University 2020-2021 Part 12 - Now they are second year students.....Hard work starts and getting more and more smart

[sammyjoanne]

Our last page: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4189210-University-2020-2021-Part-11-Final-Furlong-For-First-year-Freshers-Then-Freedom-Follows?pg=8

As you can see from the last title, no longer freshers anymore. And now heading into second year, so this year it counts towards their grades, hence the 'hard work starts' and getting more and more smart as they go through their degree.... lol sorry I did try to be a be a bit witty with the title, but not as good as the last one, or the brilliant 'empty nests, warm vests and covid tests page' lol.

This thread is a follow on from our previous threads from when our dearest were freshers September 2020 to Summer of 2021.

I echo speciated cleebope2, that really is annoying there's little teaching time.
DD will be socialising until the 7th of December, then staying in her flat and learning online after that. Also the strikes 8/9/10th so might not be doing much work anyway. We will be picking her up on the 11th of 12th for her final week to be at home as hopefully........I say hopefully as we have had some rotten luck with holidays abroad over the past two years keep getting cancelled (thanks covid). We are going away on the 17th of December.
Because of the awful luck we have had with our holidays moved 4 times now, there is still a possibility of it being cancelled again still (long story and this time its getting messed about with flight changes all the time), so I'm not even looking forward to it, its been really that stressful.
lol if it gets cancelled again I'm staying here in the UK the next few years.

@sammyjoanne I really hope your holiday goes ahead. This Is the first holiday we have booked since the pandemic started. Like you I'm not even getting my hopes up, and have a Turkey on standby in the freezer in case we don't get to go! Am v impressed with your dd coming home early. Ds hasn't even thought about it, in fact he asked if we could pick him up on Sunday 19 th and go straight to the airport so he wouldn't miss out on parties!! That was a big no from us!

Lovely to hear how everyone is doing. Dd still has very limited f2f tution (3 sessions in I think 7 weeks) although she does have a lab today. She's been partying pretty hard in recent weeks so not heard a lot from her, but they have sorted out third year accommodation in Leamington.

I hope your holiday goes ahead @sammyjoanne. We managed to get away on a cruise in September but it was very much on/off and didn't really have a clue how all the testing would work but it was okay in the end. We booked another cruise for April(Caribbean) but have just cancelled that because there were port issues.

@specialted oh wow, I dont think I could do that either, picking up on the way to the airport.I would be exhausted before we got on the plane. @Daisyway glad your DD has got 3rd accommodation, and hope f2f picks up better for her.

We we due to go to Australia in April of 2020. Pushed it back to Christmas 2020, then August 2021, then cancelled it. Now we got Florida booked for christmas, but Virgin has merged 2 flights into one on the way home, and we could end up having to catch a connecting flight to Atlanta Georgia first before going back to Heathrow. Worst case scenario they may cancel alltogther on us. Fingers crossed we go.

@sammyjoanne ooh lovely to get some sun this Christmas! I'm sure it will go ahead, Think the US is very much open for business right now. I'm not so sure about Austria where we are going though!!
Ds took the train to Manchester last night to go to the Christmas market there. He said it was lovely but very expensive. Was impressed at whoever came up with that idea, certainly wasn't ds! Sounded very festive.

We've given up on the idea of going abroad any time soon but do have a couple of UK holidays booked next year. We all burn at the first sign of sunshine so it's not a huge miss!
DD has everything in person this term and is fully embracing student societies, particularly musical ones. It's fabulous hearing her tales of being a typical student at last. She's signed up for the same house for third year as well so that's something less to think about.
Not sure how the planned strike action will affect her but it's at the very end of term so hopefully not too much.
She's coming home on 18th as she has teaching right up to the end of 17th but we're going over for the music society concert on 15th.

@specialted oh wow Austria, always wanted to go. didnt they say the lockdown was going to happen for just two weeks though? I hope they open the borders up for you. Sounds like a great idea going to Manchester on the train for the market to get in the festive season.

@choirmumoftwo i dont blame you having holidays over here. We ended up going to cornwall which was lovely. We may have to do one next year. Might to to Hafan-y-mor again as we love that place and might tie it up with the Bangor open day for DD2. glad shes has her 3rd year house sorted, and its nice to see students doing the things they should like the societies. Strike should not affect DD1 much. its a wed/thurs/friday, and her lectures are mainly on a monday tuesday, so from what I know she will only miss 1. And the idea of a concert sounds great, you must be very proud :)

@speacialted my dd has been to the Christmas Market in Bham a few times.. She said it was expensive.. Quoting that a Hot Chocolate cost 6.00 (it did have Baileys in). I've been to Austria, its incredibly beautiful, I hope both yourself and @sammyjoanne trips go ahead.

Dds buzzing today she did her first full essay this year on examining the course directors research paper (they were told to rip it apart). She got 82 percent... Although she did say that he also was quite VERY critical in his feedback... Can't have been that critical to have given her a mark of 82 percent! It's so nice to see her doing so well in a science because I was absolutely useless in both Biology and Chemistry. I can't even pronounce nevermind understand most of the terminology she reads and uses.

Crikey with thus new variant scare I just hope things can continue as they are and not get any worse. Last year was shocking for them. I just live from day to day praying that some semblance of normal uni life can continue.

Nice one Daisyway for your DD on her 82%, thats amazing :)
Cleebope 2 I agree, to have all those mutations, its not good. Fingers crossed its a variant that just dies out.

Dd is annoyed that the final two lectures of one of her modules will be cancelled due to strike action, on topics covered by her final assessment. She is planning to return for Hogmanay, assuming it goes ahead.

Same for DD. Last teaching for term tomorrow as on strike Wednesday thru Friday. DD needs to stay until Dec 17th for halls job (plus has work to hand in and an online exam on the 17th). She then gets 3 weeks off but will return for Hogmanay. Hoping some things will go ahead.

Good news is that she has moved to another halls (being harassed by her neighbour). I pity whoever takes over her spot in Pollock. It seems harassing the RA is a Edinburgh uni sport. New halls are better as all RAs in one flat so safety in numbers.

Great to her how all the DC are doing. I’ve seen DD twice since teen began. She is in a house this year with six other and she appears to be “house mum” despite being the youngest. She’s had three tattoos and discovered drinking. She’s got into the Specials with a local police force (she’s doing professional policing). She’s managed to secure a part time job ten hours a week to pay for her petrol. She’s not speaking to me currently for some unknown reason but who understands 19 year olds!

DD is now home. She was coming back next week so she can spend week 10 working from home, but now doing week 9 and week 10. Its because we go away on the 17th (hopefully). Still no sign from virgin saying about the seats on the way home from the holiday despite it saying the flight number and that we are on it. So who knows if we are going or not. At least with DD home we are reducing risk of catching covid, just in case.

@sammyjoanne that sounds very sensible. Dd says Covid is absolutely rife in notts, she's panicking as she's surrounded by it but is on placement so can't come home. She is doing a pcr today (she does regular lfts) so I guess that will determine whether we go skiing or not. Hoping her booster does it's job! Meanwhile ds is totally oblivious to it all! He is coming home on Saturday . I think omicron is speeding much faster than we realise.

@specialted Hope your DD is ok, and thats good shes doing regular lfts. We have our fit to fly test tomorrow before we fly on friday, we been testing every couple of days and so far we have been ok. fingers crossed it all goes well. What with rule changes, flights being changed, and lots of paperwork, covid passes and apps, its taken the fun out of looking forward to the holiday. Once I'm on the plane ill relax. DD been working from home the past week and a half, and just finished a coding project, and chatting to her friends online. Watched home alone 2 tonight to get us in the festive mood.

Hope you get to go skiing. Although omicron is here, from the sounds of things its not too strong as delta, so all we can do is hope we stay as safe as we can be. And you cant get much safer than fresh clean air on top of a mountain enjoying the view :)

Enjoy your trip @sammyjoanne.

DH has arrived in Edi to collect dd. I suspect he will be cleaning the fridge right now, if not the close stairs 🤣 I will be glad to have them both home plus my dad who they're going over to collect tomorrow.

DD's boyfriend made it back to his home country, an African one and although it wasn't red listed I'm glad they've lifted those, makes it less risky fir him to get back again. He hasn't been home for 16 months.

Have a good trip @sammyjoanne !! Dd tested negative which is great. Just hope Austria don't do the same as France! @LisforLemon so impressed at dh cleaning!!!

Thank you :) were all negative at at the hotel near heathrow, so its looking more promising lol. I heard about france, not really fair considering its spreading everywhere, fingers crossed for you specialted. have a good one:)

thats nice liz he managed to get back home.16 months is a long time and hope you have a nice time with your DD over christmas :)

Happy new year to you all :) got back from the states on Sunday. Hope everyone got to see who they wanted to and be where they wanted to be :) .
We had a great first 6 days sight seeing, then we all did get Omicron whilst out there around 23rd December. At first we thought it was the aircon making us have a sore throat, but got tested anyway. Then there was a night sweats, sniffles and a little tickle cough, all the classic signs, but only felt rough for a day. Thankfully thats all we did have. We had time after isolation (5 days in the usa) to enjoy the rest of the hols and now were back home catching up with a load of washing as DD is going back to Lancaster this weekend.

Glad you had a great holiday pre and post covid. DS2 had covid just before Christmas but luckily didn't pass it on to us so we just missed one day of our holiday (and I didn't disinherit him).

DD back at uni now and getting ahead with reading. She had a bit of a disaster with her last exam just before Christmas. There was a power cut in her area. She didn't immediately notice as was proof reading her essay and just thought her desk light bulb had gone but when she tried to upload their was no wifi. Tried using data to upload but that was out too. Missed the drop deadline so will need to resit in August. Luckily she has a job in uni accommodation and warden super with evidence (and also knocked on the head the suggestion that she should have immediately grabbed her laptop and ran to the uni area) so will only count as first attempt. She emailed the essay to her tutor as soon as wifi back hoping they might be lenient but much stricter than in my day.

Gosh you would think with evidence from the warden they would have accepted it a tad late. That is harsh! I thought with the crap time students had last year that they would be more lenient with this lot. My son’s masters course has gone online again.. Queens have been useless at face to face for the whole pandemic. Dd 2nd year is still home drawing out the hols as much as she can but looking forward to returning to her English uni next Tuesday. Her peers have put forward a group formal complaint about the lack of campus learning. Let’s see uf it makes any difference. Glad they have cut isolation time so lecturers can’t be off as long if testing negative. I am still reeling from how badly the last 2 years have gone for my two but trying to switch off from feeling negative so we can all feel more relaxed about life in general!

Glad you had a good holiday despite Covid @sammyjoanne.
@SandyIrvine that sounds rather harsh, hope dd gets that sorted.
Ds had a couple of assignments to do over the holidays, which were all done last minute as usual. He is in the process of applying for his year abroad,which seems to be coming round all rather quickly. I think the support from uni is there, he's just not chosen to take it! Who knows how it will all work out. We take him back on Saturday, don't think he's looking forward to cooking for himself and living in a mess again! But looking forward to the social side.

DD going back tomorrow and is looking forward to it. Everything face to face again this term and something on campus every day. She can't wait for music ensembles to start again next week!

DD has everything face to face this term but DS2 who is doing a masters is still entirely online. Different unis and different size courses. Feel sorry for DS2.

DD got a year abroad place but is going to stay puy. Doing a joint honours in a not so popular subjects so recommended options were limited to 2 unis in Germany. Also year abroad doesn't count for degree classification and she would need to pick up at least one compulsory module she missed on her return.