Thread 41 Corona Cohort - Autumn Adventures of our Adult Children

[CinnamonOrangeCremeBrulee]

This is a support thread for our young adults post GCSEs 2020, regardless of their educational setting, and their results ( or life updates for those who went into work or have had results earlier). It is respectfully requested that all are supportive and helpful to each other. If you want to start a debate, e.g state vs private, uni vs employment please don't within this thread.

Some of us have been here since first thread back in yr10, some will be new. Everyone has been friendly and helpful in the past. Everyone is welcome. It is hoped this will continue. We were previously on the secondary board and then further education, now we shall be here in 'Parents of Adult Children' gulp

Our DS/DD may continue down various pathways ( employment, apprenticeships, higher ed). Be warned there might be lots of 'Uni Freshers' chat this time of year. My experience is that everyone is welcomed wherever, whatever their child is doing we have some in work, gap years , apprenticeships etc too. Lots of contributors with different experiences and always sympathy and support to be had !

previous thread

oops!

Had a phone call with DS last night and all seems okay so far. Says the pace of lectures is fast. He's cooking the easy stuff like sausages and jacket potatoes.

He is coming home at the weekend and going back very early Monday morning. It was going to be Sunday evening but the Saturday rail strike seems to have impacted Sunday availability. There was only first class on any train after 5pm

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn no Ds hasn't had any texts. He's only looked on sfe page.

Had a call from DS this afternoon. He's had one proper lecture so far delivered by the boring lecturer that did the taster lecture during the open day and not the interesting professor he was hoping for. He's also been cooking rice exclusively (no idea why) almost everyday. At least he's eating. Luckily, he's coming home next week for his 6week post-op appointment but suspects he may need more surgery .

Spoke to DS earlier. He was sounding much brighter in between coughing. He had his first French lecture and tutorial today, all in French, and actually met some other law and French law students. He is also being dragged along to a pro-bono law society thing this evening (the most uncharitable boy I know🤣) It involves free pizza 🍕 Hopefully this is his fresh start 😊

Pleased to hear it Mummy.
Just had long FaceTime call from ds. He's Loving it. Huge amount of work already on his 8 topics: accounting law, computing, assurance etc. He's off to dinner, then chess club.

I'd ring them, something isn't right.

@Oblomov22 I see my DS is not the only one enjoying chess club .

@mummyinbeds Glad DS is feeling better.

Student load has turned up for us - we had to wait for all the modules to be filled in by the uni though and then click through for it to be released.

tsk loan

Weirdly I've just had a long face time call with DS too! Are they all off this afternoon? He's finally done his first lot of washing. 😂 He is complaining about how dull his lectures have been so far but mainly it seems to be to do with how long it takes them to get to the point. He's went to the library this morning and did some reading on contract law before his lecture - I don't know what's going on, he seems to have developed some conscientiousness at some point! Long may it last!

@mummyinbeds DS has joined the law society but he said he wasn't doing anything this evening. I think I might give him a nudge along to the pizza thing, I mean the pro bono thing..😉

Shimy my ds loves it. He said he was off for a quick dinner then 3 hours of chess, that he couldn't wait for. I'll get him to play your ds online!

Is FaceTime your mum afternoon scheduled into every Uni timetable then?
Because all week I barely get one word texts. Then they've all done it today?

Hahaha - DD had a FaceTime call with DH at lunchtime. Perhaps it is timetabled!

Oh that would ake me laugh if they've all had an email from Uni to say 'please facetime you parents today, you've been away a while and they will want to see your face'. 😁

DS’s loan was paid today. It had said Ready to be paid on 26th Sept until yesterday. Thankfully I had paid for his halls on a cr dit card so he just paid it all to me to pay towards the card.

No FaceTime today yet though, can’t be a UK wide diktat from the unis 😄.

Fast moving thread! Hope @mummyinbeds' DS gets better soon. Thanks for the comments on DD's art, she sends us stuff daily (yay!) but I'll restrict myself to maybe one per week here. She seems to be surviving on pasta and pops home for lunch when she can. Not socialising much... but more than when she was at school! So we're happy. We've booked to go down at the end of half-term as a family trip.

She's going to a "buy vintage clothing by the kilo" thing at the weekend. Which is precisely her sort of thing! She's had two identical emails telling her rent will come out of her account next week, so we're hoping that they only take it once.

@icanbewhatiwant To me it looks like perhaps your DS’ university hasn’t informed SFE that he has enrolled with them?
That said, I could be wrong but do think it best to check out with admissions?
DD did a ‘part enrolment’ prior to me dropping her off in her college on Sunday. She then completed the other part on Monday morning and has received a similar text from SFE that @JustHereWithMyPopcorn has shown which said her loan would be paid into her account by 5pm tomorrow.

No FaceTime call for me. I'd like to hear from Ds. But he says no time each time I ask. So I'm not going to ask again. It's quite sad he doesn't want to talk.

@ProggyMat yes thanks, that's what I said to him. But he says of course the university will have enrolled him. I keep telling him to go ask. Perhaps I'll just leave him to it. I don't know what will happen when the university accommodation direct debit is taken. I'm not sure the bank will let them take £2.5k from his account if there's no money in there. I saw a picture somewhere from sfe showing what their payment statement might say. It shows as awaiting for confirmation if uni need to confirm. Then ready to paid next. Ds's says ready to be paid.

No FaceTime from dd today but lots of voice notes over the last few days! She’s coming home late Sunday night and going back Monday teatime, for the Tesco interview. She’s said can we go for lunch on Monday and can we buy a load of snacks for her to take back! @Heifer she also said that £50 is nowhere near enough if you go clubbing twice a week plus other social stuff. Will they really carry on clubbing twice a week? Surely most people with heavier schedules won’t cope with that?!

DD's main expense doesn't seem to be clubbing, or even food, but... vintage clothes. She is getting to know charity shops of Cambridge very well.

Just had a phone call from her. All is well, and the course fits her like a (vintage) glove. Art schools are incredibly varied in what and how they teach (or don't), but she made the right choice, and is part of a little group of classmates who hang out together and will doubtless share a house. She rang off because she was being summoned by those friends for... their homework of drawing streets by lamplight. Given that she spent the last few years feeling lonely and isolated, we couldn't be happier.

No FaceTime for me either today yet but I suspect she will later tonight if she hasn't gone out, just to talk about £. I would love her to call just to chat but like others just doesn't seem to want to. I'm not going to ask again as to be honest it makes me feel needy and I hate that. I knew I would miss her but I didn't realise just how much. She is home next weekend but to go to a hockey ball but no idea how much time she will have with us. She will also want to see her sort of boyfriend (fairly new not at the serious stage as both at uni) although he is visiting her for the weekend so hopefully she will have some time with just us.

Thanks for all the info re costs of lunch etc it's all useful ammo for me ;-) pleased to hear your DS is sounding better @mummyinbeds as sounds like he has had a rough time. Hope he can start living the dream once he is fully recovered.
@crazycrofter good luck to DD for the interview. Re clubbing - I think twice a week is quite likely even with DD heavy schedule as she would probably go Wednesday night with sports team plus another at the weekend with friends. If she can't save money elsewhere (love the £3 meal deal) the she can use her own savings and give herself another £10 or so.

Anyone got any plans for the weekend?

Ahhh that's so nice Photo.

Crazy not much time for my ds to be nightclubbing any longer, now freshers is over. His course is full on, he has coursework to be done, exams in Jan.
They were told this week that they selected 74 (normally only 60 per each PwC Uni course) (300 total for the 5 unis that they run the course) from the 3500 who applied, but they'll be asked to leave if they don't put the work in. Blimey.

Forgot to mention. The clubbing issue is that DD isn't used to having to pay to go in (the clubs she went to were free in Liverpool) but in Nottingham almost £10 just to get in. She didn't really drink in clubs as had pres so going out didn't used to cost her much (maccies and first train home £2). Seems it's different at uni.

Heifer Girls got in free in my day!