DD has been kicked off her uni course.

[skippy67]

So Dd has just heard that she's been withdrawn from her uni course. Bit of background, she failed 2nd year, retook, and has failed again. She was allowed to enrol for year 3, was given a timetable etc, but didn't receive student finance because her place wasn't confirmed.

She kept all of this from us, until 2 weeks ago!
Any advice please? I'm worried because obviously the situation in and of itself isn't ideal, but she started self harming in year 1 at uni, and was prescribed anti depressants in 2nd year. I'm concerned this will set her MH back massively.

Sorry to hear this. This course may not be the right choice for her, and that’s ok. All she needs now is love, acceptance, time and support to figure what to do now.

Are you close? Her father? A sibling?

She needs to be able to talk openly to someone as otherwise given her MH this could lead to a deterioration.

Did she have friends at uni?

If she is open to it, perhaps counselling (if she hasn’t already explored this Avenue) and/or careers coaching to help her find the right path.

Op

First and only priority needs to be her MH

the fact she seemed quite upbeat is actually a cause of concern

Sometimes it isn’t parents expectations but peer pressure and pressure people put themselves under to go to university and get a degree.

There is almost a mantra that if you don’t get a degree then you won’t get a good job and will face a life of shelf stacking or working in an Amazon warehouse.

(DS has done one and I have done the other)

There is a very blinkered view that a degree is everything and I think there are a lot of students who would have saved themselves a lot of time and money if they took off the rose tinted specs of what a university degree would do for them and looked at alternative careers and alternative further education.

I think getting a job, any job, helps you sort out what you might like doing or don’t want to do.

If she can I would suggest to her to look at working in different environments. So she gets to know different career settings and can then decide what direction she is heading

She might find that she hates sitting in an office but loves dealing with members of the public. Or she loves outdoor type work but hates hospitality.

I am a firm believer in schools having lessons on career options. Studying what exactly is involved with different careers and helping a child to choose the best option for them and not this one size fits all because it clearly doesn’t,
I read somewhere that only the percentage of the population that went to university on the 60s, 70s etc is the same percentage who manage to earn enough for long enough to pay off their student loan.

At least four similar tales in our family including me. We've all acquired degrees at some point in different subjects from that we first went off to do aged eighteen and the younger ones are all on good salaries now.

Thank you. I'll let her know.

I'm fully expecting there to be a downbeat period pretty soon, but as I said upthread, I think she's relieved it's all out the open now.

Uni isn't the be all and end all, hopefully now the pressure is off she'll learn that. She's in the right place for her M/H and you sound like a wonderful family. Wishing her joy and luck on her next journey

Please reassure her it will work out in the end.

I failed my 3rd year twice, the university very kindly awarded me a HND for the work I'd done the first two years (might be a HNC for your DD if she passed 1st year).

10 years after I left I went back to university as a single parent, completed my final year after doing a top up course (so I was up to date) and am now doing my masters while working.

It will be ok xx

Are you confident that university has done all it can to support her? This may be an an avenue worth exploring, but only if your dd is strong enough to talk about it all frankly.

It may well be best left alone, it may well be that the uni have been exemplary in it's treatment of your dd, but I'd want to know what they'd done to help her. It's a lot of money to spend to find out that she's failed the same year twice.

As she's probably used most of her funding for the years she's failed, I would get in touch with student finance about the compelling personal reasons - you can explain that she was self-harming, prescribed anti-depressants, had poor mental health etc all of which would have possibly contributed to failing. She may get some extra years funding then so she'll be able to go back to uni in the future if she wanted to try again.

Yes, but that relief will likely be fleeting.

All I am saying Op is that I would be prioritising her MH above and beyond anything else, and keeping a very close eye on her

The relief will likely be replaced with dawning realisation of debt, wasted years, worries about future, feeling like a failure

I said in my OP that my primary concern is her MH.

What was put in to place when you discovered the self harm? Could that be reinstated?

Also I relate very much to this, I dropped out of uni twice due to poor mental health and got my funding back (had to send proof ie doctors note) and a couple of years later when I was in a better mindset I went back and now I've almost completed my psychology degree and will be doing my speech and language therapy MSc afterwards. I'd definitely look into getting those funding years back

Is she taking the anti depressants you say she was prescribed?

She says she's not done it since first year of uni (2019). I've not seen any sign that she has either.

She has proven herself very adept and keeping huge secrets from you OP.

IME, students often find the step up from 1st year to 2nd year is tougher than they expected. Failing it twice suggests university is not for her at the moment.

There are many paths to the life she wants. University doesn't have to be one of them. And there's always the Open University - later.

I think that current young people are on such an educational treadmill, and are so over-assessed and pushed, that mental crises - at a time of life when we are ALL vulnerable to such crises - are to be expected. Let her take a break and breathe.

When she's had a breather, doing a pretty run of the mill job would be better for her now. Something that makes her physically tired, something that gets her into a routine, and where she deals with other people - hospitality in a nice cafe or bar maybe? Something that will be taxing but not in a mental way.

Or volunteering maybe. Just something to show her she is useful, capable, and can accomplish things in life.

I’m confused about the timing. It’s mid December, what has she been doing since the start of term 6 weeks ago?

You sound lovely OP❤. And I can only imagine your worry and disappointment.

And that’s not disappointment in her, but disappointed in the situation. You will have wanted your DD to strive and really enjoy her course and uni experience.

Sadly that hasn’t happened, and that’s okay. There is so much social pressure on young people right now. Especially with social media, a lot of young people who go to uni meet a big group of friends and really adapt. Others don’t. And they end up feeling like a failure. Or they don’t do as well as they’d hope to in their assignments and also feel like a failure.

It’s probably for the best that your DD has a break from Higher Education and concentrates on her mental health and well-being. Just because she won’t complete the course now, doesn’t mean she can never go back to it. She can go back to another uni, or the Open University, to do anything she wants. There’s no age limit!

You don’t need to know the right things to say, just listen to her if she wants to talk, rant, cry etc. just encourage her that she’s tried uni, and it didn’t work out right now and that is absolutely okay!

Take care x

Did she take second year twice, or resit the second year exams this summer and fail the resits? If it's the latter, she should still have her grace 'extra' year, so could return to university next year, maybe on a slightly different course or at a different university, and still have all years of her study funded. I know her MH is the top priority, but it might help if she has a plan to work towards.

Reassure her, and yourself, that there are many, many different roads to success. Let her take a break and give her time to reassess the direction she wants to take. My own son dropped out without telling us (his sister informed us after a while). I accidentally found one of his assessments under his bed - it was horrendous reading! He clearly hadn't a clue what he was doing!!! Anyway ... he took what ended up being 4 years out, then reapplied for a completely different course (he'd found a new direction during those 4 years) and ever since then, all has been well. DH & I were especially disappointed at the time, as we both work in higher education, but we learned something from our son.

Do you know why she failed? There will be a difference in terms of next steps re the why. Eg was the content too hard/she wasn’t capable or did she not apply herself. Did she fall apart at exams or was it a constant struggle re coursework as well?

On my course one of my friends was lazy and nearly failed first year but she was capable and pulled her finger out and went on to get a phd. Another just scraped a third and really probably wasn’t capable of the course content in all honesty and hasn’t done anything academic since but has found a job that suits her that is a bit more practical.

She needs to rebuild her mental health but also to try and find something to focus on job-wise that will give her some confidence and ideally work out what she enjoys and what she doesn’t.