Getting a third - what next?

[Selwyngum]

My DD is in her third year at Cambridge, studying Engineering. She hasn’t got on at all well there. She failed her first year exams and got a third in her second year exams. She has just started her year 3 exams and thinks she is on course for a 3rd again, which will mean she can’t progress to do the fourth year (MEng).

She is talking about dropping out and retaking the year. I’m not sure that’s worthwhile as she has worked incredibly hard this year, but just doesn’t seem to get the results.

She has struggled with depression in the past so keeping her on an even keel is much more important to me than any academic results. I want to be as supportive as possible but I’m at a loss.

My gut feeling is that a third class degree won’t get her very far in terms of employment. I’m wondering if she could transfer in September to the third year of an engineering degree elsewhere.

She got 4 A* grades at A level, is very bright but dyslexic. In hindsight Cambridge was the wrong place for her but regretting that doesn’t help her now.

Does anyone have any insight or experience? She feels she’s wasted a huge amount of time and money and I would love to help her work out what to do next. Please be kind.

I haven't read the full thread, but just wanted to offer some reassurance. I have a third and I have had good jobs and have a happy life! It feels terrible now but opportunities will present themselves and your daughter will do OK in life! Try not to panic! My third is in maths, which recruiters were always OK with as maths is seen as a tough subject. I'm sure similarly a third from Cambridge (in engineering which is also a tough subject) will be considered in a positive light compared with thirds from other universities. I am awaiting an ADHD diagnosis, and although I outwardly spend a lot of time working, I actually procrastinated so much I never got the necessary hours of actual work done. I really feel for your daughter the pressure is massive but the most important thing is her health. There are so many careers where her degree will open doors even with a third - maybe not a "graduate" role but other jobs with career progression are out there, life is still full of opportunities. Wishing your daughter all the best.

She's been to the GP when she was in a bit of a crisis before. She had a 10 minute phone appointment, was put on antidepressants, and that was it. But maybe she should try again.

I must emphasise that she hasn't mentioned suicide. But I know that she's very low, oddly out of touch with her own emotions, and doesn't share how she feels even if she was able to vocalise it.

I've realised that the need for a plan is probably more my need than hers at this point -- thanks to the person who suggested not focusing too much on the future at this point.

The problem is that if she's going to take time out, she needs to get that fixed up now... but if she's going to stick it out, then she doesn't need to be wasting time on that.

Because of her lack of engagement in the help offered, I don't know if she'd meet the criteria for intermission. And from my hasty googling it seems that you get to pause your studies in the current term -- so going back this time next year seems like a non-optimal plan.

I'm going to go and see her this weekend anyway and see how she is in person.

Thanks for the all the posts which I am reading though not necessarily responding to each.

@TizerorFizz
There will be a gap in the middle of the degree too if she defers a year. Employers will wonder why.

Then the OPs daughter can explain why and many employers will be ok with the answer. Lots of people have bumps along the way as they grow up.

I mostly agree with you, @TizerorFizz I was responding to a PP who suggested that DD sit her exams. It may or may not be the right thing to do, but I think proceeding down that course because thinking things through constitutes pressure could be problematic.

The questions you raise are good ones. The point where I differ with you is that intermissions during UG study for all sorts of reasons are becoming so common that I don’t think they stand out as they once may have.

OP, take note of the PPs on Thirds with good jobs! Surprisingly often one comes across a 2.2, Third or no degree at all (to say nothing of a perfectly good alternative qualification) in the biography of a business leader.

Also one of my former students on a Third ended up with a subject area MSc from the OU. She did a year’s remediation with them first. OU is a marvellous institution and believe in second chances. Their degrees are well respected, too.

She will be fine...as long as she herself is in a position to move forwards. She has a lot going for her.

The key is getting to that position. Will taking the exams make things easier or harder for her to re-establish her equilibrium. Or would time out/a fresh start work better?

Once that decision is made you can start asking about transfers, employment opportunities etc.

Many of us with sight of sought after careers will have noticed that not everyone gets there via a straight path. All employers have different entry points and a good employee can usually progress, regardless of starting point. Perhaps she can't do a MEng immediately, but I bet that someone with a degree, obvious intelligence, and relevant industry experience would be accepted onto a MEng as a mature student regardless of degree class. (PoetryandWine might confirm or put me right.)

A friend's son at a RG University partied for two year's straight, failing his second year and had to repeat. Marks were then capped so though he achieved a good level of maturity by his final year, even quite impressive efforts were not able to get him to a 2.1. No matter. He headed off with his new found work-ethic for a working gap year in Australia, found a lowly job with an international company who impressed, recommended him to their London HQ. Five years later he is absolutely back on track career wise. He is no less valuable as an employee than those with firsts, and he is probably never asked about his degree class.

Regain the equilibrium, then set off on the most suitable path.

@poetryandwine Im sure you are correct about gaps in cv but it’s likely it will be questioned. So best to prepare for it. It’s a fact that some employers might not like the answer though but they won’t say so.

DH has a 2:2. Having said that, the vast majority did back then. He just preferred doing other things and saw studying as a secondary occupation at times! However degree and business ability and even engineering ability aren’t necessarily linked but employers use easy filters. Plus they just don’t see 2:2 or thirds very often now. They are a tiny minority!

She’s understandably not in a place where she’s thinking of the future, but I think it’s worth you looking into the process of her transferring (not easy) because of the long term implications of her degree classification, not just the general job market for professional jobs, but its very unlikely to get onto a Masters with a third, and a PhD (she’s obviously very intelligent). So maybe it’s worth spending some of that inheritance on the £10K tuition fees.

If she's not well, she needs to take action now. Exams at Cambridge have started for her, and it becomes more difficult to intermit the further into this term she goes.

I think the OP recognises this will be a BEng

Pedantically, it'll be a BA because Cambridge.
Otoh, three years after graduation they get the MA (cantab) ...it may be anachronistic fluff but if it impresses someone who doesn't understand what it means I suppose that's some small recompense for the pain.

@ErrolTheDragon In engineering that’s clutching at straws. Plus surely employers know the MA (cantab) isn’t earned?

@ErrolTheDragon As far as I can see, the Engineering Council doesn’t recognise the BA in Engineering either. Only MEng listed. So that’s another issue for going forward and should merit some consideration.

This doesn't seem to be widely known.
As an example, the governors at a school I am involved with have just appointed a head whose only qualification is an oxbridge MA. I expressed the view that he was underqualified as he had no postgrad (neither a proper masters nor a PGCE nor QTS) and was told I was talking rubbish because he did have a masters.
the whole "retrospective upgrading" to MA should be done away with - it's an egregious example of unearned privilege. And it impresses (or confuses) people who don't know better.

Two STEM people I know who did Oxbridge took the "self-taught coding and moved into tech start-up" route.

One was ND and couldn't have managed the big company vibe.

One tried other graduate careers, but ended up at a start-up as that smaller environment suited better.

I think they needed to pass a coding test for this, and got on with the start-up team. No-one cared about degree class.

Two blokes I know of who got Thirds (relatively recently).

Both had a few years happily pottering about in customer service then ended up doing Data analysis and climbing the ladder, moving company for better salaries etc.

All progressed fine, homeowners etc.

Usual rule of once your face is in the door, it's easier to move around.

With one guy, he wanted to get back on the graduate career path/thought about trying to requalify...but of course financially just getting on with it worked a lot better!

There probably is a current version of coding or data analysis that would be useful to learn.

It might be better to stabilise, get the degree, stay at home, quietly upskill for free, build a portfolio, see if she can get work experience with the right kind of company.

rather than think and worry about paying out for additional Masters degrees (which is more academic pressure).

A lot of Masters degrees are simply cash-cows for universities and won't necessarily make the crucial difference in applications.

(A very common experience of people who have done paid post-grad courses -

...is to realise that they could have done the exact same job without the Masters).

@mnblkj Surely this is not a state school? Or can academies avoid qualified staff? I’m not sure but I’m amazed they don’t know the difference. You can tell from cv. 3 years for standard degree.

@TizerorFizz , I went to a state school in the 1980s and one of my A-level teachers didn't have teacher training. She had a relevant degree.

Hi, again OP -

Not engaging with help for dyslexia wouldn’t necessarily cause a negative Mitigating Circs ruling at my place. But there would be a lively discussion.

Health first is the absolute from my PoV. The only decision that needs to be made now is whether to attempt the current exams or plead Mit Circs. The outcome of sitting the exams is, from what you have said about DD’s state of mind rather than her ability, likely to be a Third or at best a 2.2 BEng (you typically need a 2.1 to proceed to M(STEM Subject), but I don’t know about Cambridge specifically.) DD would graduate and a transfer would no longer be an option.

I agree with @Needmoresleep that somewhere, somehow DD can get an MEng or MSc, no matter what. Viz my own student who remediated at OU, discussed above.

The unmanaged dyslexia is a sadly reasonable justification for much that has gone. But people will need to know that DD has taken steps to manage it properly before extending further chances, whether at Cambridge or anywhere else.

If DD does better in Y3, by pausing it now, this side of things will be much, much easier. A 2.2 as opposed to a Third will matter a lot. (Of course I am not limiting her to that!) DD and her PT can construct a narrative that her post-dyslexia compensated performance, whatever it is, is the Real Her. Together with the four A stars I think a decent uni will give her a chance at an MSc, if she has at least a 2.2. A Third may require some remediation, work experience, etc.

If she can get a psychological assessment that she is unfit to sit exams —- and I mean from a reputable, licensed psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor — that becomes primary in the eyes of the Mit Circs panel. But all of this hinges on being able to ask for help. Learning to do that is an important part of growing up.

I also wonder, gently, whether perhaps DD like so many, got a bit overwhelmed intellectually and didn’t know how to reach out concerning those difficulties? We had another recent thread from the mum of a Y1 Oxbridge scientist who is losing confidence because after all his A stars he is worried at how difficult he is finding things. But he refuses to confide in his PT, work with peers, avail himself of the free tutoring that abounds because this is so common and Oxbridge is so rich, etc. It seems to me that he and your DD have something in common.
As academics we just want to help. But the students must make the first move.

I did this course many years ago and sympathise sooo much with your DD. The difficulty was off the charts.

I did not want to work in engineering afterwards, so I can’t offer any advice on getting into the industry.

I’d be tempted to push through given she has come this far. There is no guarantee that quitting or deferring will improve her mental health and it might be just as likely to do the opposite. It will boost her confidence to have pushed through and graduated, it looks nice on the CV, and the grade can drop off after a few years.

If she does want to push through, my very strong practical advice would be to ignore lectures and go straight to the question papers and the answers with explained workings (cribs) and work on understanding them. My fellow college engineers (and a few had dyslexia) did the same; we did not start by understanding the lecture material first. Lectures were useless to me personally.

Prior to this method, I used to regularly spend a whole week trying to decipher one lecture’s worth (one hour!) of material and get totally despondent.

Also, there were a couple of comparatively trivial modules like Marketing, Sustainability that bumped up marks. Even with an unfinished half essay or bullet points (due to dyslexia) I think she’d get some marks for very little work, so I wouldn’t rule them out. She could maybe use YouTube for the learning to avoid too much reading?

There were also marks for continuous projects, coding, labs etc. If it’s the same now it’s important not to miss any of these as they were much easier marks to pick up than in the exams.

@TizerorFizz As it happens, not a state school - a big indy. But I think the "rules" are that independents ,academies and free schools can all hire whoever they like - however unqualified - whereas only LA schools are constrained to hire actual qualified teachers.

@poetryandwine Obviously I don’t work in a uni but don’t red flags shoot up when a Astar X 4 student has to retake y1 and gets a third in y2? Maybe they cannot intervene but in this day and age surely some sort of discussion should take place about what’s going wrong? It’s certainly well known young men bottle up fears and, in general, I think I’m more in favour of unis being more proactive. Especially rich ones!

@mnblkj I thought it might be. Hopefully some good experience and of course a lot of Indy heads are sales people ! (Only joking).

The other problem with a MEng might be this. See attached from Staffordshire. I cannot see that Cambridge BA is accredited. It’s not as easy as some seem to think.

Blimey you love being the harbinger of doom. Literally no one has suggested that it will be 'easy' for the OPs daughter to get on a Master elsewhere but people have helpfully suggested that it's a possibility and well worth looking into.

You seem intent on being a Debbie downer.

I don't know if you have kids or what age they are if you do but this type of thing isn't massively unusually and somehow or another everyone finds something that suits them. Maybe it takes a while but that's ok.

Yes... that's one of the reasons why 'other options' may need to be explored.
It's a weird anomaly, I think very few do leave with the MA after 3 years and anecdotally it tends to be some of the subset who don't want to pursue engineering as a career.

@ErrolTheDragon I think it’s a bit odd but there it is. Ideas are great but if pp don’t understand the small print it’s slightly useless advice saying do a masters. It’s not all doom and gloom for a sideways move and I don’t make up the rules @WellThatEndedBadly and I have given lots of alternative ideas. Is it not better to know the difficulties now before more disappointment adds to the current woes? I’ve consistently thought something else is better but OP said DD didn’t want that. So what do you think DD should do? How do you advise she finds something that suits? That seems to be elusive right now.

I know someone with a Cambridge 3rd who was a director in a bank by about 30. It’s definitely worth getting.

If she’s still keen on Aeronautical engineering maybe she could talk to her DoS about her planned 4th year project/area of interest and evidence why she would be capable of completing it? 4th year (MEng) is much more project focussed than the other years.

Another option would be to move into Finance - credit risk, accountancy, actuarial work? She could ask at Cambridge whether she could get on one of their Finance masters courses or even one of the shorter specific courses aimed at professionals, to get a foot in and bump that third off the radar? I think she’d find them much easier. Worth a chat with their careers advisors on where people go after graduating with these masters.

I know that within a few years in finance the 3rd would not be relevant, most applicants I see for UK jobs studied elsewhere and have different degree structures anyway so I rarely look.