2017 seems so long ago, now they're fledgling graduates.

[latedecember1963]

4 years since A Levels and the wait for August and confirmation of where our chicks were about to fly the nest to.
It's been 4 years that has sprung a few surprises along the way, not least this lovely series of threads.

Congratulations to the whole Horse family especially @Horsemad ds! Brilliant news!

(I think I'm green reading that )

Well done to your son for his First, Horsemad. Fantastic news!
It must have been those brownies. 🎉🥂🍾

Congratulations on the 1st.

I think I might be green too.

Congratulations @Horsemad DS.

I’m a yellow although DH thinks I’m a red!

🙂 Thank you all for the congrats.

I'd say I am a blue, although DS (he's blue too) says I'm red.
We both agree that DH is green.

Well done on the 1st

Done just test years ago , I’m a green.

We were on a management team building skills thing , all teams were mixed except for 1 which had all red people . It did not go well for them - the overnight hike had the course leaders worried!

Well done. @Horsemad another first! What a clever bunch we have raised . Looks like four out of five of the family are going on hols Saturday, fingers crossed we get away this time haven't seen my brother for 2 years

I hope you get away on the break. Our all family holiday - well my 5 children me, their spouses and children at least - has been cancelled two years in a row and I don't think I am prepared to attempt it again. However we did all meet for my daughter's wedding in April so I am sure we can continue to get everyone together. I got 4 of the 5 together this week for a lunch near the twins' law school although by son who works in Oxfordshire could not come so it was not the "full house" of all 5 children.

Congratulations @Horsemad, that's great news. I too will read up on colours but am so shattered from a weekend of playing in concerts that it might have to wait. It must be my age but I simply don't have the stamina I used to have.

Yes all the first are very good. I was just relieved my son passed his resit which was so key from last academic year to being allowed to stay on this year's course that it feels a big relief as much as his older brother getting his degree a good few years ago.

Mine have 2 more weeks of teaching, then a "half term" week off revising and the week after that is their mock exams in their 4 law subjects of this term. it will be their first "proctored" online exams (assuming the mock is like the real thing they will have in January) as last year they were released topics that morning but could do the exam online but without being "watched" (not that they would have cheated anyway) but this academic year you cannot leave for the toiler (although I doubt they did last year anyway) or have anything else open on the screen, must have webcam on etc etc So I hope the mock is as close to the January exams as possible. However it is 100% open book (like in a law practice really) so the questions may be much harder than in my day and indeed when their sisters did the same course, when you could not take any books you liked into the exam.

@Xenia in my book, anyone who can pass a law exam is amazing. I failed the law bit of accountancy training spectacularly back in the day, probably because I am rubbish at remembering the names of cases. With the benefit of hindsight and 30 years on, it was a good thing, but hard to take at the time.

In other news DD has her first supervisions on Monday. She's doing lots of reading, but also rowing, singing and giving blood so it's not all hard work.

MSc diss finally submitted

I think I might have liked law, although quite a lot of the lawyers I know say they wouldn't recommend it as a career. 🤨

Well Done to your DD @bigTillyMint.

Had a catch up call with DT’s. DS has settled down well into his job in the Netherlands. He’s working with a team on land reclamation- his Masters was on this so one very happy boy.

DD has started her Post Grad course on conference translating and decided on her main and passive languages to use on the course. We offered to pay the fees but work are paying - to their benefit if she gains the additional qualifications. She has one day and two evenings at one of the Uni’s in Brussels so a lot to juggle on top of work and the EU are quite busy at the moment!
Am looking forward to seeing them both at the end of the month when all the family arrive for the party we’re hosting for DH leaving work.
Hope everyone’s DC are enjoying studying/working.

Thanks @Horsemad. I have told DS that re lawyers, but he is determined to try to get an internship and is sorting applications alongside studying. He’s even had to do a long application to attempt to get onto an online open day

@Parker231, I remember doing stuff on that at Geography Olevel back in the Dark Ages
Your DDs work sounds good!

Good to hear the Parker update. They seem to be doing well.
On law, I am glad I do it but not everyone is I suppose I any career and some areas like criminal legal aid are very badly paid.

Malbec interesting. one of my lawyer sons said they were doing maths (presumably solicitors' accounts) and he said it was the easiest bit ever and only bit he was very good at and I had put him off maths A level at school. The latter is not true and I always liked maths but the school certainly said only do the A level if you are very good as you either go extremely well or very badly (they have a lot of boys pushed into maths by parents who get Ds and Cs); anyway I am not taking any blame for this and if he wants to do accountancy after he qualifies as a solicitor (or just become a tax lawyer or trace lost monies or something like that) I am sure he can.

Parker your DC are doing amazingly well.

Xenia the maths stuff was always fine but I don't have the right skills for law. Tax law is really interesting and lucrative so kudos for anyone studying and/or qualifying in that.

DD is enjoying demonstrating labs for freshers and has her first supervision (tutorial) as the supervisor on Monday. She sounded confident this week and has managed to fit in acrobatic dance, rowing and blood donation. I'm exhausted just thinking about doing any of them!

I shouldn't have thought there was much maths relevant to lawyers? except I'd hope they all get a grounding in understanding statistics now.

DD helped out with kayaking taster sessions for the freshers (and other years wanting to join new clubs) as although no longer a student she's still allowed to be a member of the club. She joined the town club too as they've got more kit. Her working hours are civilised and the commute isn't too awful so she's got more free time than when she was a student.

At one stage I thought I might be a tax lawyer. I won the tax law prize at university (and almost everyone on the course was male so that was particularly nice), did 6 months in my first law firm when I was training in the tax department and did a fair bit of a correspondence course for some ATII or something exams but then qualified and moved to a different firm doing another bit of business law and did not carry on with the tax course so that is all in the past now (although tax issues arise all the time for most lawyers so at least I can spot them).

I think the only maths my sons will have been doing is solicitors' accounts which now (and even in my day in the 1980s) is a module or part of a module on your last course and I think you also have to do a short exam in it and course during your 2 years of post exams training too.

Glad everyone is doing fine. My sons got their mock exams rules and timetable today for October - they start on their birthday so I suspect they will do them a few days later rather than when the online slot first opens.

Today feels like I am running WeWork premises (rather than or in addition to the Xenia airbnb)..... two staying and one is doing on line video meetings (my son's friend) 2 floors up, 2 more in the meeting room/study room, another upstairs in a bed room although one of my sons only just woke up so he is taking it easy. Never my own work which has been going strong since 7am.

Well done to your DD, Tilly, for her MSc submission.
DS2 said he found having done maths to A Level useful during the parts of his law degree where they needed to look at statistics. He said it wasn't so much the level of difficulty, but feeling comfortable with numbers.
Sounds like life is beginning to get a bit more normality for some of our youngsters thank goodness.
DS2 has an interview tomorrow for a Librarian/ examinations supervisor role at a high school. He applied for it a while ago during a week when there was little else to apply for. It's not his dream job but will get him started.
If he gets it, it's 30 mins away by car but will take him much longer with a 15 min walk up to the bus stop to catch a bus into town, then either another bus or a tram with another 15 min walk to the school.
This may well be the final push to encourage him to get driving lessons!

Thanks!

She had her first day in her grad job yesterday

All the new jobs and next stages sound very exciting, good luck to them all.

Tilly well done on masters diss. Having supported a final year diss I’m glad not to have another.

DS is loving gap year, finishes his current voluntary role in Italy next week and then heads of to Croatia & Slovenia for 6 weeks on the next project.

I am glad gap year people have got abroad. One of my son's cancelled his gap year abroad after 2020 graduation due to covid and as all the friends are in jobs etc now it will never happen - not with those friends anyway.

Well done to those in first grad jobs. I am always interested in what my sons' friends are doing and their first jobs.

All fine here. Twins' birthday so one has organised a lunch in London and then on to a dinner at night and is coming back here very late after I go go sleep with a friend who has come down from the Midlans for it and their other friend's birthday the day after. The other twin is back in their university City for 2 nights on a birthday trip with his girl friend. Their mock period starts at 5pm today for about 10 days so I would have done revision and mocks and only then birthday celebrations next week but that is up to them as long as they get the exams done before the deadline. I think they plan to start on Monday with revision.

It will be interesting to see how the exams go ie are they likely to pass or fail as it is a reasonably practical law course and they can refer to materials this year any of any kind, as long as they are on paper not on screen, during the exams so whilst that might make you think it is easier it just means the pass mark/standard will be higher but you need to know very very quickly where to find things amongst thousands of pages of books etc. and you need to know what to look up. Anyway we shall see.

Your son's gap year sounds great, Eve. I loved the reference a while back to measuring crabs. Just the kind of quirky experience I would have loved at his age.

Happy birthday to the Xenia lads. My MiL is 89 today. We're taking her out for afternoon tea and then back to our married son's house to watch Strictly.

DS2 didn't get the Librarian post. One of the candidates had an English Masters and a PGCE which would be far more useful to them than a law graduate.

Congratulations to the 89 year old and sorry about the son's librarian post. We have many more failures to get jobs in this family than successes (and I think my applications to 139 London law firms and 25 interviews when the UK had the worst unemployment for fifth years in 1981/82 before I got that job in my last year at university in the end, show how hard it has been and always has been for graduates and others - but persistence usually pays off in the end).

One of my daughters gets so many requests from agencies about legal work but she has a lot of experience now and some law firms and industries are so rushed off their feet they just cannot find very experienced people who can go straight in and do the job immediately. Pity they don't offer more chances to those just starting out. It has always been catch 22 - you have no experience so they don't want you so you cannot therefore get that experience.

One of mine is still on his birthday trip away and the other came back with his friend around 1am and then they did talking, were outside in the garden and then did cooking until about 2am and then I think it was around 3 - 4am I could hear my son next door to my bed room stop moving around so I expect they will have a very long lie in today until going out to another friend's birthday party which is today and I think are away although my other son will be back probably just after lunch so never really get the house to myself.