Study abroad - so stressful

[StudyAbroad]

My son is doing a 4 year degree with a year study abroad. It is not a foreign language degree. The whole process has been fairly admin intensive and stressful from choosing which universities to apply to, housing, visa etc, but by far the most stressful aspect has been finding enough modules that both his home and host university would agree to. There have been many twists and turns, but since February he has been asking for help as he was struggling to find enough modules. He raised this with host university, home university study abroad team and his department study abroad person. He was always told to just keep looking.

Anyway he did this and found enough modules and then the timetable came out last week and he has a clash. He has been told by host university that it is too late to add more modules. 😡There was no way of him knowing there would be a clash before the deadline for choosing modules had passed.

He has emailed host and home university and is getting little to no support. They have all gone quiet on him.

It is just so demoralising. It feels like on paper it seems like a good idea, but in reality the host and home universes are not compatible and what the host is offering just doesn't work.

I am not sure what the point of this post is. Maybe to ask if others have found this a difficult process - what we should be doing? Who should we be pressuring to sort this out?

I am, in fact, correct. I have worked in this field for over 20 years and I know how it works. Regardless of who pays the fees and the level of study, any student aged 18 or over is considered an adult and the relationship the university has is with them and them alone. Of course parents may speak to Finance Offices, if their child has given permission for them to do so. That doesn’t change their status from the perspective of the university. This isn’t a grey area in any way, and you’ve yet to come up with any evidence suggesting otherwise.

@coldcalling It makes the year a jolly if no work is done. Not the whole degree. Many students don’t even have to acquire another language or two, they just turn up. Other students have to do a lot of work and take exams and the year must be passed so entirely different.