Oxford/Cambridge - current students support/chat thread 2022 - cont

[Panicmode1]

@petitebleu - so sorry to hear about your DS. I hope that some time out over Christmas may help to give him some space and time to think about his next steps.

47.7 mph. Is that even possible?

Unlikely! Sure it wasn't kph?

https://en.as.com/en/2021/07/30/olympicgames/16276785822_678855.html

Hope this attaches

Maybe he's cheating somehow 😂

@HoneyMobster - DS (C) is happy to be in the advanced cohort of the ski school but realistic enough to admit that he is one of the poorer performers at the moment. He's a bit rusty having missed 2 seasons owing to CV-19. Still he is enjoying the ski action as well as catching up with one or two of his former school mates who are now at the Other Place and on the trip. We look forward to finding out more than the crumbs one gets via WhatsApp - grateful though we are for those.

DS is definitely not advanced. Unless he's made miraculous progress this week!

Glad your DCs are also enjoying the trip @HoneyMobster and @Clemenc0

I had a slightly panicked text earlier today as my DS had his skis nicked from outside of the restaurant he was eating in at lunchtime .....luckily he'd paid his 12 Euros for insurance, but it's still cost him 100 Euros - and the last day of his skiing. He's definitely not in the advanced cohort, but says he has improved over the week...!

Can't wait to get him back on Saturday - although am not looking forward to the whiff - or the washing!

I completely missed the fact that the 'runs' were not, in fact, running but skiing.

@ErrolTheDragon - funny!

@ErrolTheDragon I'm with you... I thought wow that's a fast run😂

White here. My DS returned home to defrost water troughs in -7ºC and feed the cattle and sheep... Another v cold day today!

Not quite so pacy as skiing... sounds as though all have had a great trip...and I hope you all enjoy having them home v soon

We've several of DS's friends arriving today for a few days

General query, trying to compare experiences- how much, if any, assessed (ie named percentage of annual result) work do your offspring have to do in each vacation? Trying to work out how much of an outlier DD’s course is in this regard…..

@cantkeepawayforever I will know more when DS gets home but he reckons he has about 2 weeks of work to do before he goes back, and a 10 page lab report to submit in the holidays (engineering). I have no idea about whether it's assessed or not though...

As far as I know the work (mathematics) is going to be intensive from now on with but a nod to family at Christmas as DS has examinations almost immediately on his return in January. Lucky thing!

I'm pretty sure for Cambridge engineering it's essentially all about the exams and the final year project. Other lab work has to be done but gets 'standard credit' (unless things have changed recently). Iirc DD had one essay to do in her first Xmas vac but I don't think it had any relevance to the year results. The work she did in the vacs was mostly consolidation and revision.

Thanks! So the equivalent of 5x essays (each is several days of reading and prep followed by writing, editing, referencing an essay or work of equivalent length), each assessed for a stated % of end if year mark, in each of the short holidays, is definitely an outlier? It’s particularly tough on DD, who because of her medical condition/ disability could do with a proper break.

Insufficient data till some with 'essay subject' kids respond! That does sound extreme, but most of them will be needing to do quite a bit of work in the vacs even if it's not assessed.

I hesitate to answer as I suspect my 'essay subject' kid (MFL) will be as vague as ever about how much work is meant to be done over the vac.

I have this permanent secondhand angst that she will suddenly discover an entire term's worth of work/lectures/seminars that everyone else has been attending all along. (Admittedly that may be because her older sibling did exactly that -- totally missed the maths seminars in term 1, and had to resit the year.)

Also, I wish she'd sort out her year abroad, for which she claims they've said 'Anything goes, as long as your tutor will authorise it', and for which the uni website sends you in unhelpful circles.

Aaand breathe. They seems quite fond of her there, and she's had a jolly nice term, but the academic role model she seems to be recreating is definitely 'absentminded professor'.

DS has now had his end of year supervisors report and despite not handing in a fair portion of the essays it is very good. Now I feel bad for nagging - you really can't win My New Years Resolution is to stand back- hard when he at times wants the support.

@Cliff1975 Well done to your DS on his excellent report - great news! Agree that you can't win - this applies to most of parenting when it comes to teenagers, I've found...

@cantkeepawayforever my NatSci DD worked all through Christmas and Easter vacations. At Easter it was revision, but I seem to remember at Christmas she was making notes, finishing work for supervisions etc. Now that's all behind her, she actually reads novels in her vacations. She is still in the lab this week, including Saturday and won't be home for another 10 days.

Thanks. Dd has to do that as well - especially as not all lectures have been at times compatible with her illness - but also has to produce these 5 ‘weekly essay sized’ pieces of final grade-affecting assessed work.

From my recollection, catch up, reading extra references, revising etc were absolute standard elements of vacation work, but so much reasonably high stakes assessed work to be handed in just before the start of term wasn’t my experience.

That's really encouraging to hear, and hopefully puts your mind at rest

DS vacation activities include revising last term's work (no exams in January, just general revision to consolidate) and continuing work on a literature review which does contribute towards the mark for third year.

His results from part IA and part IB don't form part of the weighting of his BA result.

If in the future he needs to give the class of his degree, do they mean what he gets for the BA (part II) or the MSci (part III)?

DD will have her usual collections in 0th week when she goes back. She has a lot of reading to catch up on. She never has essays to write over the hols as each module lasts a term and then they move onto the next. She once had a project to complete, but she has avoided that ever since.

She detoured to us last night after a horrible journey home from Edinburgh, but plans to go back and work for a few days on Sunday. I'm not sure when she'll disappear after Christmas itself.

D1 always has loads of work to do in the vacs (History joint, Oxford) She's coming home by train tomorrow, having had a week's interning (at the Bodleian I think or it may have been some project at Pembroke, can't remember which one she went for) We couldn't pick her up this weekend, so relieved she's avoided rail strike days. I've saved decorating the tree so we can do it together tomorrow night (what football? 😁)