Uni is just over-sold and disappointing

[Greedybilly]

My lovely 19 year old has just finished Yr 1 of uni ( when did the courses end at Easter? What happened to term 3?)
She was unlucky with her flatmates who were awful to her and her course mates mostly commute.
Part time jobs are none existent and she's done umpteen trial cafe shifts only to be ghosted.
She had such high hopes and seems like a shadow of her former self. It does all feel like a massively over marketed business.
Anyone got any words of wisdom/happy endings??
Gutted for her and angry at all the hype and nonsense.

A friend of mine has a law degree and I think did the legal practice course - but ended up working in tax in a big 4 firm. The legal knowledge and way of thinking is really useful for a tax career. So even for those who don’t go into law, I think the degree can prove useful.

Not really surprising though because tax is ALL about the underlying statute law and case law. Tax experts/specialists are typically not accountants, it is more of a parallel career path. Lots of the big firms have completely separate graduate/trainee entry schemes for tax as they do for audit/accounting.

@HighLadyofTheNightCourtSome history grads are valued by employers. Not all history grads. My dd did MFLs. I can assure you some grads are going to do well regardless of academic subject, others at less good universities will struggle. Skills learned at different universities are not the same skills. Nor is time management the same or ability of the grads. Exactly the same for law. I was just really saying that large numbers of law grads don’t work in law so is it a vocational course? Not for large numbers of grads.

Absolutely - although I'm a history grad and chartered accountant who's worked in tax for 25 years! Most of the tax people I've worked with have started off as accountants, but I think in recent years the big 4 have started taking on grads do just do CTA and not ICAEW first.

Anyway, that's irrelevant to the conversation!

But now you're talking about individual students as opposed to the value of a degree subject. There are graduates from all subjects and all universities who won't be employed in a career which is directly related to the degree they studied. That might be through choice or might be because they can't get a job in that sector.

The most recent study from the Institute of Student Employers was very clear that employers are more focused on the broader skillset rather than technical skills and knowledge. They work with graduate employers directly and it's up to us as universities to take that on board and ensure our curriculum is preparing our students for what the graduate labour market wants.

We offer a range from 16 yr kids at FE college through to degree level.

I only asked because I see people talking about degree apprenticeships as an alternative to 'poor' university provision when in fact the degree apprenticeships are still delivered by universities and often taught by the same staff delivering the equivalent traditional degree!

My eldest two are at very different instuttions doing very different courses (both ones that they are passionate aboit/interested in) but found a bit the opposite. Don't rate their courses and disappointed in the provision but making the most of everything around them and enjoying themselves.

Both doing well. Dd was in halls full of mature students and overseas students but she made friends all over. It did take a little while though.

From a parent's perspective I would say that the non Russell group uni seems way more caring and the staff way more invested in the students. I know it won't be the same everywhere but just out experience.

@Travelban The non RG are coaching more because too msny students are not university ready with research and essay skills. So they coach to get them to an acceptable standard. Thats not necessarily a high standard. I’m anazed at older students. Has she gone into very expensive halls? My DDs never had this. Or loads of international students either. Most students were 18/19. It’s quite important to look at halls and who chooses them.

One of my degrees is scientific, well both have it in the name I suppose.

It was made clear even more in the degree more in line with what you are thinking (biomedical science) that this is exactly what was expected. And exactly what we a did. It was a decent university but not very top, but the biomed department was top 2 in Europe at the time and that was what was expected from us.

It has dropped a lot lower a few decades later, which is a little annoying. I was happy to get my degree and still am, but it doesn't look quite as good if someone judged purely today.

We had seminars we could attend if we wanted, but overall I am not sure how some of what you mentioned fits with what I was talking about.

I feel sad for teenagers these days. I went to uni in the late 90s and feel the whole experience was much better compared to what I hear now. Obviously the country being broke and the huge rise in mental health issues among young people doesn't help.

I'd say it was better in some ways - when I went in '97, you could count on your peers to turn up more often than not, and to have done the reading and probably more reading than required, too. But academics got away with a lot less than we do now in terms of, for example, the extent and timeliness of feedback, levels of seminar preparation, support, and availability. On the whole I think that way was actually better: we were treated like adults and mostly behaved as though we were. But tuition fees killed all that, I think.

I think some of it is rose tinted spectacles. I don't think it's that different really - my kids have the same number of contact hours, the same types of tasks and exams as I had, but they have the benefit of catching up on a recorded lecture later if need be. They've both made more friends and been way more sociable than i was - but that's confidence as much as anything, plus the benefits that phones and online contact bring.

I knew people in the 90s who dropped out and others who were unhappy, just as there were people who loved it.

I agree with a pp that research needs to be done. I remember going to a talk on applying to university at my dc’s school. I nearly had to stand up and heckle as the head trumpeted that “all universities are equal” . No they’re flippin’ not! That could be in terms of academic expectations or whether a place is a former fe college in a dilapidated 80s block with mostly local students. Dc was called a snob by her class tutor because she declined to apply to the local “university”.

Anyone can be disappointed, though, eg Sylvia Plath as an American in 1959-ish Cambridge. Ugly blue stocking professors, frumpy blue stocking students, weedy post-war young men (save for Ted Hughes), freezing rooms and being told to bog off when you go to a&e with a bad cold…

I think students had better relationships with the lecturers/tutors/teaching staff. The increase in student numbers seems to have massively diluted the contact time and availability of students being able to talk face to face with their lecturers/staff etc.

My son literally never met his "personal tutor" during the three years he was at Uni. The only communication was a couple of brief emails, one to introduce herself and the other a "hope you are doing OK" round robin email CC'd to all their students! He emailed her a couple of times with a couple of issues but was just curtly signposted to the Uni website to find contact details of someone else!

Same with lectures (not that they had many in person ones as it was all online for first two years due to covid), but even in third year, it was random whether lectures were in person or online and even with the in person ones, the lecturer would just walk away at the end rather than hang around for students to talk to if they needed.

DS said that none of his lecturers etc would even recognise him as one of their students if they passed on the corridor which I found very sad for him.

Even the "in person" seminars and tutorials were taken by other more senior students (i.e. Phd students mostly and a few MA/Msc students a year up from him), and there was no consistency with those either - often a different student "taking" a session every week.

We always laugh when we see Unis portrayed in TV progs where the students appear in the lecturer's offices for tutorials/discussions etc - it just doesn't happen these days.

I know Covid jaundiced my DS's experience of uni as during the first year (20/21) only staff who "had to be" on campus were - everyone else was told to stay home and work/teach/lecture entirely online! But it never really went back to how it used to be once the restrictions eased - he still had far too much "on line" teaching/lecturing in his third year (22/23) when there were no Covid restrictions at all, but lots of staff were still working from home!

I think it's probably better now than in covid though @Badbadbunny . Dd is just now in a meeting with her tutor to discuss her dissertation draft. Last year she did a research project and her tutor was very hands on and helpful.

We always laugh when we see Unis portrayed in TV progs where the students appear in the lecturer's offices for tutorials/discussions etc - it just doesn't happen these days.

I was chatting to my dd on Monday night, and she mentioned that she'd (spontaneously) popped into her tutor's office and he'd been happy to discuss the upcoming session with her in which they have to talk about their dissertation, and had been very helpful.

She's also mentioned previously, that when she has had timetabled tutorials / seminars / discussions groups where there have supposed to have been 8 - 12 students there, on many occasions she has been the only student who has turned up.

I've also heard similar from two lecturers I am friendly with at different universities (about students opting out of small group support they offer).
But also, they would agree it is less time offered than they used to be able to offer. One of them was telling me that one course they taught on used to have around 150 students registered on it, and, about 8 years ago, suddenly there were 250 students registered on it. No additional lecturers, so, when you do the maths - aside from time marking exams, and time marking assignments - that actual time for personal time with students is very much diluted from what it was even 10 years ago.

When I was at uni in the 90s we had no contact with our lecturers outside tutorials and seminars and no named tutors. I have more contact with tutors at the ou than I did then

More or less the same when I did a post grad in 2004. Saw them at lectures only both face to face and online

God, that's not my experience as a student or as a lecturer. I would have never showed up at my tutors' offices randomly. Barely emailed, either. Now, students seem very happy just to rock up with questions.

I know some universities handled Covid poorly, and were slow to return to in-person teaching, but not all, by any means.

And finally - if I (and likely most lecturers) 'walk away' at the end of the lecture it is because either someone else is waiting to use the room, or I am imminently teaching another session somewhere else. People do forget that lecturers have more on that just that one group, or just that one student.

And finally - if I (and likely most lecturers) 'walk away' at the end of the lecture it is because either someone else is waiting to use the room, or I am imminently teaching another session somewhere else. People do forget that lecturers have more on that just that one group, or just that one student.

Absolutely - and other responsibilities!
I once had a student put in a formal complaint about me because I wasn't available to speak to him directly after a lecture as I had a prior commitment.
That prior commitment was my PhD viva!

Really?

I have a DC are at the same university I went to. There were office hours in the early 90s and there are office hours now. No difference.

I always used to think - this was 30 years ago - that students who sought out lecturers continually were struggling. If you're clever and work hard you really shouldn't need to consult your lecturers or tutors all the time. I achieved 85%+ (1:1) from almost the beginning and probably only had a few conversations about my dissertation. Maybe some of the students nowadays are used to being spoon feeding, whether that is at school or through parents?
Must be frustrating for lecturers though. Not saying that student shouldn't approach and ask questions, but often the questions I overheard were rather banal.

Yes really.

@Badbadbunny

We always laugh when we see Unis portrayed in TV progs where the students appear in the lecturer's offices for tutorials/discussions etc - it just doesn't happen these days

I can assure you that it does.

Yes, it absolutely does. Plenty of students never take advantage of the possibility of individual tutorials, and, dare I say it, some probably tell their concerned mothers 'no, I can't have a tutorial and ask my 'uni teacher' how to do better: she's literally never in her office' - but very, very, many do some combination of randomly dropping in, emailing to ask for an appointment, or using the booking system.