Some of our young people are half way through their degrees (2019/20 intake): lockdowns on repeat, light at the end of the tunnel with vaccinations (?) and the legacy of COVID-19

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

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Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose is all I can say!

Ds not home as dissertation deadline in next week...then he only has 1 final exam in May ( open book ) and that's his undergraduate degree completed
He's staying up at Uni till dissertation completed and then hoping to visit his gf, whom he's not been able to see since last September
Once he's completed his exam, we'll hopefully be able to transport all his stuff home (Uni is 7hrs away- so need hotels to open and travel between countries ok'd!)

Wow hope the dissertation hand-in goes well for your DS @stopyourhavering64. Does he know what he wants to do next?

Fire pits and beaches for socialising sound great. DS is still up in Norwich but coming home for some R&R later on this week. He has three of his flatmates with him so he's not lonely and hopefully they had something approaching an Easter lunch yesterday.

The weather has taken a decided turn hasn't it?

Pre Covid he'd planned to carry on with MSc after graduating ( but at different Uni)
However intended course relies heavily on fieldwork/ labs and given current restrictions he's now planning on taking year out, come home and hopefully get job ( probably back at supermarket where he's previously worked) save some money and return to MSc next year
Is also considering MREs at local Uni to save money , but he'd need to think of a research topic to explore
He'd hope to go travelling in summer with gf ( like his sister had done post graduation 2yrs previously) but that's also off the cards now
Think he's just fed up and disillusioned with whole aspect of Uni tbh and his mental health has suffered ....he missed so many field trips due to Covid and had planned to complete PADI course to help with possible future career opportunities...just hope he's managed to keep his predicted 2:1 in site...I feel for him as his 2 sisters had such different Uni experiences to him

DD stayed in Newcastle for a few days so that she could meet friends for a birthday beach barbecue, so she didn't come home until Good Friday. She is also snowed under with work @bigTillyMint, and has a zoom meeting with some students for a group project next week. So much for Easter "holidays". Yesterday is the only day she didn't do any work.

I realise I have been MIA for a couple of threads! Hope everyone is OK.

DS was getting a run of really crappy results ; 3rds/low 2:2s. Bit of a wake up call and just got an essay back at 69%. This is apparently 35% of one module and now a 2500 word essay to submit. He himself, in usual style, is not sure what counts from the first year but seems to be averaging a low 2:2... seems maybe to be be knuckling down a little. DS2 , on the other hand, has been reading prospectuses!! It is quite a thought that DS1 might have to start planning for the future beyond uni soon.

DS is home at the moment, No friends to gather with so mooching about watching TV and having all his washing done!

@Piggywaspushed Ds at UEA has been told due to covid they can choose either year 2 or year 3 results towards final grades. He won't need to include both years grades. That might be useful if the year 2 grades aren't very good. He's been a year and 4 months with hardly any practicals now. They did get 3 back in October. It looks like it will continue online after Easter too.

I think they are using both years ican.

It puts a lot of pressure on young people to only use results from one year out of Years 2/3/4 (depending on the length of the degree), don't you think?

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 that’s exactly how my degree at Cambridge was decided back in the olden days - solely on third year exams. One of my friends played a blinder by getting a 3rd, 2:2 and 2:1 in that order while doing a sideline of serious rugby playing 😉. Of course 2nd year results were fairly important for the purpose of applying for jobs during the course of the third year but basically the whole thing was set up so you could piss about for 2 years and put a bit of a spurt on at the end. I wonder if it’s the same now?

My DS has just been offered an amazing paid summer internship in the city with a tech start up. Its all very cool with pool tables, scooters and games consoles, just his type of firm. No stuffy suits and briefcases for him. There were 259 applicants so he did so well and I am very proud of him

Well done to your DS @minesawine
DD still struggles to stay awake for most of the day.

Thank you. He applied for about 60 jobs and was starting to get disheartened, he had said that he was fed up with applying, which is usually a long process then getting no feedback, and quite often not even a rejection email. He was about to give up and try for bar work or casual work in the summer. My heart bursts with pride.

DS is apparantly looking for summer internships but I’ve not heard anything from him. He has asked about CV stuff but nothing since.

For him at Bath he said year 2 is 35% of the final year results and year 1 is just a ‘pass to keep going’ and doesn’t contribute to the actual degree. No idea if they have any mitigation in place for the current situation

I think more unis back in the day used to be third year only. I was coming under challenge when I was applying. If I recall correctly the USP of the plate glass unis (Lancaster, York ,UEA and possibly Warwick) in the early 90s was continuous assessments and flexible modules - set up in opposition to the high stakes Durham/Oxbridge idea. Now the main model seems to be first year doesn't count and second and third years do? But I may be wrong : back into looking at prospectuses again and it is quite hard to work out assessment pathways.

In 1982 (law) it was about 60% based on year 3 exams and 40% year 2. So I needed 5 2/1s of the 4 year 2 subjects and 5 year 3 subjects (for my first job which was conditional on a 2/1). Year 1 did not count. These days law firms want to see the mark in every exam in every module in all 3 years buy the way. I warned my children before they even started at university so they did not think they could slack off in year 1.

DH was at Warwick in the early 90s and his 1st year counted for 10% of the final degree. Kind of annoying, cos you can’t just mess about and yet it’s not really worth much either.
For DS, his 2nd and 3rd years count - I’m not sure of the weighting. It’ll be interesting to see if the universities go back to traditional style exams next year. In some ways, I now feel like 24 hour open book exams are what DS is familiar with, in the context of his degree, and it would actually be more stressful at this point to change the assessment style back to traditional exams.

Well done to your DS @minesawine - that’s great news. Sounds like a great company.
DS has an internship this summer too at one of the big 4 consultancies. It’s definitely a numbers game as he also applied for loads. We tried to keep telling him - you only need one job!

Well done to your DS @minesawine. I have tried to persuade DS that internship applications are the way to go but he seems to have been ignoring my advice.

I did a combo of assessments and final exams but I can't recall the weighting at all. I do recall that the final year was full-on with a dissertation followed shortly by a a full set of exams. The 'best' bit - I left my 80% finished dissertation (and all my notes) in a suitcase on a train (WTF) accidentally. This was before computers. Can you imagine the weekend I had until I discovered it had been found and safely stored for me.

We also didn't have dissertations at York. They definitely do now!

In fact, we only had one set of sit in an exam hall exams (module depending).It was all vey 'modern'. What we did have were 8 hour exams and the infamous 72 hour exam!

8 and 72-hour exams????!!!

Well done to your DS @minesawine!
My DS applied for quite a few internships (but not 60!!!) but got nothing and is a bit fed up. He also has loads of work/exams on till mid May, and will also have to get a deferred essay done by the summer....

I actually enjoyed doing my diss, and ended up doing exactly what my diss was on

Yes, they were fun! . I imagine they have ditched them now because a) internet b) not v good to encourage all nighters and c) people avoiding the modules, although I specifically chose them (weirdo!). And maybe d - death by dangerous cycling.

Basically you cycled like a mad thing to the dept , got you a paper and then had to hand in your essay 8 or 72 hours later. If you lived off campus you usually used a friend's campus room otherwise the mad cycle back ate into your essay time.

Lots of people in the 72 hour one dossed about for about 60 hours and then suddenly panicked and made themselves ill filling the last 12 hours with non stop writing : it was essentially meant to be an essay per day.

I did get a first in one of those (the Romantics which I think was the 8 hour variety) so maybe the pressure suited me!

As for next year assessment DD said that they are considering having open book again at her place on the grounds that they have not had to sit in an exam hall since they did their A levels and the little flowers would find it too stressful

Hi everyone, sorry I've been absent for the past couple of months but we sold our house, moved into a holiday let for 6 weeks and have now finally moved into our new home. I don't recommend moving twice in such a short space of time, it's exhausting!
Congrats to those of you whose DC have secured work experience and internships for this summer, particularly in such challenging circumstances.
DD has been home with us since November but is planning to return to her house next Sunday. She's noticed that a few of her lectures on next terms timetable have been allocated rooms so she's hopeful they may be f2f. Her netball training resumes next week and she's been told her SU bar work will resume at the end of the month as UEA are creating an outdoor beer garden until the SU bar and LCR can reopen so for her things feel like they're returning to normal. She thinks she's will stay for a few weeks after the end of term to make the most of it with mates before coming home for the summer.
Thinking ahead to the end of her course she wants to take a year out before then doing a PGCE and is keen to teach overseas as part of an organised scheme. Does anyone have any experience of good companies who she can contact? She'd be happy in Europe or further afield, would she need TEFL do you think?
Any suggestions gratefully received! Thanks.

A lot of people recommend TEFL, but a friend's DD had an awful experience doing this in China. A family member did this in Spain, but her mum had to supplement her income because she didn't earn enough from teaching.