeying in the opposite direction they might be wisest. However, in a month , the mapping of coronavirus around the world could look very different from now.

Piggywaspushed they check attendance at lectures and seminars at DD's university. While attending lectures isn't compulsory, anyone who has missed a lot of lectures gets checked on from a student wellbeing point of view.

I agree it is very difficult to feel engaged in a dry and boring subject. I hated economics as a student and could never do more than scrape through, and to this day I cannot understand why anyone would choose economics or politics as a degree

@Ginfordinner

You're going to get very different attitudes as well as different degrees.
I remember when I was going off to uni, one of my friends was going off to a "new uni" to do American Studies. We were talking about what we'd been told to expect:
Me: "We have 10 hours of lectures and 2 hours of tutorials a week, and we'll be given work for those to hand in".
Her: "We have our first tutorial in 6th week and he'll set us our essay of the term then. I think there are 2 lectures a week, but they're not compulsory and most of the second years say they only went to the first one."
I saw her just after the second year and she told me that "there wasn't as much work as she'd been led to believe".

But also you have attitudes to work. I can 100% guarantee that if dd1 and dd2 did exactly the same course you would think dd1's was overloading them with work, and dd2's wasn't giving them any.
I wasn't particularly a hard worker. I did what was needed, and did fine.
But I did know people who would have been holed up in the library 8am-9pm with only breaks for contact times and meals. Some of them did way better than me, some of them didn't.

DD1 has found it a challenge. She did say that although her contact hours haven't decreased, she's finding the work this term easier to manage. I think she's finding she understands it better which helps.
But I was a bit shocked at the amount of contact hours she has (both her and me were maths)
I had 10 lectures (2 a day) and 2 tutorials a week through first year, and we had to complete a computer project on the lovely computer language "Maple", which I think took one afternoon a week for a term.

She has a couple of days where she's pretty much in lectures 9am-4pm (6pm on one day) and the other days aren't much better. I rarely worked much in the evenings (except one evening a week-the one before the main tutorial where all the mathmos would club together and work until we'd finished) and almost never at weekends whereas she only has the evening/weekends to do the work for tutorials. Then she's had projects on top of that.

DS friend getting four hours of lectures a week, finishes at Easter her DM is spitting feathers. DS not lectures as such is expected to be there all day 10-5 three days a week, and half a day on Friday. Monday only day off in first year.

Wow. Such a difference. I know that humanities subjects do have fewer contact hours, but students are supposed to do a lot more self study.

TBH if DD had taken a subject with low contact hours I think she might have felt a little isolated. Obviously with her CFS she struggles anyway, but I do think that the fact that she has to keep up with staying on top of her lecture notes, seminars and lab practicals is a massive motivator for her.

She isn't really a party animal, but does manage to have a pretty good social life though.

TBH if DD had taken a subject with low contact hours I think she might have felt a little isolated.

I think that is an issue, especially now a lot can be done online, so not even going out to the library.
It's too easy for a student who is struggling anyway to hide away and get forgotten.

I agree. It's rather sad isn't it.

@Ginfordinner

It's difficult isn't it? For a child who isn't majorly into socialising, nor has an interest that brings them out, often feels that everyone else is rushing round going out all the time and they're not welcome. Fact is not all students are rushing out to the pub on Friday/Saturday night-but the vocal ones often are, and the silence in halls "confirms" that they're the "only one left".

I don't know how that can be helped.

But I think technology/social media does help and hinder.
Help in that they can message friends from home, so don't feel alone.
Hinder in that they can message friends at home and so don't feel the need to make friends at the beginning. But those friends move on, plus are only virtual friends during term time, so the person can get more and more isolated.

I remember a friend talking about how her son hadn't really made friends at college, wasn't really interested in doing things there. I asked if he was doing any societies, and she said. "Oh, he doesn't want to do things in the evenings, because some of his home friends work, so the only time they can message is the evenings, and he doesn't want to miss that."
He didn't feel the need to make friends at college at first, because he still had the friends at home.
Problem came when he realised that he did want friends at college and found that they'd all made friends, and did things together, and it was much harder to break into these groups that start at the beginning.

When I was at college and the only thing we really had was snail mail for home friends, people were much more forced into joining in.

Maybe unis could look to doing something along the lines of online groups called something like "I don't want to go out on Friday Evening" with the idea being that anyone in can chat on those, and maybe a couple of meet ups a term. That way they could at least see that they're not alone, and perhaps meet like-minded people.

Both of mine are at “top tier” RG unis. Both doing humanities subjects. Both have max 8hrs contact time a week but are expected to do a lot of reading and have essays to hand in. Neither seems to have had any tutorials (though DD now meets with diss tutor) and both say the lectures are a bit useless as just an intro to the subject matter
DD studies in the library, DS prefers his room atm.
I think they both find getting high marks for essays does require quite a bit of effort!

DD stayed in on Saturday night and watched a film, but she wasn't on her own. Three of her friends were with her. She had been out a couple of times during the week though. She doesn't need or want to go out every night.