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.

latedecember1963 - thank you for asking. DH did the vaccinations for a local care home yesterday so feels he’s achieved a small step forward. The whole process is badly organised and needs to improve if the elderly and vulnerable are going to be vaccinated quickly. It’s going to be a long time before any sort of normality whilst everyone waits for the two vaccines.

You're welcome, Parker, glad he had a more productive day. My mum and MiL had really good experiences thank goodness, but I suppose there's a world of difference in working environments across the country.
The only thing we're confused about is that my mum has been told she'll be called for her 2nd vaccine in 3 to 4 weeks but MiL will be called back in 12 weeks.

@latedecember1963, it my be down to the date they had their first jab?
Someone in Cheshire was telling me that if people had their first jab before 4th Jan, they'd get their second one in 3 wks. After 4th Jan, they'll have the second in 12 weeks.

There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how it's done across the country though!

There certainly doesn't! We're just thankful that our mums are now in the system. My mum's in Calderdale and we're in Pennine so different health authorities may have different policies. Neither of them are exactly planning on going out and painting the town red any time soon. 😁

😁

My mum is still waiting to hear (Nth Wales). 🤨

My mum had her first dose and then got a call on NYE to say it'd be next month or March before she got the next dose, she should have it a couple of days later.

Great to hear about the jabs rolling out. Both our ds have applied to be volunteer stewards and haven't heard anything either

We had a family zoom quiz this morning with relatives in their 80s and 90s across the country including London, South West and Yorkshire. None had had the call yet. (The older generation always manage to thrash the youngers in the quiz )

DS2 was threatening to go back to his uni house soon because apparently it's less boring than us, but I think the advantages of lockdown home-cooking and creature comforts (pets) may win out for a while.

That sounds really good Haffdonga.

My Mum won't engage with anything like Zoom or Teams and she doesn't like speaking on the phone. She talks more to the staff in Booths than she does to me.

My mum is just the same, EnOlagay. She also thinks the internet is full of predators and won't even have an answer phone on her land line. She frequently doesn't answer the phone and ignores texts just long enough for me to start getting twitchy.

In some ways the last 9 months have suited her beautifully because it's given her a legitimate excuse to keep me at arms length.
When we see tv campaigns aimed at encouraging people to reach out to lonely old people the lads always laugh at the idea of some poor hapless soul knocking on Grandma's door to offer friendship and getting a proper telling off. 🤣

She sounds very similar to my Mum. She has a mobile but it's switched off and she won't have an answer phone because then she will have to call people back. If I didn't phone her then she wouldn't phone me at all but then she never wanted children, only grandchildren.

It'd be a brave person to offer help to her, she doesn't do help. She's going to have to at some point though, she's got dementia though I don't think she knows.

Good luck to those dealing with mothers. Mine are still fine. Their law course restarted (online) this week. One of the modules seem to have far too much text per slide to me - more like an essay but I know the problem having had to write many a slide in my time when you have loads to say but not much space.

One has an interview-ish kind of thing coming up for a job and is on a zoom seminar of a law firm at the moment in a shirt so the reality of working life and future jobs is probably hitting home although is at least 18 months away.

Just a shirt?

It's a zoom call, they only need a shirt 😂

Except if they ask you some numerical questions and you have to stand up to get a calculator revealing that your bottom half is your old daisy dukes (top half is a blouse Mrs T would have worn). DD did get the internship though so might have made her memorable.

His friend who has a full time professional job as of September is apparently the expert as his career so far has been 100% online and he said shirt only and no tie and you can wear whatever you like on the bottom half. He said it went fine and it was useful for the experience. He is going to speak to another friend who has done loads of online law interviews to ask him about that shortly before his. This particular one they record you and it is within a fixed time with no advance warning of the questions so you need to think on your feet and be able to answer questions. It will be a good first test for him. He says he is too busy now with everything but then they ignored all my advice to get on with this stuff over the massively long summer holiday so there you are - you reap what sow.

Sounds like the ClerkM daughter did fine - the blouse perhaps helped although it is not even clear to me what they want - do they want to see your impoverished condition and inability to know how to behave so you can show you are not privileged... [ am assuming not although I suppose we could play the NE mining roots if we had to....]

Good advice about getting ahead for all the interview business over the summer holidays. DS2 ignored advice from me and his siblings and is regretting it now (with uni project work and lectures ramping up).

He's also having second thoughts on the direction he wants to take (I blame the half day work experience he did with a family member just before the first lockdown - it put him off). I think he might do a masters next year to buy more time (and to check out teaching properly). He will treat the 3 job applications he has managed to make as practice just in case he goes down the job route next year.

It is certainly easier once you have done a few applications as they tend to ask similar questions. It is a pity there is not a subject specific UCAS type application system where you can just key in your A level and subjects only once and UCAS points rather than again and again and again all for different applications - so pointless.

Good luck to those with interviews. I wish ds1 (now 24) would crack on with deciding what he actually wants to do with his life. He's talking vaguely about throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. 'Everything' so far consists of grad entry medicine, internships, PhD, law, finance, stacking supermarket shelves or something/anything else that springs to mind. A lot of ideas and some random emails but no actual throwing at the wall yet.

DS2 has applied to be a covid vaccinator. He's currently working through the 14 hours of online modules needed to be completed beforehand because he hadn't done them in the past year, including radicalisation awareness and conflict resolution. We've quite enjoyed the silly answers. e.g. A patient shouts aggressively. Would you A, Talk to them calmly, B, Use physical force to get them out or C Defend yourself with a knife in case?

Good to know the people putting needles in our arms are so well prepared.

@Haffdonga, sympathies on the DS who doesn't know what he wants to do. I suspect DS2 is the same. Each time I ask (and it's not often - every couple of months), he just says he doesn't know.

As a massive planner, I find this lack of direction very disconcerting... 🤨
He's working really hard which is good but I'd be lying if I said I'm not a bit bothered about what happens after the course.

Tough isn't it, @Horsemad? I'm trying desperately not to be the interfering mother as I get my head bitten off very sharply if I dare to ask a tentative question!

Haff reminds me of the new law multiple choice questions introduced because certain groups with poor English were doing badly in essay questions - the can be really really easy and the twins' course includes about 40% marks for them this year for the first time. In fact I think one many with a PhD in a different subject passed some of them never having every studied any law. Anyway 60% of the marks are for much harder stuff and some of the multiple choice is harder. I saw one he as doing for practice on leases - they just started land law last week and as with last term there seem to be two obviously wrong answers you can discount immediately which tends to leave you 3 or 2 possibles and if 2 then you have a 50% chance even by guessing.

One twin got a law rejection today from a firm. I reminded him 138 firms rejected me in 1982 before firm 139 accepted me (worst unemployment at 3m in 1982 for 50 years too). He submitted another today and asked me to check the covering letter (not that I know what they want in these letters) which I did. He also did an online recorded interview yesterday which in the end lasted in total about 3 minutes or something very very short so at least it was not too onerous. His twin will will have to train with my firm if he doesn't apply anywhere.

Mind you their brother was a postman for 3 years after graduating and since then has been a food delivery van driver so he set a very low bar.

@Xenia, their brother's occupation is one of the most important things in many folks' lives at the moment - don't knock it.

My mum adores her postman, especially when he brings her Premium Bond cheques! 😁

Yes, absolutely. I have always been one of his supporters whatever choices he or the other children make for careers. It is their lives. I had no agenda 4 of the 5 would be lawyers (although they know I certainly enjoy my legal career). He certainly seems to have picked secure work - food deliveries. However it is relatively low skilled and low paid so anyone choosing needs to know that (as he does). I suppose ultimately self driving cars and drones might deliver the stuff.

I haven't talked to DD for a while but it seems that the clause she didn't like in her job contract has now been removed so hopefully it's signed on both sides now.
Essentially they'd got a pretty standard small business contract which had a clause which essentially had the effect of making it possible to become zero hours. This wasn't something her boss had intended. Something to look out for nowadays, I guess.