Son not allowed to continue to second year at uni

[PocketSand]

DS2 has just completed his first year in an engineering degree. His results are all over the place from 1st in maths to 2:2 to required resits. He exceeded the A level grade requirements for MEng. He is autistic and has ADHD. He was un medicated prior to and during most of his first year due to shortages followed by referral to cardiology.

His DSA support didn't start til the spring term and one support worker provided 1 hour support when 30 hours was approved. He constantly tells the one he has seen that everything is fine and they believe him.

He always says everything is fine and doesn't ask for help. He has never been to the library and relies totally on lecture notes. He doesn't know what independent study is. I have always been his advocate but now he is expected to advocate for himself. No one at the uni knows these issues - he has not even contacted his personal tutor let alone disability services and just thinks he needs to work harder.

He found out today that he has failed his third submission of a lab report he initially submitted in February. He did not have DSA agreed support at that time so he didn’t have his own laptop. He borrowed another student’s at the time but when he had to resubmit no longer had access to his results and so he tried to cobble together a report using specimen (and maybe someone else’s results - not clear). He had previously received an email saying he couldn’t proceed unless he passed resubmission. I assume that’s where we are at now.

His feedback is harsh - shouldn’t study for a degree if not prepared to use feedback to improve his work. Trouble is he often doesn’t understand the feedback and he is unwilling to ask for clarification as he fears tutor’s anger. He says he doesn’t know who marked the work so doesn’t know who to talk to and seems generally clueless about most administrative issues.

I feel completely in the dark and don’t know where to go from here. Obviously I don’t want to just give up and accept his journey ends here as it seems very unfair but don’t know what I can do to try and enable him to fix this or if it can be fixed.

Can anyone who knows the system provide advice on next steps please?

I would question whether engineering is his forte, considering Maths seems to be where he excels.

He needs to speak to DSA. They would have arranged for a laptop straight away. His tutors also need to be aware of his needs.

Where does he see himself when he’s graduated? If he is struggling at Uni, he will struggle far more in the engineering world of work. Maths would seem a more sensible route since he’s clearly good at it without becoming overwhelmed. Plenty of jobs involving maths and generally in a quieter environment.

It’s all a spectrum, innit? 😁

My initial response was mainly to do with the OU suggestion - because it’s almost entirely self motivated, I know that I’d personally really struggle to get anything done as there are no intermediate deadlines in the way that a taught degree has them - and more of the study is self led which I really fall down on. It wasn’t a suggestion that anyone should aim to live at just-before-overwhelm levels of pressure! Just that sometimes the motivating factor is HAVING to get a piece of work done.

I don’t think anyone starts uni without a laptop. Him not realising he needs one suggests he’s not ready

Excellent advise.

Help him draft emails to his personal tutor and/or the head of his course/programme (different names different unis). Ask can he swap to BEng (there might be slightly lower requirements) or does he definitely need to repeat the year. If it is just one small assignment and he is otherwise set up to succeed in the 2nd year then he might be able to do an academic appeal on disability grounds and be allowed to resubmit lab report, or sometimes they set a different equivalent task for the lab report retake for Engineering. Again I would draft an appeal with him so he learns about dealing with officialdom .
But how settled is he? If he’s at an RG uni he might do better swapping to somewhere like Portsmouth which will have better support (because teaching is more of a core concern). Engineering is hard so as pp. mention, maybe a different degree would suit him better. But if he does retake the year, he is highly unlikely to the only one. Over 10% of students were retaking first year Engineering alongside my DC.

and in answer to pp, lots of students don’t have laptops, this became more visible during COVID when lecturers realised how many we’re borrowing from the library as and when needed and then suddenly didn’t have access just when everything went online.
Hope you can help him find a way that is right for him
sorry can’t remove accidental quote

Advice

I agree, I imagine that a degree in engineering will be of little use to him as if he is unable to engage with colleagues, work in a team, accept that not all his ideas will work , keep to deadlines independently, and recognise where his own weaknesses lie.

As someone upthread has said can he , after engagement with the University , negotiate a transfer to another degree course, maybe maths as he seems to be able to keep on top of things.

But I do agree with other posters, I know you hope you are sending your child off to develop and grow when they go to University, but you seem to have assumed that his problems would miraculously disappear , and by doing so , and not making sure he had contacted all the support people available, let alone not sending him with his own laptop, you have let him sink.

Contact the university and explain this to them. Get a note from the gp about the period in which he couldn’t take his medication.

@PocketSand wish I had more to offer but just wanted to say I’m in exactly this position. Joint hons and failed the easier part, top marks in the more challenging subject. My DC doesn’t want my help and it’s been a hard lesson for both of us as I can’t step in and fix it - he needs to. However frustrated I am that he didn’t try and access support earlier, the ADHD shame spiral is a real thing. Mental health for ND people is poor generally on top of this as you know and definitely doesn’t help in these circumstances.

I’ve had well meaning people say university isn’t perhaps for him. I understand why they would say that. However he’s certainly bright enough and wants to do it but needs much better support. He could really succeed if he did - he has 5 a levels at A and A* as the support was there. I know that’s a different level but still.

My DS did manage to get support from student services to help with his appeal to be allowed to resit. The appeal was turned down. However he has since managed to speak to a senior staff member (dean or deputy dean level) and is now being allowed to resit. He has supplied evidence from GP etc to support his request.

I’ve learned that each Uni handles DSA differently - some really proactive … others not. And parents have no role in facilitating. I can only conclude that many stumble and fall before getting proper support. (If they get it)

You might be able to figure out the process from their web page … or get DS to log into student portal with you to start a process.

DS needs to self refer, might need to start with a peer mentor. The thought of peer mentor might be really awful for some, but maybe it does help.

There are some horrible and horribly harsh messages here.

DD has a similar profile and despite getting all the necessary paperwork in place well before she started, it took till the second semester to get her support in place and even then some things were not in place till the end of her first year.

Good luck going forward OP. At least he is letting you help now.

Very surprised by the unhelpful and downright hostile responses here.

@PocketSand this is hard to deal with here but as a senior academic at a Russell Group uni with decades of experience dealing with student welfare issues (and having a son who sounds exactly the same as yours),I would say this.

You have to talk to the uni, obviously, when/if you get his permission.

His personal tutor might be very helpful but they are variable.

His department should have its OWN welfare/wellbeing officers. Find them and contact them.

He has the right to appeal his results. For the appeal to go ahead, they will want to understand why he didn’t bring it up at the time (his general problems). That’s easily answered - it’s his disability.

The appeal should argue that his assessment has not taken his disability into account, and this is literally the only thing he needs to pass.

The fact he’s exhausted his ‘takes’ of the assessment won’t matter because the appeal panel will reverse that, if they accept his appeal. Appeals are very often accepted.

All the best.

There is only so much a university can do! If he can’t be honest with the course team, can’t grasp the concept of independent study and doesn’t access the library he’s not going to actually benefit from getting a degree!

What are his plans post uni?

You say dsa authorised 30 hours support, that is 1 hour per week. After the initial session did he book the next? You say the alternative is failing his degree. He has not failed and you should not couch it as such. Not passing first year is not the same thing. Plenty of students resit a year and get the degree. However even an academic degree(assume you mean Maths) requires independent study and research beyond guided learning hours. Would a foundation year perhaps help him adapt and learn self study skills.

Some of this is very harsh. University is a massive learning curve, which he is probably feeling at the moment. It's impossible to make any kind of judgement about his 'suitability' as things stand, because all things aren't equal - he hasn't received support that was supposed to assist him on this massive learning curve. Communication is quite literally something people may need support with. Someone even suggested that the fact he's not staying away from home for uni means he's not suited which is nonsense.

For a first step, speaking to both him and disability support is a good idea so it sounds like you've got the start of an idea how to move forward.

Can he transfer to just maths or would he be better considering a higher apprenticeship in say data analysis?

Unfortunately I don't think your son is being completely honest with you. I don't think the laptop part is an issue as most uni's have massive libraries with multiple floors of available PCs to work on. Ours has a quiet room with PCs for silent study and you can book quiet rooms with PC access. For my sons course they had dedicated study labs with specialised software to work on their assignments. All these were accessible 24/7. I also think the tutors have to sign the feedback and many or second marked (also signed) - at least this was true when I was there three years ago.

Absolutely agree. In law, the Equality Act protects disabled people from discrimination, the OP’s son is entitled to support and reasonable adjustments, the issue is over communicating need, it is not a blame game, the disability is the very thing which is standing as an obstacle.
To be fair, many students without disabilities find the transition to university hard, it is a huge learning curve in adult life.

Has he considered doing an engineering apprenticeship? This would be more hands on, but with a lot of support available to him through a personal tutor, smaller groups etc

Sadly it sounds like neither of you were prepared for uni, op. I emphasised over and over again to my Dd that university is all about self directed study and looking for support when you need it, it sounds like your son is floundering and maybe it would be kinder if he deferred his next year and instead spent it getting prepared, i.e maybe doing a study skills course and seeking out universities that have the support he needs. It's not impossible but just needs a bit more prep.

If he lives at home is there really not a single computer in the house he could have used then he would have the results to refer to. Also there’s computers in uni libraries. He perhaps isn’t mature enough for uni yet or is used to you sorting everything because going a whole year and not stepping foot in the library is ludicrous.

Remember uni isn’t for everyone he could get a modern apprenticeship or something

How did he manage at sixth form or college? This feels to me like a problem that is more complicated than autism and adhd.

I can't help with current info about the system, but I wanted to say that this story sounds exactly like me when I got to uni. I was at or near the top of the class in most subjects at school and found my A-levels a doddle. Then I got to undergraduate level (at a very good uni in the late 1970s) and it turned out that everyone else had been top of their class found their A-levels a doddle. I got an average grade of a 3rd in my first year exams and had to radically buck my ideas up.

Looking back, the reason was that the level of understanding required was more profound than for A-levels. I would get back from a lecture (this was in a STEM area) with an example sheet with 8 assignments on it. 1 to 4 were easy. 5 was quite hard, but I would do it by applying general intelligence. 6 was a lot harder and ooh look, squirrel/pub/sports club/etc. Yet it was examples 6, 7, and 8 that tested if you'd understood the lecture. 1 through 4 were just to see if you'd listened.

Some unis are more supportive than others. Ask my children.

I think you need to get permission to be more involved.

With hindsight we found that you need to complain at the time, not after things have gone pear shaped.

ie if your personal tutor doesn’t respond to emails, requests for help etc complain there and then.

Appeal, ask for a deferral, work with them when/if he can continue with his studies.

All the best.

Few thoughts - I am a uni lecturer - firstly, does he have a student support profile? If not, he really needs one as that will give all sorts of accommodations. It might also be worth seeing if there is a writing support centre as that will help him too. Lastly, can you be added as an advocate? Universities do allow that and it may mean you can fill in gaps as needed. I hope this helps a little as there is support there, it’s just often a bit gate-kept.