Please help - DD hates uni (second year)

[EndlessDIY]

DD is in her second year at uni studying her favourite A level subject. It’s a uni that has a fantastic reputation generally (consistently in the top 10) and specifically for her area of interest.

But it hasn’t remotely lived up to expectations.

On the academic side, she hates her course - and I can understand why. There’s nothing in the structure of it that facilitates getting to know others on the course - it’s so solitary. DD says the lectures are often dull and not engaging. Assignments are given without clear expectations of what good looks like; her cohort were once given a sample submission as an example without being told if it was any good! What’s the point of that? (Turns out it was a 2.2.)

DD is bright (9s at A level), conscientious, prides herself in doing well and is trying her best with her coursework. Some assignments have come back with unexpectedly low marks, which she could handle if she knew why, and how to improve, but feedback is skeletal, vague and students have been told explicitly not to ask for more specific feedback. DD doesn’t know how to “get it right”. (This isn’t how I remember uni.) DD wanted to get a first but now, really struggling to motivate herself, she’s worrying she won’t get a 2.1.

DD is sociable, friendly and thrives in a team and with a sense of community, and just isn’t feeling that while away at uni. She made some wonderful friends in first year via a shared interest but they then graduated, and this year, despite her being actively involved in uni life and extra-curricular activities, she has felt lonely. She has such a lovely group of friends from school, which has set the bar high, and uni isn’t coming close on that front.

She’s also dealing with a long-term physical health problem which flares up from time to time, and affects her participation in some of the extra-curricular stuff she enjoys most. So this gets her down too.

DD is struggling to cope. She’s come home for a few days to revise (“uni doesn’t feel like home”) and we’ve chatted a lot. She’s just so down with it all, ruminating, blaming herself for not trying harder to wrap her head around the way the course expectations and marking work (I don’t think there’s more she could have done on this front), struggling to get going with her work, saying, “I can’t believe I’m paying for this!”

It’s too late to switch course. We can’t afford for her to start a different degree from scratch. She feels that quitting will limit her work options and she’ll always regret not having the resilience to push through. And she says if she quits and comes home, there’ll just be different problems: what to do work-wise, and loneliness due to her close friends being away at their unis.

In a few days, she’ll have to go back for exams and I’m worried about her. Are there any other options here that we’re missing? Is there any way she can get more direction/feedback from those delivering the course and around marking, so she feels more confident tackling future assignments? (Her tutor hasn’t been much help.) What strategies can she use to get through the next 16 months when she already feels like this?

She’s had periods of getting quite low in the past, usually briefly thankfully, and a severe, commonly heritable, mental health condition runs in the family, so it’s pretty important for DD to stay on as even a keel as possible.

Grateful for any thoughts - we can’t see the wood for the trees with this. Thanks.

@poetryandwine This was in 2022/23 so there was working to contract as part of strike action but I'm not in HE so don't know if availability to provide feedback was impacted. However, I spoke to the year 3 student face to face (not her mum) and she confirmed the no feedback in year 1 had also been the case in her year 1. Made me feel bad because I doubted DS had followed up. Support has been much better in years 2 & 3.

Thanks, @EwwSprouts

Working to contract I regrettably understand. The other is appalling

Step 1 - identify the issue which you both have.

step 2 - make a plan. Sounds like great advice on how to tackle the course issues.

social life. She has all the tools. She can clearly make friends and there will be people there she has yet to meet. She might need to give it a big push to go to everything. And book in to visit old friends? See it as a chance to explore the UK?

feels like this could all feel a lot better in a month when days are lighter and more is going on

I advised DS to use office hours. That's when tutors are paid to be on call for a couple of hours, in case students need to discuss anything, Most students don't bother, and tutors are often not in demand then, so it's a good opportunity to get clarity on what 'good' looks like. She should tell her tutors she'd like to aim for a first and ask what specific advice they can give to raise her mark.

Can she see if any of her friends who graduated would be up for a little reunion weekend back in the uni town with her?

Can she use that old trick of diversifying how she spends her time - one session a week helping at a charity, a couple of fitness sessions of some sort, ideally where she meets other people - playing a sport or doing a dance class or martial arts, one hobby that involves other people - drama or music or art or helping run a student political body or magazine. She will make some friends that way. And if she is feeling isolated in her subject, others must be too. Could she suggest to others on her course in her year that they set up a study group together? Or a reading group? My DC were at uni during Covid and had to really push to make connections with anyone beyond online.

One issue many students and parents may not be aware of is that far too many tutors are on zero hours contracts or 0.2, 0.3 or 0.5 contracts. The hourly pay is despicable to begin with but if you factor in the hours and hours you spend replying to student emails, setting up and clearing rooms, prepping and marking, it dips way below minimum wage, so refusing to give detailed feedback could simply be tutors refusing to spend the time marking each essay that it deserves, because they are either not paid (I actually once had a contract from one of the top unis in the country that stated 'There is no pay for marking') or they are paid so little (sometimes a couple of pounds for a substantial essay) that they simply can't justify the hours needed to do a good job.

I know far too many friends on 0.5 contracts who actually put in full-time hours for part-time pay, by the time you add up class prep, creating power-points, necessary reading to keep up with academic developments, chasing tech staff to get equipment to work, writing lectures and class handouts and notes and photocopying them, emailing students and replying to student emails, answering questions after class etc.

Another good option for support is the library. Any university I’ve worked at the library run all sort of academic workshops, so critical analysis, literature searching, referencing. Subject librarians especially may be able to give quite detailed advice.

but definitely the course academics should be offering support and detailed feedback and I’d echo what others have said about going to the course leader and getting the cohort rep on board. If no luck with the course leader ask the course leader who the next level person up is and email them, there is normally an associate prof who will have responsibility for the programme.

Another completely out the box suggestion is to use chatgpt for feedback. If she tells AI what the learning outcomes are and then uploads her assignment as a word document and ask for feedback. She can follow up the initial feedback with more detailed questions such as “can you tell me where I could have increased critical analysis and give a clear example of this”. It might not be perfect but I suspect it could be quite good.

Course director in STEM subject at RG university here. Last January we had a feedback sessions for every exam. For mine, 11/102 students showed up. Office hours every week in big space rather than office at the bottom of a rabbit warren. 11 students came over a period of 10 weeks.

You can lead a horse to water........

Can your daughter finish her degree on line . I’m studying an m a with university of Essex. The tutoring, seminars ( via zoom) and tips to get a good grade are really great . Plus we have access to tutors via zoom or e mail any time we want.
Also a fabulous e library, librarians, study skills support, I t support for anything you need to add in but aren’t sure how to do it.

Then she could come home, maybe get a little job which will help her socialise, or join a club, sports team, gym etc to make friends .

Or if at uni away, get a little job to help her meet people or have contact with others .
Hospitality and leisure are great industries for young people to work in and also have some fun. Maybe gain a lifeguard qualification, fitness instructor qualification and work at your local pool or gym.
This will also stand her in extra good stead in the post uni jobs market and also mean she can have a bit of extra money.

I'm at a Russell group uni and a kid in my cohort had feedback (2nd year) that said (and I quote)
"No".

What you have described is a fairly common experience at uni. My dd is second year at a highly regarded RG and is underwhelmed to say the least with the whole academic experience. Your dd is already nearly at the end of this semester - just exams to go and then heads down for the final year after the summer.

In your place I would make a plan with her, sit together and look at joining new clubs and hobbies. My DD made some lovely friends at yoga for instance. The rowing teams have inbuilt social lives attached. I would also do a rolling schedule of having friends to stay from home, or she can visit them at their unis peppered with visits from you and weekends at home. You can easily organise a support structure for her this way - assuming she doesn’t make new friends this year. Also getting a job would give her access to new faces and friends. Keep her busy.

She will soon be home for the summer. Help her strategise and plan her time. It’s worth sticking it out op, she needs to learn to be resilient and keep going even when it’s hard going.

She has a great set of friends, a loving family and is a bright girl - she is going to be fine. Who does she live with? Can she spend more time socialising with them?

If she’s at a top ten Russell group (I’m assuming not Oxbridge from what you’ve said) then that limits it to 5 or maybe 6 universities.

They are all regarded as good universities. However too many people when looking at the rankings fail to realise that much of what they are assessed on to score highly in the ranking is about research which is not relevant to undergraduate students. This is particularly the case with RG universities. As such there are known issues with various of them around student experience.

The good thing is that since they are well regarded it may well be possible to transfer to a lower ranking university close to home. This might not have been the life plan but it might get her across the finishing line. As a pp has says I would expect her to have to start year 2 again but it would be a very different experience living at home. There are lots of universities where the work that counts towards the final degree classification doesn’t start until year 2.

i think things are very different at university now. Social media and cost of living means the social side is very different to the way it was for us parents. Lots have FOMO when they see their home friends on social media. Lots of kids just stay in their rooms. Lots of kids go home every weekend. Everything costs a fortune so they don’t go out until 10.30 and they come home at 3 so that affects their ability to work effectively in the daytime and isolates/separates those who don’t like the night scene. Lots of kids have mental health issues. Lots of kids are stressed from todays youth culture where free speech or doing something perceived as morally wrong in their very black and white world (eg talking to a boy when also “talking” to someone online) can lead to them being completely ostracised by their peers.

We as parents don’t help by telling them it’s the best years of their life, they will “find their people” and make friends for life, they will spend most of their time partying rather than working etc. It’s simply not the same now.

If she’s truly unhappy I’d look to switch, particularly since more and more employers remove the name of your university from CVs so the eventual implication of this is likely to be more students studying at their local university like in Australia and most of Europe. Not all universities will allow a switch but if she’s trying to move in from a more highly ranked university it’s certainly possible.
the sector is in financial chaos and it’s all about bums on seats.

@poetryandwine re feedback I feel I can talk now that Ds has graduated. He went to Durham and his course department did not provide useful feedback. Even when Ds's grades were all above 70% and well into the 80%s and he got a fail on a year 1 exam but passed the module because of coursework with a third. As a group they were puzzled at this module grade as lots had performed poorly and through the proper channels they discovered that the average grade was around the mid 40s rather than the usual 65% the cohort achieved, they asked could a grade curve be applied they were told no. It did mean a lot of them actually failed that module and had to resit. When Ds asked for feedback he was told we don't provide it. He went to his personal tutor and stated that as he would have to take this compulsory module in second year he needed to know where he went wrong because he is to build on this knowledge, again he was told no specific feedback.

When they spoke to 2nd and 3rd years they were told it has always been like this, we are floundering around and they don't give a shit. Ds did not complete a student feedback form because they were asked to fill this in before being given their final grade and they were all too worried that the uni would tank their grade. Ds had a graduate job lined up so needed a 2:1 or above. His sixth form asked him to come back and give a talk, he told them he couldn't recommend Durham and that department.

They had lecturers openly tell them they hated this topic and hated having to teach it but it was required. They did also have amazing lecturers too.

Our other child is currently at another high ranking uni which is so supportive it is ridiculous. Ds always does a comedy sigh when he hears about their past papers, mark schemes, feedback, support etc. We are glad our second child is having the best time.

Ds saw it as the only way out is through, and so ploughed on despite hating it. 3 years of misery to get to where he is now which thankfully he is loving.

@EndlessDIY She is almost done, would it be useful for her to count down in weeks the remainder of this year and then the remainder of the entire course? This is what Ds did in the end. Sad but true. He was always finished with exams by the end of May.

My 2nd year DC recently received grades and feedback for the first semester. TBH it was quite a confusing experience: one exam, about which she had been extremely worried (which galvanised her into revising right through the Christmas holidays including from the very first day when we arrived at our ski resort!) and for which she wrote half the max word count went exceptionally well - fantastic grades and feedback. An essay got a weird comment about including other authors in the body of the essay when that was not specified in the four pages of essay guidelines and marking criteria. She has emailed the TA about this but received no reply.

DC is half way through this degree and, although she loves her course, her university, her friends and societies and is learning a lot, I do wonder where she'd be if her parents weren't available and able to be Personal Tutors and help her navigate the system. There really is no meaningful student support unless students are underperforming.

My DS has had a good uni experience but now in 3rd year (no exams) has an unfortunate situation where 3 of their 4 regular lecturers (small cohort) are off sick. The department appears to be sustaining lecturers in year 1 and 2 at the expense of year 3.

They have student reps and are holding a meeting whereby the student reps will gather viewpoints and approach the course directors with some concerns. Could your Dd's course do likewise?

Was that their entire feedback for an assignment or was it in response to a highlighted sentence/point they'd made? As in their point is incorrect.

I have to say, that this is exactly how I remember university. The solitariness didn't bother me (introvert) and there was no advice on how to improve. It was also what friends children were warned about in school. 'No support.' 'Have to self manage.' At one point, I got a mark lower than I thought I deserved and had the work remarked (at my request) and the grade came back lower 2nd time.

However, if she's struggling, she needs to reach out. She could start by contacting student services and asking their advice about how to get help with this? There is probably a formal process to go through, e.g. the uni puts a support plan in place.

I think often students just aren't mature enough to be self-led learners, which is what university essentially is. It isn't a system with a school structure in place. They're adults and are expected to research and self study. Lectures and seminars give structure to the module topic, but the rest of the learning will be the student's responsibility. The reading list will guide their direction.

@MiserableMrsMopp I think students don't always arrive at university with the essay writing skills they require. Our DC had quite a lot of tutoring in essay writing when she was at school because tbh the teachers were old and tired and couldn't be bothered. Fortunately there are some excellent tutors on the open market and we had the means to employ them. DC says she thinks back to what her tutor explained to her and that she is able to create her own methodology for responding to many exam types but only thanks to that tutor. Obviously great for my DC but it isn't good that students are depending on such random factors for their education and the fundamental skills they require to be self led learners.

The many, many good teachers were hounded out of the system, due to the huge workload. And the ones that are left are on their knees with the level of work and requirements. I completely get it.

I agree with the idea of a tutor if the OP's daughter is just lacking exam / essay writing skills (or whatever is relevant to her subject). But it sounds as if she's struggling in a wider way, with the independence required at uni.

Obviously the issues that students can struggle with when they move on to university are multiple and not always easy to pinpoint, which then precludes addressing them effectively. Our DC has a friend who has, unexpectedly, struggled massively at university despite being the sort of 4 A* sporty artistic sociable all rounder profile everyone would have anticipated having no big issues. I personally suspect she is flummoxed by the competitive step up - having been top of her school in every way, she doesn't have the humility to cope with not being on top of everything at university. That's quite a diffuse issue.

I am so sorry about the experience your DS had at Durham in that module, @FeedbackAJoke

The School or Dept is required to provide a marks scheme with at least brief explanations that students may see. If even this was not available, that’s vey bad.

However my biggest concern is that DS did not fill in the feedback form because it was given out before the final module mark was in and students were afraid the university would ‘tank their grades ‘ (or marks). All module feedback surveys take place before final exams. The in-class paper ones are obviously anonymous though AFAIK it has been many years since those were used. I suppose in theory it would be possible for IT services to link an individual online survey back to the person who completed it, but that would be a gross breach of integrity and a firing offence, I think.

More relevantly, no lecturer has the capability to do this. In every feedback system I’ve heard of, lecturers only see the results after the survey is closed. In general we can see statistics within the Virtual Learning Environment concerning when posted materials have been downloaded, and by how many, but nothing about which students have downloaded. That’s depressing enough, and that’s as far as it goes.

It is awful that students should feel reluctant to give proper feedback for fear of being spied upon. I realise that your DS has now graduated but I hope this will help others.

Furthermore in the extraordinarily unlikely event that somehow the worst happened (and I cannot imagine how), students can benefit by keeping cool heads and sticking together. They are allowed to inspect their exams, and if any sort of discriminatory pattern in marking were to occur, the Office for Students would be extremely interested. Universities know this

@SnarkSideOfLife
Entire feedback
She complained & it was escalated.

That’s spectacularly shit.

It sounds like 3 things are going on

1. Frustration with the course itself - seek academic support from the dept firstly and take up any extra academic support offered
2. recurring illness - get wellness support (if it exists at the university, which it should by now) and see your GP to maximize care.
3. Socializing. I think if as a 1st yr your main social group were 3rd years, it's going to leave an enormous hole when they leave. You basically have to start over, join new things and make an effort. I know this is challenging if you've got a chronic condition. Just do it on the good days, turn up for stuff, and keep contacts going.

Would you mind sharing what the good university has been for your 2nd dc?