Starting uni full time in September, having a wobble!

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Reassure me being a student mum can be done!

I have 2 DSs, 4 and 20 months. DH works locally and my timetable is not too hefty so only 20 hours of childminding a week and we can manage drop offs and pick ups between us. We have family willing to help too.

I'm starting a psychology degree. I've spent the last 4 years off and on doing OU psychology and am using those courses as my entrance qualifications.

I know the workload will be hefty, but for 1st and probably part of 2nd year, I will be covering stuff I've already done with the OU.

I have been at home with the boys for almost 2 years now after taking redundancy after mat leave. Doing it now feels like a great opportunity to get a qualification and change career (or go back to my old field, but better qualified). And I'll be off during the school holidays with them so it seems like that's a benefit too.

My mum is a bit catsbumface about me 'leaving' my DC to study. But surely it's an investment in my future, and their future? Or am I being self-indulgent? I just want to get cracking with my degree, use my brain properly to fully learn a subject I love, and get out of the house and feel like an individual person again. DH is totally supportive of me doing this but other people's mixed reactions and negativity is getting me down.

Please tell me you have successfully juggled kids and study :)

Kate can you talk to your tutor and ask for some support? My uni has a mentoring service, check if yours has one and sign up for some help. Speaking to someone who has been there and done it could be helpful?

Try and look at it in smaller chunks - take each subject you're doing, note the assessment dates and see if you could plan time to make sure you can do it?

Thanks everyone, my tutur does not start till 1st Oct but I am going to speak to one of the other tutors tomorrow. I feel like a complete idiot. Iasked about timetable etc before I acepted my place and it sounded ok but now I have found out timetable changes from January and will mean3 pick ups by the childminderand that our placements are over the school holidays and while we are on placements it is fulltime. (whichIknewatthebeginning) kids are 9 and 5 so still very young for me to be studying but I have been out of work a longtime with no hope of getting a job and I though a degree would help.

First day done. I feel about 103! quite overwhelmed and want to be 3 or 4 weeks in and then I'll feel more comfortable I suspect.

Oscar, I feel ancient as well. Made the mistake of going to a student union welcome talk (by accident) and came out feeling like Methuselah - lots of 'wackiness'

Is it awful to want to treat university sort of like a job - come in, do the work, hopefully get in ok with the people I work with, then go home? There's lots of talk about 'getting involved' with various campus activities but I feel I won't have the time/energy to do anything extra-curricular but feel this is somehow bad of me and will be frowned on

That's how I feel too. I'm sure they'll be people i naturally fall in with but I doubt I'll be joining them at revolution, etc. although I do intend to have at least one night on the (cheap) lash.

Arf at feeling ancient. I find it worse when I've got PMT and people are 'being young and hilarious', cue me with a cat's bum face.

Ok, second day in and already had a group project with a bunch of 18 and 19 years olds. One of the guys was shocked when I told him I'm 34, he kept his mouth open and thought I was joking, then said...'so you're like proper old'

I wasn't offended because he thought I was younger

34 is proper old though. (I'm 32 and wind dh up about being my old man, he is 34.)

I have my paperwork to sign for council tax and rail card all ready but semester two is not working out so will go and sort that tomorrow too I hope. At the moment my timetable has me in on one day for an hour! As if!

Hello

I start health and Social Policy...induction next week...at the ripe old age of 49!

For me,it's not small dcs'/childcare that's the problem...it is because I also work p/t. I am atm working lots' of overtime due to lack of staff,and although I am only contracted for 20 hrs,work have had me in over 5 days.

Work have said they will move my days around to try accomodate uni,as uni have stated about 16 hrs in lectures,etc.

Won't get my timetable until next week,but already worrying about fitting everything in..and that I have bitten off too much

Timetable sorted. It seems very empty but having had one of the course administrators check it for me it seems fine. I start properly next week.

I am starting a full time course next week, am doing the BA in one year! am very worried that i have taken on too much, but figure its one last year and its done and dusted.

finished my foundation degree this summer, and had a terrible time juggling the 4 teens , one with new and what was thought to be a major health problem and deaths in the family, all on top of working part time and running the home, after school stuff, etc etc.

am 46btw so well old now. getting stronger glasses the more i study, and more grey hair with the amount of juggling and 'to do' lists above my head.

Well today was good - I spoke to someone! Granted, it was after someone kicked my crutch out of the way and let a heavy wooden door slam in my face, but I think it counts. I spent the morning in the library going over reading for the afternoon lecture, got some lunch and hobbled along to the lecture hall. Lecture went really well, understanding a bit more each day, but the crush to get out of the doors at the end drives me mad, being swamped by a swarm of eighteen year olds (who all look like rejects from Little Mix - even the boys) isn't fun, especially when a few of the spoilt princess types girls decided I was FAR TOO AWKWARD to be stuck behind, pushed past me, kicked my crutch out from under me and let the door swing shut in my face. Thankfully there was a lovely girl beside me who saw the whole thing and shouted obscenities at them as they swooped away down the stairs. Some people can be lovely, other people can be dicks.

Welcome crazynanna :) hope it works out, that's great your work are trying to accommodate you.

I don't have time for extra curricular stuff either and I also want to treat it like a job Pegotty.

I also feel ancient at 32, but those I told were really surprised so that made me feel a bit better :o

The upside to that is that I am much more organised. I've ordered textbooks, done homework, printed off module handbooks and generally kept my shit together and the kids my fellow students are somewhat less organised :o

They also want to work with me in the group work during tutorials as I'm happy to talk in class and have experience in the subject etc and that's a good feeling. I may not be going out on the piss with them or be as cool but am managing to fit in!

that's shit cat, the little gits!

OK so today I ended up crying infront of the course manager as I explained that 6months full time placement in year 2 is putting me off wanting to enrol, he was very kind and very surprised and suggestedI put off enrolling for a week to see how I feel. It was freshers today and I felt very old. There are older people on the course but within my tutor group I am the oldest by 8 years!!!! does not seem alot but I am the only one without facial piercings!

glad you are all settling in.

I met some more of me fellow undergrads today. The urge to go around pulling up trousers was almost too strong to resist!

Do all your children of the corn young students look like rejects from Little Mix too? I've seen more fake tan and ridiculous hair in the last week than I have in years - and that's just the boys.

Oh god, I sound just like my mum...!

HAHAHAHA! That's a good description Cat. I did snigger when the head of department called us all geeks yesterday. Shocked they were, shocked! Whereas I'm pleased to be a geek. I do think some of them must be putting hours into their styles, gravity defying are some of the quiffs on show.

Straight quiffs, curly quiffs, shaved bits, non-ironic MULLETS. The kids of today are a mix of 50's teddyboys and 80's soft-rock, denim-clad, Red Stripe loving oddballs.

When I were a girl it were all fields round here, huge Creme Eggs, no-one locked their doors was first at uni, twelve years ago, it was all duffle coats, shaggy, messy hair and hoodies. We were far more concerned with staying warm, obviously.

Day off today, I've done the Asda grocery shopping online (no way am I wasting the day up their aisles!) and I think I'll make a nice big pot of soup for lunch. DS has today and Monday off school, so he's making the most of the birthday gifts he got on Wednesday. If this carries on I might be able to get some more reading done later...

We also had non-ironic mullets and non-ironic massive glasses. We also have white girl with MASHOOSIVE dreds died blue?!

Well it's a majority of older/mature students on my course as it turns out - the few teenagers there are look like frightened rabbits caught in headlights. I sort of know how they feel as there are a few 'strong' personalities amoung the mature students, and even I'm wondering where I might fit in as I'm an out and out introvert.

I'm hoping it'll all settle down soon - I'm always quiet and inhibited before I get to know people and it's such a small group I'm sure I'll find a place in it. But I feel quite protective towards the younger members and think I'll go and talk to them on Monday about how it must be hard for them to be on the minority!

P.s kate, how are you getting on? Have you made any decisions yet?

I'm sure it all settle down as we get to know each other and natural groups/friendships will happen.

I enrolled on Friday as I was feeling positive and even had coffee with a few people so was feeling better. However today I am back to feeling like an outsider and I was annoyed when the lecturer finished at 1pm instead of the timetabled 5pm and said some weeks would be like that. So I have wasted £39.50 on a childminder for my 3 dc. I guess once we have work I will be pleased of the study time away from the kids but today when I miss them so much I could have cried (again) n.b I am not usually this emotional, I feel embarrssed that I have started uni and within a week hate it and want to quit but don't want to lose face!

Kate I also feel very up and down emotionally, and I would be totally annoyed with a timetable change which wasted money on childcare too! It sounds like things are improving a little though?

I feel really disheartened about being the only mature student in my year :( They are such a young bunch, just out of school, and when I sit with them at lunch I just have nothing to say, their conversations revolve around such inane stuff, it is so boring and cringey I prefer to sit on my own! I hope I don't sound like an old grump, but I really don't want to talk about who fancies who

I cannot believe how awful their social skills are, I just feel so awkward and unwelcome, lots of shuffling and hanging back so they can sit with those they are friendly with in lectures instead of me, I feel like such an outsider :( not relishing 4 years like this. It's like being the unpopular one at school!

I'm really enjoying the lectures and tutorials though, and learning lots of new things on a subject I love :) So hopefully as my fellow students grow up get to know me it will get easier.