Oxford / Cambridge - current students support / chat thread

[DadDadDad]

Continuing a thread for anyone who wants to talk about their sons' and daughters' experience being a student in Oxford or Cambridge. (Or nephews, granddaughters, sisters, uncles - or if you or they have now graduated but you want to share your thoughts - all are welcome!)

I have a DS in his second year at Oxford, studying a small humanity in a tiny college.

Over to you...

Pepermintea thank you so much for that. That's exactly it, the tension between theory and practice on how to change down a gear. I just can't advise with conviction. DD is also sociable as well as sporty and all I can say to her rather limply is that if either of those things start to give, compromise on work. But so easy to say, far harder to do. Thank you very much too to pantjog for your message. We have a real gender divide in the family: girls with this trait, boys um.... not so much. I'd hoped that DD4 had escaped but now not so sure. It's very far from ideal in an Oxbridge setting.

Perfectionism is a bugger! DD doing better. Year one was a struggle. I'm very alert to her finding a balance and stay quiet when she takes a dance class for happiness even if it means a bit less work near a deadline. Her MH is more important than grade. Year one grades low average, now generally very good. I think because she has found a system that works for her.

Finalist and she is having trouble with a module so with support from tutor she's written to teacher/supervisor. Not answered yet and she has class tomorrow! she is nervous but getting someone to prompt her was helpful.

Saying all this to show it gets better. And they do need the courage to reach out for support.

@goodbyestranger DS is another with perfectionist tendencies. He has very high standards for himself and has the focus and work ethic to match. It does mean he is somewhat sacrificing the social side of university. I worry that it's not altogether healthy but he is adamant that work is important to him. I have learned to scale back my own expectations!

Want to explain her EoY marks were impacted by perfectionism, it caused terrible exam nerves. But it worked for her because okay less than perfect grades showed her she can survive that. Fear of failure can be linked to perfectionism.

Poor things. It's a struggle at times

@goodbyestranger, DS tends towards perfectionism. It can be such a burden. He is now realising that the extra time spent perfecting an essay might increase his marks a little but is not worth missing out on a tennis match or a friend's birthday celebration. I think he might have come to this realisation at some point last year had he had to juggle more pressures on his time. He more or less just did academic work and tennis training last year and then worried over the summer about how he was going to fit in socialising too.

Thank you so much for all your replies, very helpful and very much appreciated.

dd also suffered from perfectionism in the first year. Made worse by comparing herself to others in her year who she thought were finding it easier. It did knock on to first year exam results. But she realized in second year that they had different strengths. She did less work, more sport and chilling out. Basically she let go of her standards some. Her results shot up as a result and it all felt much easier.

Its a weird paradoxical thing, whereby letting go allowed for better and clearer thinking. I have no idea how you can teach that to a student though, I think it's a journey they have to take themselves, so they can feel it. It was horrible..

That's what I'd like to be able to help with: the practical mechanism of letting go. I'm clueless, and was so bad at it myself. I was all or absolutely nothing. The worst possible example to my DC which is why I've never told them just how cavalier I was, when I couldn't do things properly. Even with all the hindsight I should have, I can't think of how to help find a middle ground. Absolutely right, a real burden.

And if I do offer myself up as a cautionary tale then that makes it all about me, not DD.

I was the same Goodbye working myself into the ground or doing nothing. On reflection I have a tendency towards burnout. I have inadvertently set a bad example.

I'm very open about that with dd, in the hope that she can see that it is possible to tune in much earlier into what her body and mind are telling her and avoiding boom and bust cycles.

DD is not a perfectionist. She is easily bored and dashes from one thing to another. Her worst nightmare is having a whole day in the library, free of distractions. Her approach to everything is "good enough" and I agree with Kitten that somehow this allows for clearer thinking.

Something I have remembered about DS when he was v small- he had not napped very well at lunchtime and woke up in a bit of a tizz. He came downstairs and then announced he had to go back to bed and 'do sleep properly this time'. Should have noticed his perfectionist tendencies then!

@goodbyestranger D1 also afflicted with perfectionism. The isolation of the first term of last year (their first year) really contributed I think. In the absence of much social stuff - just chatting to people as you leave a lecture, etc. she was convinced that everyone else was managing fine.

She had a nightmare sorting out her joint hons timetable (and no help from either of the departments, imo) and stuck in her room became miserable and anxious.

Things do seem to be a bit better this year and the workload is not quite as intense. H and I have tried to help, hopefully without putting pressure on - encouraging her to do other stuff, not be quite so conscientious - sometimes you just have to get that essay done, accept it's not going to be one of your best, and move on.

I'm sure this is a really common trait among Oxbridge students especially. Something I think the university could do is offer a bit more organised support - workshops on coping strategies maybe?

The workshops are all there already Jules.

www.ox.ac.uk/students/welfare/counselling/workshops Perfectionism is around 2/3 of the way down the list. Podcasts also available here www.ox.ac.uk/students/welfare/counselling/self-help/podcasts

Those are incredibly useful links H20. I'll pass them on when DD calls. Obviously perfectionism should really be in inverted commas. I don't know if it's a thing in itself, a symptom or what. I'm not sure it matters, or that labels matter - just that coping and being happy does.

@Cornishcornettos sorry not to have replied sooner but we had a concert at school yesterday after a very full day's teaching & another full day today.

It is really common to feel overwhelmed with work as a fresher. When DD1 (C) was a 3rd year, one of DD2's friends at a different C college contacted DD1 to ask if it was normal to feel so swamped. DD1 met him for a coffee and reassured him that it would be fine. He's now a 3rd year and doing well (as his DM told me when I bumped into her last month).

I will ask DD1 but I would hope that as a supervisor with very recent experience of the whole course, she would be sympathetic and kind to a fresher who spoke out about feeling that way, and able to offer some practical solutions. DD at 22 is not that much older than the students she is working with, so supervisors/tutors may be the way to go.

Another port of call is the personal tutor. DD's was an arts specialist (actually he teaches the subject I teach at school - probably a coincidence) but when she had a wobble due to external factors in year 2, he was fantastic. College parents can be helpful too. This is probably the worst week of this term. It's not near enough to the end of term for the light at the end of the tunnel to be visible, they are knackered, and the dark mornings & evenings sap your energy. Hopefully he can hang on in there.

Agree with all of that malbecfan. Good advice!!

JulesJules, my DD does joint honours and its a huge juggling act. The teacher today who my DD wrote to (mentioned up thread) was really kind and told DD how to manage workload of this module with her tripos. DD feels they've started a conversation so she can go back when she is next stuck.

I think they feel so embarrassed when they are overwhelmed they go silent and hide. With encouragement, she did speak up and help was there!!!

Encourage them to talk is my mantra.

I'm a terrible perfectionist. but i work on it!!

Have to call them teacher as it is a large working group of 12 having tutorial lessons

Am sure there is a better C word than teacher! But heigh ho.

@Malbecfan thank you for this. I'm not sure if he has a personal tutor, he certainly seems to think the tutors are just for supervising his work and has resisted all encouragement to talk to them.

One thing I have discovered is that he's not attending any lectures in person- choosing to do them all online. He tells me he has enough contact time with other students as he has 2 days of labs and prefers not to get up early to get to 9am lectures and appreciates the ability to pause the lectures when watching online. But he has fallen behind in watching them now. I have suggested he start going to lectures in person but he says he needs to spend time catching up on the missed lectures first.

What do others DCs do re online lectures? How important is attending in real life, in particular where he does have the 2 full days of labs, so he does meet others... What do others think?

@lazyboysmum DD is attending most of her lectures in person. She does appreciate the option to do it online (and has used it a couple of times when she didn't make it to a 9am) but she prefers being there in person. To be fair, she would otherwise be in the library/alone most of the day so it's probably a bit different from your son. But I think she feels that it's harder to be motivated and organised when she's doing things in her own time and easier to stick to the timetable.

I think whatever works. Being able to pause lectures my DC found very helpful. My DD regrets going to so many 9am lectures year one. And she is very motivated.

@lazyboysmum - DD (2nd year Oxford) is going to quite a few lectures in person because it's a novelty after everything being online last year. She is very definitely not a morning person, so I suspect she misses any 9/10am ones...as a compromise, does your DS have any friends doing his subject who have also fallen behind with lectures? If so, I wonder whether one option could be that he arranges with the friend a specific day and time to catch up with watching a lecture together - that way he's made an "appointment" which is more difficult to wriggle out of than a vague plan to watch it himself, but they can still pause it to discuss or double check stuff. Just an idea - the same kind of concept helps me when I'm going for a run - if I've made an arrangement to meet a friend, I'll honour it; if not, I'll probably never get out of the door!

Separately, hope @Unescorted and @pantjog's DC are recovering well.

DD likewise really likes being able to watch lectures online rather than attend in person, and has plenty of opportunities for contact with staff and students throughout the week. It's not only about avoiding inconvenient timings, though I don't doubt that's a factor, but being able to pause and reflect on information if she needs to take a breath to gather her thoughts is really invaluable. So far she's keeping up with the work without feeling too overwhelmed. I don't dare ask about whether she actually watches every lecture.

My DD liked the online lectures - being able to pause or repeat sticky bits or go at 2x through other parts! (She reckoned the problem classes which eng. has instead of supos in the 4th year generally worked really well in Teams too)