Oxford / Cambridge - current students support / chat thread 2022

[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!)

Some of us on this thread go back to I think to late 2019 when our DCs were going through the admission process. A lot's happened since!

Over to you...

I haven't asked to see any of DS's supervision reports. He shared them with me regularly in the first year (which I wasn't expecting) and then less frequently as time has gone on (which just feels like a natural progression).

The reports were written in the 3rd person which felt like a throwback. The fact that DS shared a couple was rather sweet, although it may simply have been that he was proud of them. One is yet come but the supervisor in that instance, for whom he has particular respect, is understood to be rather harsh in her assessments. We will wait and see.

Just to say @pantjog that not handing in work wasn't completely unknown in the past, as I struggled massively to complete all my C essays in the late 80s. Tbh I have occasionally wondered in recent times whether I might have ADHD... my sister and I think our father may have had it, and he had a bit of an erratic time academically as well. I just thanked goodness that I was on a course that depended on exams. I'd agree that remaining engaged in things like sport is a good thing in general. I hope that he keeps trying, things did eventually click for me.

Oh God sorry I think I've addressed that to the wrong person! Apologies.

I made the point @PermanentTemporary so no worries!

Interesting re your experience. In fact DH (medicine) didn’t go to a single tutorial or lecture in his final year (too busy rowing) so condensed it all in one hellish panic before finals… and did perfectly well.

Poor DD1 is having a pretty tough time. It’s been a 16 essay term. When I was an undergrad, a 12 essay term was deemed hard. In fact I think, as she puts it, doing 16 essays a term is “illegal” and certainly very stressful. Needless to say, she hasn’t written all the essays…

Urgent!! Reliable, quick IT support needed in C, to resolve a failed Windows update that has totally locked Dd’s laptop with all work on, in advance of a pressing deadline. Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse….

Argh! Bumping for you. I'm not in C so am only googling which anyone can do but I like the look of Cambridge Computer Centre on 01223 416641??

Cant does she use OneDrive or a similar cloud service? if she does and can borrow a friends laptop she may be able to log onto her OneDrive account from there.

She’s trying that but needs v specific technical software so options are limited.

D1 very upset about graduation. It turns out (not that their college bothered to mention it to them) that finalists are not allowed to graduate in the summer, which explains why despite frantically reloading the booking page the summer date never came up for them. By the time she thought she'd better just put in for one of the other autumn dates, all the Saturday places had gone - so she has had to book for a Friday morning - this means she can't graduate with her friends and we would have to travel down on Thursday, unfortunately I don't know if I can get the two days off work. She's going to try and change it, I don't know what the chances are. I'm upset for her, she has suffered badly with anxiety and perfectionism and also seems to spend every term ill for most of the eight weeks.

I went to Newcastle - intake around 7000 students per year I think, and just about everyone graduates in two weeks in July. Goodness knows why Oxford can't manage 3300 students without all this drama.

Thanks @OhYouBadBadKitten . She’s accessed her work via OneDrive on a different computer and is doing what she can with standard software. All appropriate people notified (many, due to the involvement of Disability Services). Breathing, briefly.

@JulesJules I feel for you and your DD.

All these computer systems are sent to try us and they do have real life impacts. Hopefully even if she can't be in the ceremony with her friends she can join them before and afterwards to celebrate.

Thanks @Juja, I'm hoping she manages to get the date changed. Realistically she probably can't join her friends on a different day as we live 300 miles away.

@julesjules, DD and her friends had a similar scenario last year when the booking system crashed and two of them failed to get the graduation date they all wanted. However, there was an opportunity to swap dates later on so all ended well. I can't remember the details but I have messaged DD and will update you if I find out anything useful.

Thanks @ofteninaspin I'll pass that on to D1. She's singing carols tonight and I sent her a cake from thegiftofcake.com/ as an 8th week pick me up. (The Gift Of Cake is highly recommended by the way, D1 really loved the carrot cake I sent earlier in the term)

DS is coming home tomorrow. I don't think he'll be going back after Christmas. It's been a tough term and he has struggled to engage in anything that he had expected to do beyond work. I'm disappointed for him but I think maybe he should have had a year out before uni to grow up.

Nothing is officially decided, but he has spoken to Welfare and his DOS, who have both said he should cone home and think about what he would like to do next.

Hoping you all have a lovely Christmas break with your young people when they are home.

@petitebleu - I hope the vacation provides some breathing space for him so he can make the right decision about what is best

@petitebleu I really hope you and your ds have a good Christmas as well. I don't want to say any platitudes (I do that too much as it is) but I wish your ds a much happier December and time to think.

@petitebleu good wishes to you and your DS and I hope that it is a peaceful Christmas. Thinking back 50 years: my first degree was a wrong turning and though I stuck it out I should not have done so in retrospect. It took two more degrees to get me sorted out - and that was on top of a year out.

Best wishes to your ds @petitebleu . Hope he has a good break.

Best wishes to @petitebleu and family, and hope that you find a solution that works well for you. As I said upthread, dd’s medical / disability issues this term have left me unsure from day to day whether she will need to come home for a year with immediate effect. I hope for all of you that having the space and time together for reflection and discussion helps you find the best way forward.

@petitebleu - wishing you and DS all the very best considering and navigating next steps- there is never only one way and each of our paths varies. Your DS has done really well to last the term given all his challenges. Well done to him and to you, I'm sure its been exhausting and draining for you. Wishing you a peaceful Christmas....

@petitebleu I'm so sorry your DS has had such a tough time. It's so difficult when - after all the hoops jumped through to get a place - it turns out to be so challenging and like others have said, he's done really well to get through a whole term.

Over 40 years ago, I too was thinking I couldn't do it, after my first term at Oxford but for me, I gave it a go and although it took a while, eventually settled into things a lot better. Only he - and you - can know whether it's time for him to withdraw and start somewhere else or just take time out or keep going. My DS1 (C) and DS2 (O) had a gap year and I think this helped massively in getting them ready for Oxbridge, even though most of it was spend in lockdown. It can just give you time to regroup, post-school - and have space to grow up a bit more.

Good luck to him and I hope he has a complete rest across the holidays.

@SchrodingersKitty I remember you very well from a much older Oxbridge thread before my DCs went there and reading about how brave you and your DS were, facing the illness and loss of your DH.

How awful that your DS has had to endure Covid and quarantine too! That's pretty terrible I think as I'm sure various students and supervisors/ tutors around DS1 and DS2 have had Covid this term and no one has isolated - or certainly not for that long. The haphazard food deliveries and no breakfast remind me - with fury - of how it went for DS1 (C) in his first term and how eventually, I had to drive there myself and deliver a food parcels to the Porter's Lodge, just so he had some provisions. Unbelievably bad that 2 years later this kind of thing is still happening.

Hasn't he done fantastically well, settling back in after necessary time out and not even with his cohort, being able to make friends and have various activities on the go on top of a joint humanities degree which I think is a lot more demanding than a single humanities degree? I hope his next term is easier and that he can one day look back on this time with immense pride at coping with so much. Well done to him and to you too.

@pantjog what a ridiculous number of essays your DD has had to do this term! Sixteen is just brutal!

@JulesJules that's really sad that your DD can't get a graduation date at the same time as her friends. I think it'd be a better system if, like Cambridge, the whole cohort just graduate all on the same day.