Heading towards 4th year or post grad/jobs

[Xenia]

Continuation of the previous thread for those of us with children who are just finishing their 3rd year at university (so either "graduating" in 2020 or going into year 4 in Autumn 2020)..........

My twins' degree results will be out in late July. Good luck to everyone else waiting for finals results.

Fingers crossed Xenia. I am hoping that I don't get symptoms because if I do my youngest will have to self isolate when it's his birthday. I was quite relieved he's still at school as then he's not with me so much but his school are now closed for two days.
We're sitting in the lounge with the bifold doors open and our coats on.

My twins got half of this year's mock results and passed (one only just but at least he did) - the finals of this term's subjects are in less than a month and will not the same as the mocks so they were not real mocks in that sense but hopefully it has made them realise they are likely to be able to pass.

Well Done to your sons Xenia, what type of law are they hoping to do eventually?

My DS is very grumpy today, he seems to be studying an awful lot. I asked him if it's more full on than his degree and he said no, so maybe he's just making heavy weather of it.

I hope his demeanour picks up; none of his friends are here & I think he's missing them more than he's admitting to. Video calls are not quite the same, are they? 🤨

Hosemad, video calls are certainly not as good. My son who lives at home is lucky to have an old school friend and they do their walk together every day.

My son who said he got 51% actually got 52% and 55% in the mocks so not too bad and his twin did better so I am sure it will all be fine.

I don't think they know what type of law they will do. One was talking about one of my areas today and said that might be interesting but it is a bit early to say. It would help if they actually were applying for jobs.

DD got a letter from student loans today to say HMRC had informed them she has a job. She won't earn much this year while she's still studying, so she's not worried about it.

All this talk of isolating and when to come home is stressing me out. I thought we had a plan, but seemingly things are so fluid, who knows?

DD1 texted to say that nobody is recruiting in her chosen field so she is considering a PhD. Her Masters supervisor has been making encouraging noises so she is going to put in an application. She told me first because she knew I could play devil's advocate and really pick apart her decision. It probably sounds stupid, but I did ask her if Cambridge was the best place; after all it is an opportunity to look around other institutions and groups. There are a couple of places she is also considering but their deadlines are a bit later in the academic year.

It's all been a bit sudden. I was hoping to wind down my teaching commitments over the next couple of years when hopefully I thought both DDs would have graduated. A few more years on the treadmill yet then...

Ah, Malbecfan, sending you a staffroom brew! ☕ Sometimes it just feels endless doesn't it?
DS2 has also broached the idea of a Masters before now, but we have said that really he needs to be getting paid work or funded study after this year.
He will have had 4 years, including his year at Adelaide Uni last year and DH and I really need to start to divert extra money into our pensions.
DS1 lived at home rent free for 4 years while he was working in apprentice and minimum wage jobs.
Although the financial outlay may not be exactly equal, both sons accept that we have tried to be fair in helping them with their individual needs.
I sympathise with the feeling of wanting to feel as though the end is in sight regarding finance. DS1 and his fiancee are moving into a new house next week and we have said we will pay for the removal van as their house warming present but this is a treat as opposed to an ongoing commitment.

Oh my, I really hope DS2 will be working F/T this time next year AND in his own place too! 😆

Yes, the days when they were sent away into service aged 13 years and then be eating someone else's food are long gone. Mind you that is going back a fair way......

I don't mind my twins' law plan as it has clarity and an end date or reasonably certain end date but I will be glad when I am not supporting any of them all. One son was doing a job application earlier but was interrupted for a walk by his friend and now is just doing work. I hope he gets back to it soon.

Daughter 2 called to chat today (she calls every day actually) and at least she and other 2 older ones are completely off my hands.

Advent calendars - 3 of them want those - so that's my next job to order them (Hotel Choc).

Thanks @latedecember1963, much appreciated. @Xenia, you are much more generous than I am. Hotel Choc! I asked if the DDs wanted Cadbury ones. DD1 has a Bridgmas one anyway and DD2 isn't bothered. DH would no doubt be delighted but can buy his own. Still no news on pick-ups but DD has asked when I am likely to get to Cambridge. Depends on when I leave, whether or not I stop en route and the M25....

DS rang this morning. He’s angry and upset that DD won’t be able to be with us at Christmas. There is no way she will be able to travel over from Brussels. They have always been incredibly close DT’s.
He’s knows that we’re upset and going to miss DD for this first year without her at Christmas so doesn’t usually say much about it although I know he speaks to DD most days. It’s going to be a weird Christmas with only DH, DS and I. Usually both sides of the family fly over and we have 16 staying for the week. Need to get plans in place for next year although by then DS will have finished his Masters and be working in Singapore and DH and I will have hopefully completed our move to Canada.

🙂 I just buy Cadbury Advent calendars too! DH bought me a gin Advent calendar once, that was nice! 🙂

How does your DD feel about not getting home for Christmas, Parker?

@Xenia, MIL was sent off aged 14 to work in a mother and baby home - Catholic Church. Would have been mid 50’s

@Parker231, that does sound hard for you all, and particularly DS

DD had always planned on Christmas in London with us but Covid and travel restrictions obviously got in the way. She won’t be on her own as my family are in Belgium but this will probably be DH and my last year in the U.K. so Christmas for us all will be different in the future.

My guess is there will be more than usual wanting to do PhDs next year. I'd assume from a parent's POV it should be more like a job than being a 'student' - no long vacations and independent. Do you know if she'd be getting funding, Malbec? I've lost touch with how things work nowadays, back in the day science PhDs were all funded by EPSRC quota awards, or CASE awards with an industry sponsor, and a bit of extra from demonstrating - absolutely nothing expected from parents.
You're not wrong to suggest she looks around - at the PhD level Cambridge won't have the best research group for everything, there will be some specialisms it doesn't work on.

I'm sorry you'll not be together for Christmas Parker . It'll be a different year for so many of us.

Interesting to hear about PhD plans. DS1 (back from Oz) is vaguely trying to get a 'science job' after his chemistry masters and finding very little to apply for. We've been having some long conversations about wtf he is going to do with his life and he's tentatively hinting he might try to do medicine as a second (actually third) degree, so I will possibly join those of you subbing perpetual students for the rest of our natural lives.

At the end of DS2's 2nd year, as I was driving him home to prep for going out to Australia, he casually dropped into conversation that perhaps medicine might have been a better option for him and how would I feel about him doing another degree like his cousin did when she finished her History degree? She did medicine which took an additional 4 years on top of the 3 years she had at Oxford.
Keeping both hands firmly on the steering wheel and not around his neck, I pointed out that DH and I are not in the same financial league as his aunt and uncle and that if he seriously wanted to follow that path he needed to explore how he was going to fund it.
I decided it would be prudent not to mention it to DH and the topic hasn't come up again.

Forgot to add sorry to hear your son is so upset, Parker. It's feeling a bit rubbish at the moment, with no end in sight.
Lots of houses near us already have Christmas lights up. I think people are just fed up and want some brightness and sparkle.

Yes, sorry about the Parker twin. After 2 December i theory the English current lockdown is over and I think you can get flights from Brussels - London. Various of my children this year have got to Antigua ( I think that was just before March lockdown), France, Cyprus and Corfu (last 3 this summer/Autumn). However I have made no attempts to check or even to fly this year and there are lots of reasons people cannot fly to various places and we don't know what laws will be in place in December yet either here or in Belgium. It is a difficult year. I think we will be able to have our lunch here given limited number of households depending on the laws by 25 Dec. We shall see. Less washing up I suppose if hardly any come.

Advent calendars for 3 now ordered. 2 don't want them - I think same 2 as last year. One said he would eat it all at once if I bought one for him - the one at home. The Christmas tree is coming on 16th Dec the day after their last exam (real exams in this case rather than mocks).

*lated" my father read physics first, graduated and immediately after did medicine. He couldn't do medicine first unlike his oldest brother as by then his father was too old to afford it - over 70 but after he graduated grants came out and my mother kept him too on her teaching earnings for years (he finished his very final exam ( a psychiatry thing - DPM aged 30 at long last)) but it was worth it in the end. He worked full time until about 77 (and for the NHS until age 63).

That's lovely about your dad, Xenia. Your mum must have had real faith in him. My niece has made a good career as a GP, met her husband on one of her hospital training placements and has no regrets about her switch.
Sometimes I feel guilty that we can't can't be as generous with money, especially when I read on some threads about cars for 17th birthdays etc, but we have done the best we can with the resources we have and the lads understand.

Parker my DTs were separated for the firs time last Christmas as DS was on his year abroad. I think I missed him the most in the run up to the day and his sister was a bit sad but it was fine .

One of my twins has a girl friend so in a sense, although my 2 always were in separate classes at school from age 4 and had their own friends, but shared a bedroom at home until 18, one having a girl friend is a mind of "separation" from a twin, although he understands. Actually this academic year with one in Bristol and one at home is the first year they have not been in the same city. They do speak most days actually particularly now England is in lockdown 2.

Yes, my mother was happy to support my father. I noticed their 1953 marriage invitations put BSc. after my father's name so they must have been proud of that and before my father's father died in 1955 he knew my father (like the oldest son) would make it as a doctor which was nice. My grandfather put off marrying until he could afford it (even back in 1916 paying for life, a house etc was expensive) so my father, the youngest are born when he was 49 so he was retired by the time my father went to university. My parents put off babies until they had been married over 8 years to buy a house and get my father qualified and have 2 professional salaries plus at the end it took a while to ge pregnant with me. In fact my parents almost had a baby available from an adoption agency when my mother got pregnant (and then my siblings followed very quickly after). My mother said she was the first woman in Newcastle to claim the "married man's" tax allowance (although that may not be true) when she was supporting her student husband. I don't know if his 5 year medical degree was shorter because he'd read physics first but I suspect not. So bet he was about 27 when he finished 3 years physics, 5 years medicine but then specialised in psychiatry so his last exam at about 30 phew...but even when people do that you still have decades of working life ahead so it's worth getting the qualifications.

lated students have all kinds of income. I am sure yours are grateful for what they have. Mine didn't get cars at 17 although I did pay for driving lessons and put them car insurance for our second car and the twins do share that second car in the name of one of them due to last year he needed a Bristol parking permit at his house in Bristol.

@ErrolTheDragon DD says that there is funding available. There is also the option of supervising first/second year students which is reasonably well-paid. She is considering other places too but Cambridge has the earliest deadline.

Does anyone know if the 3rd - 9th December for coming home still applies? Because I'm in school 5 days per week, I am really limited as to when I can collect both DDs. The not knowing is really stressing me out.

Parker that's a shame about your twins not being together again this xmas, it's such a hard year for that kind of thing.

We've just had our Xmas lunch cancelled, we were going to be having lunch with my mother but she's phoned and said she doesn't want to risk it so we won't be seeing her on Xmas Day. I am less than happy about it but I understand why she has decided that but the way her health is I am not expecting to have another xmas with her (cancer and kidney failure) and she's 89. My DD will be working so we won't be seeing her and so it's just going to be me and DS which won't be a novelty as we've had a lot of time together with us both having to self isolate so will have been together all day every day for three weeks by the time it's finished.

Malbec I think that is still the window to come home but it is not the law, just guidance. However the rules change so much (even the rules within the tiers we go back to in December are changing) it is hard to keep track.

En sorry about your mother. I have said in our family it is up to each person to decide their own preferences on these things (although as I am the oldest in the family we don't have the same risks/age etc as other families now I suppose). I spoke to one of mine today who had been looking at skiing over Christmas but a lockdown abroad might have scotched that plan to make a last minute booking .....

In other news both twins got their final law mock results today and both passed and both got an identical mark too. I am glad they tend to get similar results. There are no good sample model answers for their brand new course other than one for each module and in one paper it even breached the rules- word count - so I think some students would rather be able to see a model 70%, 60% and 50% paper so they can see what the markers are after. Some will lose their careers almost and certainly their 2 year first job/training contract if they fail even one of the modules this year so I can see why some students are worried. My son in Bristol called today and he said he felt very happy having passed the 4 mocks as it shows he might well pass the real December exams. I think he will be fine.

I am sorry about people's Christmas plans going awry. It is a difficult year for many.