Final year dissertation disaster

[GatherlyGal]

DC is in their final year. She has autism and has struggled a lot. She IDs as trans and life has been up and down and quite hard at times for about the last 6 years.

Uni has been going great though and all on course for graduation this year. Except as it turns out she has not done her dissertation. I had concerns at Easter but she brushed them off and told me she can get extra time it'll be ok etc.

It all came to a head this week when she handed in her final course work and essays leaving just the dissertation and she had to face the fact she can't do it.

She is very independent in many ways and not great at letting us in when she needs support. She's been lonely and isolated this year (girlfriend is on a year abroad) and I think she may not have been going into Uni much but I don;t know. She has high marks in all other work but will not get the dissertation done so no degree.

She's got a meeting next week with her tutor but I don't know what the options might be. I'd like to be at the meeting (if she will allow and she probably won't) but she's worked hard and done so well and I just don't know how to help to get her over the line so she can come away with a degree.

Any suggestions at all on what options might be or how I can help her very very welcome.

I second that this is the best advice. Also want to say I don’t mean to be harsh about tough love. I was diagnosed ND ten years after my degree. I know the struggles and couldn’t ask for help. But I forced myself to get it done and it paid off.

If they do allow her to do it I would sit down and help her break it down in to manageable chunks, almost like seperate assignments so write:

Introduction then
Literature review then
Methodology
Results
Analysis
Conclusion etc

I would try and steer her away from a masters if she has struggled with the dissertation as the expected length is double an undergraduate degree at 20,000 words and you have to be fairly disciplined to get through that. Good luck.

She has definitely been failed by her university.

Can she apply for mitigation which would allow her to submit in the autumn? We would normally only consider mitigation if applied for ahead of the deadline, but there might be some leniency for a condition such as ASD that contributed to not sorting something out ahead of time. She needs to ensure she keeps checking her emails so that she doesn't miss any that give her a deadline to get back to them on this. Good luck. It's all so stressful for them.

I had an extention for mine, and handed it in the year after. I passed and everything was fine. Could she ask for an extention?

Agreed.

I would add "at this point in time." Maturity may come with age and experience in other kinds of activities, such as paid or voluntary work, for example. Some children & young people's brains and habits take a lot longer to mature.

She has definitely been failed by her university.

How? It sounds as though the DC has not engaged with the process of supervision and is not ready for that step up to independence.

This country is just ridiculous. Most other countries allow students to just extend their time and take another semester. It’s madness that you can be failed and just lose all your money and get nothing for it.

The other work has been done. Why does it matter that something is done later. Especially with fees so high now I think unis are going to be challenged in the courts sometime to enable students to have more flexibility. Life happens. Illness happens. Accidents happen. Lord if this with a 3-4 year period that shouldn’t result in a degree just not being able to be achieved. Madness.

Sadly she won’t unless she has enough credits already. However, some uni’s do expect a pass in the dissertation What the uni will allow is an extension to complete it and she’ll just graduate a bit later!

Are you paying her way through uni or is she? X

Uni’s over here do allow an extension, so your facts are incorrect! My son failed 2 of his modules and was allowed to repeat these modules but just graduated slightly later!

The uni should allow her to repeat the modules she didn’t pass. I’ve been through this with my son, however she won’t graduate with an honours degree.

My DB ended up in a similar position, although through different circumstances. He was able to finish up his course and exams and then complete his dissertation over the next academic year so graduated a year later. He got an job and did the dissertation in his free time. Hopefully your DD can arrange similar, take a few months out to get some space from it and then chip away at it.

Actually she can graduate without doing the dissertation, it would however be without honors if she has 300 credits. It would restrict her on postgraduate options though

If she has been unable to do her undergraduate dissertation, I am afraid she will find a Masters very hard indeed.

I could have written your post OP. I have a Ftm university student daughter. You mentioned this in your OP and I wonder if your daughters studies have been compromised by online friends? My daughters have been. The overseas people seem to be all about the cause and nothing about building a full life. The utter shite my daughter is subject to at times is breathtaking. My daughters university has a LGBT group and a separate trans offshoot. They seem to be an academic bunch at least (a few PhD students etc).
My daughter ticked the parental support box when she joined so I do get informed re any serious issue. She has SEMH and has a communication difficulty so she can do resits or have reasonable adjustments. Everything is harder with the life trans people choose. I just wanted to give you some support on this issue.

But @GatherlyGal & her DC haven't heard yet about this.

It will bsolutely depend on the individual university's teaching regulations (which the OP can look up on the university website). Each university is different.

However, at my place, we'fd listen to a case for mitigation, and give an extension. Although given @GatherlyGal 's description of her DC, we'd be looking also at a welfare case, including a "Fitness to STudy" assessment, as it doesn't sound as though the student is in a good place overall.

THe worst that could happen would be a resit with a cap at 40%, but in these circumstances, I'd be looking at a "resit as first sit" so the student would have access to the full range of marks.

One of the things I'd be looking at is the student's fitness to complete. It's no good giving an extension if there are deeper problems, and we fnd ourselves at the same place (ie student paralysed & unable to write the diss) at the end of the summer. Hence the "Fitness to study" enquiry.

@GatherlyGal my really heartfelt advice is for you to support your DC to engage with the mitigation process, to stop being avoidant, take on any & all advice about techniques to just Get.It.Done! And not to see support (eg fitness to study/welfare intervention) as "failure."

Huh? Where on earth are you getting that the Op's dc's tutor was unsupportive??

Does your daughter have DSA funding for a specialist study skills tutor?

I don't know what that is @Canadeeio24 so no. She has extra time for some written work and exams but that's all.

DSA = Disabled Students Allowance @GatherlyGal

https://www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowance-dsa

Support can vary depending on disability but my DS1 (ASD/ADHD) is finishing his final year and he was awarded a set number of hours' support per year with a specialist study skills tutor, also welfare support. His skills support tutor has been an absolute gamechanger.

He was also awarded additional hours of support this year because he'd used up his allocation and the DSA contact got in touch to ask if he needed more - he requested a further 15 hours, with back-up evidence to explain why (also mental health challenges and burn out, in his case), and was awarded these very quickly.

I don't know if you can do a last-minute application for DSA now but it's got to be worth at least asking the question for DD. (DS's tutor was an incredible support with his dissertation, helping to keep him on track week by week and sometimes just taking 10 minutes of a session to have a chat and buoy his spirits up).

The critical thing now is for your DD to submit her extenuating circumstances form ASAP and ideally get medical back up/doctors note if possible for the mental health burnout to submit along with it. If she goes get an extension (and definitely if she goes on to eventually do a masters) make sure she applies for DSA!

My heart goes out to both of you, it is so tough trying to support our ND young adults. They need to learn to do stuff themselves but it is so much harder for them than it is for other students.

On the Student Finance form you can tick the DSA box to access funded support at uni. This alerts the uni student support team and you can use previous assessments or a post 16 one to identify any support required via a Needs Assessment and they help put it in place. Such as a mentor, IT, access to adapted or quiet accommodation, liaison with the academic department for adjustments.

I threw my dissertation together in 4 very stressful days. It is possible. I still got a 2:1 BSc (hons). It is possible to do it.

For my MSc I had to resubmit my dissertation proposal 3 times due to extenuating circumstances. I still passed. Get her to do her best and do it now. If she gets high grades normally she will be able to scrap through this.

Has your DC fully engaged with all the support that's available? A student such as you describe would have a lot of available support at my place. But they'd have to ask for it in the first place (otherwise, how would we know?) and then engage with the staff supporting them.

But it sounds as though your DC has been avoidant. THat's the hardest kind of student to help. Support is there, but it's up to the student to ask for it, and use it.

If she's done the research and planning already, it should be quite doable to cobble it together especially if she asks for an extension. All she needs is a giant kick up the jacksy!

She will definitely get another attempt and If they accept her reasons the grade may not be capped. Depending on university policy if she registers as an 'exam only' student next year there may not even be any additional fees.