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.

in the current market, anything besides STEM is prob a waste of time and can be done as a hobby.. so yes, those useless degrees are being marketed and used to make money for the uni. but then again not everyone is ‘cut out’ to do theoretical physics at cambridge..

@Greedybilly
Reassure her with not everyone loves their experience. The first year flats are very hit and miss too, and the stories of people meeting their bff on the first day when they found they were sharing a room are definitely exaggerated in numbers! More often people find their best friends later on, even in the 2nd year or later.

But encourage her to try a few societies. Sometimes the silly ones can be a lot of fun, like a "tiddlywinks society" or "eating cheese" etc because they're full of people who don't really have a strong interest but want to have fun.

I always said to my dc that if they were lonely (or hungry) to join the CU or a local church. They can be honest that they just want friends (or food, I remember a friend at uni saying that the CU had more food than the "Food and Drink" society 😁) and they may end up sitting through a few things that they don't particularly enjoy, but they may also find a group they can run with. Local church either a student one will often offer social events (usually round food!) or a non-student one, may find people feeling very motherly towards her and give her a safety net there.l

My oldest didn't really enjoy uni in her first two years (tbf year 2 was a washout socially due to covid) but loved her third year because she got involved with a theatre group. Theatre's another one where if she can find a group, they're often looking for backstage, whether that's tech, costumes or just shifting scenery. And working together gets a good atmosphere.

Unfortunately I think she does have to put a step out to find friends, but encourage her to know that she is no means alone. And many of the people who on the face of it are loving it, are also screaming inside that this isn't what they wanted.

Sorry but this is completely untrue.

I felt the same at 19. Moved out of home, to a different country. Flunked my first year. It was really difficult. I cried on the phone to my mum… Luckily I had nice flatmates, though.

I am a mature student and my course doesn’t end until May and exams until June. Sounds like she should move to a new university.

Even Stem courses can be naff. Mine was a complete waste of money (admittedly years ago!) and I recruit engineers. Some of them leave university with barely any skills suitable for the actual workplace.

and to think that they're allowed to charge £9000 a year!

@oldshprite Really? Many high earning lawyers would not agree! Plus we need a variety of skills in any workplace. If everyone is a scientist, forget good teaching in schools. I believe all academic degrees have some value to society and we need all intelligent people to aim for good jobs, but it’s important to note that some stem degrees are not fit for purpose and those doing them aren’t the brightest or the best.

It’s course and subject dependent. There will be courses at your university which have a different delivery pattern to yours.
At the end of the day all undergraduate students are studying for the same number of credits but delivery patterns can differ for a range of reasons.

True, but in 3 degrees I’ve never had teaching end at Easter…

Doesn’t mean it’s not common though! In my department I have a mix with some courses taught pretty much all year round and others finishing formal teaching in April with May/June focusing on assessments, marking, moderation and exam boards.

Sometimes it can depend when Easter is - early Easter often means there is some teaching taking place after the Easter break.
Professional or lab based courses often mean more teaching in term 3 dues to additional practical elements.

sure we need all sorts of skills. what we dont need is another ba business studies, marketing, or international relations waste of money and time. law may be high earning but i wonder if AI will wipe it out in due time? not all stem is good, true. but most bs degrees are not stem

In the current climate I would suggest that we need more international relations graduates! It’s a subject that is VERY popular in overseas markets, particularly Asia.
Marketing is a fairly buoyant sector and the skills are valued across a range of industries/jobs.

I went because I needed it for the job I do. Vocational course. Early on I got involved with a girl who had obvious issues and she led me a merry dance for 2 years. I was 18 and thought I was helping. 😃I didn't mind the last year but I was kind of over uni by then. Alot of students moved home after uni many miles away so we kind of lost touch. I wouldn't mind if my dc didnt want to go

Whatever you do - don't look at the course list for Falmouth Uni. It'll drive you mad! 😂

I have just seen a whole marketing team get made redundant and swapped for Canva and AI. And a woman with an English degree (she can write well!)

What a shame. My uni years are stand-out the best years of my life. It's so dependent on your initial roommates though, I'm so sorry she's had a bad time with them. I thought all the mean girl energy stopped after high school.

I agree about the societies. Is she sporty? Any opportunity to make new friends is a good one.

As a Uni professor of many years I want to point out that the teaching terms and what happens in them hasn’t changed in twenty years. Term 3 has always been for exams and assessments. Except that pre COVID all of it was in person and now it isn’t. But maybe rampant AI cheating will bring back more in person assessment. But when I was at Uni I stayed around in May and June because I needed the library to revise (this is how old I am) and because exams had to be taken in person.

The other thing that’s changed is that our young people are less grown up than before. Last year I had parents asking to attend induction lectures in Welcome Week. And several of them. The number of parents who write to us on a regular basis has increased. And conversely students seek us out less. No one comes to designated office hours. They don’t tell us about problems till it is too late.
I always say to my students ‘come and talk to us about ANY aspect of Uni life and we will try and find a solution.’ Very few take us up on it- but so many don’t submit assignments on time and then we can see through their extenuating circumstances forms that they have gone through stuff and we could have helped! Interestingly we also find really low uptake on events we organise including careers events. We sought some feedback from students and they said they found say a ‘coffee morning’ very hard because it meant having to mingle and talk to people (which was the point) and that they saw careers events being advertised but because someone hadn’t told them to go, they didn’t. So please reach out for help- even if it’s about mean roommates and be as proactive as you can. Go to things, attend things, go to seminars and lectures and stuff happening and Uni life will seem a lot less dull.

@PotolKimchi You are describing people who are unemployable! What are they doing at university? No wonder employers don’t trust degrees!

@HighLadyofTheNightCourt We do not need more IR grads! There are very bright young people who are taking many academic degrees and they can easily adapt. The MFL grads are more useful in many ways as they understand cultures. The FO isn’t just full of IR grads who think they know everything in 3 years. The important thing for us is to have students of high intellect in senior positions, not people from one degree route.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner I do worry about my students. And they have told me in focus groups that actually AI has made it worse. First there was COVID. Now instead of talking to each other, they talk to ChatGPT.
When I put them into groups to discuss a problem- they just won’t speak to each other. I am not the only one who has this issue. And it has dramatically changed over the last decade. Of course there are shy students and more outgoing ones. Those who blag and those who are diligent but quiet. But even at a top RG Uni students don’t do the readings, are relying on ChatGPT summaries and barely engage. And so of course Uni feels disappointing!

The students who do the best are not the ones who are academically the best but the ones who put themselves out there. Come to events, come to extra talks, find me in my office hour to ask how they can improve, take some initiative. Go to our Careers Office. We had a CV and cover letter writing workshop for all years (approx 600 undergrads) and 2 turned up. I know AI can do it all, but we had someone come in to talk about how to make theirs stand out. No uptake! One of my students once organised a reading group and asked me to join. (This was a while ago when I had tiny kids and so nursery runs and you know what, I joined it, because I appreciated the extra bit). So even if they don’t have the top grades I will write a glowing reference for a student who pushes themselves out of their comfort zone. But we have fewer such students- vanishingly small number. I think a lot of students come expecting secondary school with more freedom and are shocked when it isn’t like that.

It takes loads of uni kids more than a year to find their friendship group. A lot of the first year friendships don’t turn into long term life long friends anyway. I hope things get better for her - I agree it’s a lot of money and hyped as the time of your life but for a lot of kids it’s really not. Please reassure her that it’s not just her (even if it feels like it is) and things will get better.

I think part of the problem is that they can’t even change their minds and move unis.

I totally understand why (“university is not school”, “all courses are different” etc) but what other areas of your life do you have to make a 3 or 4 year commitment to, based on a couple of short visits and some marketing material, with no chance of a plan B?

I was being flippant and essentially making the same point you are.
Graduate employers often look for skills rather than specific degree content. The idea that people should only study vocational courses doesn’t play out in the graduate labour market where many recruiters are taking a skills based approach.

@PotolKimchi That’s truly awful! I’m delighted my DDs would have ticked your boxes! I truly can see why some students will struggle to get work. I also agree top marks don’t define a top person! I can confidently say DD1 wasn’t this but has done very well in her chosen career. My DD talks for a living! She has wonderful friends who would be exactly the same! It’s a shame dc don’t have to do group exercises before getting a place at uni? (Joke obviously!) My DDs had to do this for entry to a private school. It literally says something about you.

Why don’t they want careers advice? How odd.

The other interesting thing is that students don’t want to learn these skills- esp the ‘soft skills’ that employers want in an AI world. This is what they are most resistant to learning because actually it IS pushing yourself of your comfort zone to present something, to make small talk, to defend a particular point of view.
”Work” in the real world is almost always “group work” but students are increasingly reluctant and opt out of it, doing the minimum. Actually it teaches you a ton of really core soft skills.

I am not saying this is OP’s daughter btw. But as this is the HE board I thought I would tell you why it’s also frustrating from the other side and if you have young people going to Uni please tell them to leave their rooms, join in, muck in, come and see their tutors as often as they can and want to, and throw themselves into Uni life and take risks!

I think this is an excellent post.

The problem with this thread is that the OP hasn't started a thread to say

"My dd has struggled with her first year at Uni. Has anyone else had a similar experience and can offer suggestions, or 'happy ending' stories ?"

She came on and started blaming Universities in general for things that aren't the fault of Universities. She also is somehow trying to generalise that, despite the fact her dd is enjoying her course, that the "uni {experience} is just over sold and {is} disappointing" as if that is the case for all students.
As many have said, that isn't the case for hundreds of thousands of students up and down the country, so it is a daft assertation to make.

The posters defending Universities have also offered advice and suggestions to the OP too, but she has ignored those parts of the posts and been rude to them.