Current Oxbridge students - continued again...!

[Panicmode1]

Think the other thread is full....!

@Anonuser678543 DS is a third year engineer at C - I think if you looked back over my posts I probably wrote similar about DS. He has never struggled with anything academically and won the overall best A levels prize at school but he has found it really hard to adjust to being 'average' - he seems to work 24/7, tho does row and cycle, but the (mainly) Asian students at the top of the cohort just work solidly (which I'm not sure is healthy!)

The work load is insane, but I really would encourage your DS to speak to his DoS - my son was SO reluctant to do so, seeing it as a sign.of weakness or something but we did finally persuade him and he found it very useful/reassuring..

I'm reading the above posts with interest. My DS has recovered from his illness but is finding the workload very heavy.
Who is a DoS and what kind of support might they give?

@Manahoy A DoS is short for Director of Studies. They are a main point of contact and connected to the college. As I understand it each student at Cambridge will have a DoS plus someone else (can't remember their title right now, something like student support or pastoral) just in case the issue is with one or the other. DD has just found it good to communicate with them about deadlines, juggling workloads, etc. when she got Fresher's flu in her first term the DoS adapted the submission requirement when DD was at her worse to be an outline rather than a full essay so the DoS could see the 'thought' process and DD not need to write a full essay.

@Anonuser678543 so sorry to hear about your son but as others have said it is good you know. Feeling overwhelmed is natural, it is also the season of bugs and colds and even if they are not outright unwell they can feel under the weather even if not demonstrating full symptoms. DD is doing a much less time restricted subject and came home after her first term and practically slept for 2 days she was so exhausted mentally and physically. She then bounced back with good food and sleep. She had to adjust her sleep patters with the prevalant noisy times in her college, she had always been a lark but has had to become a bit of an owl just to make sure she gets enough sleep. Do see if he can talk to his main points of contact at college and it isn't long until the vacation and you can sweep him up back home and all will hopefully seem brighter before long.

@Anonuser678543 Sorry to hear this about your DS. I don't have answers as such as DD is a fresher in a STEM subject but it's not engineering. But I did want to say that she's been chatting to a number of fellow students in her supervisions who are struggling and quite a bit behind with their studies, so he really won't be the only one. Can he talk to one of his friends in his supervisions, labs or lectures? I would also get him to talk to a tutor or DoS, I really do think they are quite supportive. At my DD's college they also run welfare events - can your DS go to one of those at his college and just chat to someone about it all?

From an Oxford perspective, colleges have Academic Welfare Fellows (or similar). Blackwell have a large study skills section on essay writing etc which used to be at the foot of the stairs. LMH ran study skills workshops which other colleges can refer their students too. There are also university wide welfare & wellbeing workshops on topics such as perfectionism.

A wise person once said you need to add maybe one or two things on top of your studies, including your social life, but no more. You may need to drop something to make room for something else.

@PettsWoodParadise wow sounds like your DD is still doing alot! Impressive, especially writing a play to be performed. I hope things calm down for mine, she does seem to have more essays than some of her friends so it’s hard to gauge🤷‍♀️. It would be sad if she felt it was impossible to do Adc stuff because it takes up too much time.

Thank you all for your kind words of support - to many to name individually but I have read every word of all of them, and also to those kind peoeple who PM’d me. It was much appreciated.
he’s agreed I can go up this weekend and bring up some home cooked food for him to microwave. Cooking was his stress reliever but the college gyps are extremely basic!

I genuinely think he is probably muddling through as well as a lot of peeple. But he is just seeing the stellar students who can effortlessly answer every question and feeling inadequate I think - even with the amount of work he is putting in. I think (and I know I am generalising) that boys may not admit to each other they are struggling so he thinks everyone else isn’t having any issues.

hes also agreed to get in touch with his DoS to see if he’s approaching work in a particularly inefficient way.

thank you again and hopefully this is just a settling in blip.

@Anonuser678543 sorry to be late, and can see that you have had lots of useful replies already. My DC is doing maths and they found it so hard in their first year - i suspect there is a lot of cross over with engineering in this regard. It's still horribly hard in the second year, but they have a feeling they are supposed to be there now they have passed the first year exams.
The other boys in their group are all convinced they are masters of the universe and act so confidenty - it is rather intimidating to more timid students i think.
Also, some of the maths was in the IB syllabus, so some students had a bit of a head start.

It will all come together, but I think it is brilliant you are going to visit - will really help you and him.
Best of luck - you seem to be very sensible about it so he is lucky to have you supporting him.

@Anonuser678543 nothing too useful to say but just agreeing that a lot of students will be feeling like your ds. I really hope he finds his DoS helpful. When ds has hit moments like this, he has often found good support to come from students a year or two ahead of him. He was in despair over his dissertation recently, but when with some prompting he went back to his supervisor, the latter put him in touch with a PhD student who's been really helpful. In the first year when he hit a module he literally just couldn't understand, he was at a subject dinner and a bunch of second years told him 'everyone feels like that about that module' and gave him a couple of tips, but most of all just a bit of solidarity. I had no idea what to do, but did send him some Fitzbillies brownies. Ds is still in there fighting, I'm sure your ds will get there too. A visit is an extremely good idea.

@Anonuser678543 I'm another one adding to the "don't worry too much" chorus but want to give you another perspective.

DD supervised 1st years in the first 2 years of her PhD. On one of our drives home we had a long discussion about teaching - I have taught an Arts subject for 30+ years - and she wanted some advice. DD is very petite and only looks about 14 despite being 25 now. One of the lads she was supervising was quite dismissive of her, loud and arrogant despite being several years younger and a 1st year. The other student in the group was much quieter and lacked confidence. However, the quiet student produced work which was done well and often before the deadline. Loud arrogant one missed loads but blagged his way out of it. I advised DD to keep the DoS in the picture. DD was then invited to the DoS's Christmas party where they chatted about how it was going, what she thought of the students etc. It turned out that Mr Arrogant was full of the brown stuff wherever he went, getting people's backs up and thinking he knew more than the professors. They advised her to build up the quiet one's confidence and to put Mr Arrogant down as much as she could - DD has a good grasp of sarcasm. Things were much better as the year went on.

DD found her DoS helpful for lots, but don't dismiss the pastoral support. Their remit is welfare and reaching out to them is most definitely not a sign of weakness. DD actually introduced us to the chap who was her pastoral mentor person and he was a really nice guy. I think they had termly meet-ups unless DD wanted anything more.

@Anonuser678543 there is lots of guidance about central support services here if the DoS doesn’t hit the spot. https://www.studentsupport.cam.ac.uk

I work in a student facing role at Cambridge as well as being the parent of a fresher. Lots of students feel
imposter syndrome or take time to find their circle.

An intense week or three for DS (C, Y3 Mathematics) and a challenging interview tomorrow for some nameless branch of UK government. Fingers crossed for him and everyone else at O and C who may be having a tough time at the moment.

Yes. I've been off the thread before this week due to a bad event for someone close to ds at his college. It's been horrible, though the outcome has been nowhere near as bad as it might have been. But I would say that I've been genuinely impressed at the quality of support available to the students - when they ask.

So sorry to hear that @PermanentTemporary but glad to hear that there has been strong support available.

Good luck to your DC for the interview tomorrow @Clemenc0 !

DS has been trying to apply for civil service summer internships at various places - some departments don't even let you apply unless you are 1. BAME and 2. have parents who didn't go to university and 3. only in your last year of your degree, and you can't apply unless all three of those apply to you....it's tough out there....! (I didn't believe him but he sent me screenshots).

The same experience for DS here so I am not sure how he managed as he doesn't qualify on 2 conditions on paper.

The poor friend in question PermanentTemporary. I hope things start to look up/ resolve themselves.

My own DD did a summer internship in a mainstream dept in London and didn't fit any of those grounds. I didn't know that she'd applied until she told me she was doing it so not clued up at all about the criteria. But not BAME, both parents went to uni and she applied in the third year of a four year degree. Odd.

Any recommendations for birthday cakes/treats to be delivered for DC birthday next week in Oxford?

First birthday away from home so she won't have to suffer my home made effort...

Thank you

DD1 (2nd year vet student) has messaged in shock that Cambridge vet school have had their RCVS accreditation withdrawn, and that they have until next Sep to improve or the withdrawal will be final. If that happens, DD’s degree won’t entitle her to practise as a vet, and she would need to pass an additional RCVS exam.

They had a big meeting for all the vet students to try and reassure them that everything possible would be done to avert this, but they did also acknowledge that the reputation of their degree could be impacted, and that at Cambridge nothing changes very quickly! DD sent me a copy of the vet school’s official response to the RCVS and it is worryingly full of sentiments like ‘tradition’ and ‘the way Cambridge has always done it’.

I feel this is rather poor for a world-class university and just hope the embarrassment gets them to pull their finger out (also kind of wish DD had gone to RVC instead now!)

Here's the link to the RCVS report, in case anyone else is interested.
www.rcvs.org.uk/document-library/university-of-cambridge-2024-report/
I have a DD there, and I agree with your comment that the university response is imbued with, "the way Cambridge has always done it"! To me, it has a bit of a superior tone, which is not appropriate in the circumstances.

@Ilovefatrascals I continue to recommend the extremely large box of Fitzbillies Brownies that I have ordered for ds a couple of times at moments of stress. Not cheap though.

@BiancaBlank your poor dd, that's incredibly worrying. The response really doesn't look as if they are ready to jump in the direction the report wants them to.

I ordered a lovely cake from Happy Cakes who hand deliver it to the college (£10 for delivery plus cake was £50, depends on size) and would recommend them, and they put a personalised message on it. Ordered via e-mail Julia at Happy cakes.
https://www.happy-cakes.co.uk/big-cakes/index.php

@BiancaBlank that sounds deeply worrying - your poor DD (and her peers). As if there isn't enough to stress about on vet med as it is. I sincerely hope that they manage to sort things out so that they aren't disadvantaged.

I haven't had to worry about cakes for birthdays as DS is usually home as it's in a break, but I have ordered him cake or cream tea hampers from Devon's Heaven occasionally and they have gone down well. Can't go wrong with Fitzbillies either though...!

Had a quick look of the report and it does sound like they are trying to impose various numerous systems in quite fragmented and prescriptive ways that may not work with the grain of Cambridge’s existing systems.

it doesn’t come across like they did a thorough assessment of the as-is systems before coming up with prescriptive recommendations.

Having read the response, I think I tend to agree with C's approach. Speaking as someone who's seen how ISO9001 certification and QA works within world-class industrial engineering, design and manufacturing companies. Every company is different but they still are ISO9001 accredited, and have different origins and genesis, what make them good and world class is embedded in their DNA, systems, procedures and culture. You could easily, and unknowingly, break that DNA by super imposing changes that do not work with the grains. I don't get the sense that the report understands this. For example, it's quite easy to assess the differences between what you expect a company to be (based on the one that you know) and what you actually see, and report the differences as part of a lengthy report - especially if you focus on the details/evidence level rather than values.

I've also seen QA in action in an educational settings during teacher training, everything had to be 'evidenced' and documented, lesson observations were often criticised for what they were not rather than what they were. I've also seen in action Stonewall Index accreditation in a company and how destructive that can be (not saying that is the case here), but just need to be aware some of the risk of these programmes and it is an easy route for institutional capture to spread.