Thread 49 - Covid GCSE Cohort - The nights are drawing in...

[OrangeSpicedBun]

Autumn 🍂 well and truly underway, has been chilly this week !

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). 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 advice to be had.
Previous thread :

www.mumsnet.com/talk/parents_of_adult_children/4880640-thread-48-covid-gcse-cohort-summer-before-year-2-uni?latest=1

I've found you all.
I was wondering why there were no posts coming up on my feed.
I'm sorry for the heartbreak @Seeline.
@piccolo I'm horrified by your ds's story.
What little shits to do this. We're also in the process of applying for uni for child no, 4. Can I say I am so over it. I can't muster up any enthusiasm for open days. I'm also not sure he's applying for the right course for him.
@Photodad dd2 is permanently in the Architecture Studio in UCL. My eldest who did Veterinary Med. was a bit horrified by this, as she worked hard & played hard in the first year. Life seems to be so serious for todays students.

@Cantonet how is your DD getting on? Architecture is an incredibly time intensive course.

@JustHereWithMyPumpkin DD is really enjoying it & finding it challenging, all at the same time. She likes her tutor & has made a nice group of friends. But so far she's suffered Covid, nasty nose bleeds that have thankfully stopped after hospital treatment & tonsillitis last week 🤒
She hasn't missed anything though apparently. And is in the studio or visiting museums for her projects every weekend. Dd1 visited London & took her & her boyfriend out to dinner the other night & said she seemed happy & looked well. But apparently she has no time for societies or part time work.

@Heifer DD is on halfterm aka reading week aka reflection week. After coming home by train on Saturday I’ve driven her back today. Good journey up and a horrendous one back for me - big crash on the M6 meant 2 hours almost stationary. Then on the M5 the traffic slowed down VERY quickly as it was about to go down to a single lane for roadworks. A van in the inside lane couldn’t slow down fast enough so slowed AND pulled out, meaning I had to do the same. Fortunately nothing in the outside lane …

@Cantonet I'm glad she's enjoying despite the medical set backs! I was listening to the talks about student finance and rents on the radio yesterday and also online with people suggesting they all get jobs. I sat there remembering how little time we had outside of lectures tutorials, studio time, and project work and how it was impossible to work term time as an architecture student. It's also an expensive course (or certainly was back then) in terms of art supplies, reprographics and modelmaking on top of the usual course costs of books etc.

@Cantonet That sounds very full-on! People talk about Humanities vs STEM in terms of workload but forget design courses which can be insane. Good luck to her.

Glad you had a nice time Heffs with dd.
This thread is a reminder how very different degrees are, especially something like say architecture that seems to get forgotten in the how hard degrees actually are category.

Hope you have a good visit dd crazy for new church.

I totally agree.
It's come as a total shock to me as I always thought Medicine type courses were the toughest in spite of being warned by others. I guess the year must become very closely knit though, having to spend so much time together. Also there are only around 75 individuals in her year. I was expecting far more.
@Photodad thank you. I'm guessing it's very similar situation for your dd. I can see your DD is passionate about her work & I think mine is developing that passion 😄

Just catching up.

Ds had only had the car in Brighton just over a week when dh had a £75 fine in the post, as the car is registered to him, for driving in a bus lane 🤦‍♀️ I've forwarded to Ds to pay. Apparently the sat nav turned him into that road, I can see by the photo evidence that there is only bus lane to go in, so he needed to not go into that road at all. I hope it's not going to be a regular occurrence.

Ds has suffered with acne for several years. Over the summer he'd been given tablets to take plus a different cream. The spots had almost completely cleared up while home. He messaged last week to say his acne is so bad now that he's embarrassed to go out, it's now on his chest and back too. I said it must be environmental or his diet. I suggested it was the damp house. He rubbished me at first. But he must've been looking into it and said he thinks it is the damp. So I've ordered a dehumidifier for his room. I hope it helps. He is still taking the medication. I'm not sure what else to suggest. Anyone else heard of damp making skin worse?

Is he still using the cream with the tablets @icanbewhatiwant ? Or is he forgetting to take the tablets regularly?
If they're antibiotics they may only work for a few months. But if your ds is anything like mine he often forgot to take them, so developed antibiotic resistance & they stopped working.
Roaccutane worked for mine afterwards, but it's not to be taken lightly.

Hmm, no clue about the acne, sorry!

Here's another factor while we're comparing degree workload/experience... DD's course, like many arts/design courses, has no exams!!! That sounds amazing, right? (And it is, for her... she hated exams.)

The flip side is that every single week she has to produce a finished piece for each of her modules (either two or three of them on the go at any given time) and it gets put in that module's portfolio to count towards the module mark. Plus an occasional essay on top so that the course can be called a BA (she's not a fan). Luckily she doesn't find it a hardship to do art every day, but it explains why the studios are always full. And with a tiny cohort (25 students) the tutors know exactly how much everyone has done; they review everyone's portfolio every week and give brief feedback to the whole class (called "crits.")

A lot of art-schools are nowhere near that intense; ARU has a reputation for being very "old school" (it even insists on drawing classes, gasp!) The benefit is that every student will have dozens of high-quality pieces to use when applying for jobs (salaried or freelance). Employers in that field only care about sample work, generally not about marks. (But she still wants a 2:1 as she's very tempted by the quite incredible vocational MA in Children's Book Illustration at ARU...)

It's been fascinating to me, as I had no idea about how it all worked. DS(Y12) is thinking of Chemistry and I have a far better handle on that!

@Cantonet he's taking antibiotics. Not the ones you just mentioned. He's taken them daily without forgetting. I just went to look at his prescription but realised dh gave the whole package to his dd as she was going back to Brighton and lives near Ds. So now I have no form to fill in 🤦‍♀️
Ds has stayed with our gp for the time being. But will have to change to one down there if he can't sort his face.

DS has had his first story published in student newspaper. Its very good, even if I say so myself!

Yay for @Piggywaspushed DS!

@Cantonet yes you do tend to socialise and live with other architecture students, you know you can all socialise at the same time and also all be panicking with the all nighters at the same time! I married another architect. 😄

@PhotoDad architecture is that mix of design, science and history so there’s plenty of written exams / hand ins as well as the design work, it’s a double whammy!

@icanbewhatiwant DS1 got a string of fines not long after passing. We literally got one a day for a week as he was parking at his gym but not putting his registration into the machine inside the gym. We were properly panicking but the gym sorted it out for him in the end thank god!

Ive not heard of damp making acne worse before but it wouldn’t surprise me, if the damp is affecting his general well being it could surely affect his skin?

@Piggywaspushed Congrats to your DS on his first student publication! 🎉

@icanbewhatiwant the only thing to try for acne if everything else doesn’t work is roaccutane. For some it’s a miracle drug (it worked pretty well for me 30 years ago) but the side effects are brutal (for lots of people). It vastly improved my DD’s skin, but my ds’ acne came back within two months, which was gutting. No idea about damp but he does find it’s worth if he eats dairy, or lots of junk food.

@crazycrofter thanks, Ds is taking lymecycline it worked really well over the summer while home. He eats more fruit and veg while home here, junk stuff like chocolate and cakes he eats more of here as I still a snack cupboard for them, he doesn't buy junk for himself.

I've had three on Roaccutane.
Dd1 has been on it twice as she has hormonal acne. The derm. has said if she needs it again she will go the low dose regime of Roaccutane + Spironolactone. She had bad side effects the first time but coped much better the second time.
The ds's were completely clear afterwards & get the very occasional spot now. Ds2 didn't complain of any side effects but seemed to have a long period of depression afterwards. But he said it was nothing to do with roaccutane but more covid influenced.
Dd1 stopped taking it last Easter & it seemed to coincide with his chronic exhaustion & low B12. But it also coincided with his third covid vaccine as he was plagued with awful rashes & exhaustion afterwards. So who knows🤷
Antibiotics are thought to be increasingly detrimental to the gut biome causing IBS & all sorts of further issues. To the extent my DD won't entertain the thought of having them any more.

Congratulations to your ds, Piggy! What was his article about?
Is he having a happier time now? DD hasn't written anything for the newspaper yet, as she says none of the proposed suggested articles have appeared to her (am I right in thinking that's how the newspaper works?). I did tell her to keep an eye out for your DS, but I'm not sure how much she's got involved with it all, in all honesty.

Interesting to read the talk about acne. DS has it, mostly on his cheeks but also on his back. He was given some kind of topical antibiotic gel at the end of the summer but it doesn't seem to have helped much. I've spent a fortune on expensive creams, washes and serums, to no real avail. I'm worried about scarring; I had acne in my late teens/twenties and it was very painful and unsightly. I was out on a particular type of Pill and given a retinol gel which cleared it up eventually, but wrecked my skin (no suggestions of using SPF back then) and I have some faint scarring.

He wanted to do sports writing so he has been OK, also, although their slow pace compared to a real paper makes news and sport date quite quickly if it's not published immediately . His published story was on a Birmingham City game which has added attraction because Rooney is in charge..

Otherwise, yes, things get allocated and seems to favour reviews and travel stuff. Some of it isn't that well written, so your DD should get in there! Film reviews would be good, I reckon.

Home from the lake. Lots of rain, no wind! Yesterday was better. That was DS' last session as a member of the Youth Windsurfing Team. For those who remember my dilemma about elite sports a while back, he has decided not to pursue the racing side of things, but to qualify as an instructor (so he'll be back at the club next season wearing a different hat!) Next steps are to get his power-boat driver's licence, and first-aid certification. He has more than enough windsurfing skills (and the certificates to prove it formally).

On an unrelated note, which might affect a few others here (or not), does anyone have an older DC doing a non-integrated Master's? It seems that the available loan only covers tuition (and not even that for some courses). Going to have to Talk Money when I see DD next week. (We're very fortunate that we can afford to pay the amount we're currently topping her up for a while longer, and she has savings from us and from grandparents... she was hoping to use all of those for a house deposit, but...)

The older 2 dc's both had bad acne. Ds2 is the worst. Ds1 still has it a bit at 22. Neither Dh nor I had it, I've always just had the odd spot never covered in them. I'm wanting to prevent ds3 getting it. He's 14 and has one huge spot on his nose but that's all at the moment. There are so many creams I have no idea what to get him. Obviously at the moment it's prevention needed.

Ds has the dehumidifier now, his room was on 76% when he first started it up, it's down to 55% now. He's aiming for lower though.

We knew about the MA costs which we cant afford to pay for (we can carry on topping up her loan if really necessary but that's all) so DD will try to enter the NHS Clinical Science programme. That way she would be paid £30k whilst training and studying. Problem is about 2% success rate as they have so few
Places so the back up
Is a year off and her working to save up.. just what job though is the question....

I think i might need to buy a dehumidifier for our house as the windows really need replacing in some rooms but we can't at the moment and just noticed recently we are getting some condensation which isn't going to help my chest infections.

Any recommendations as to which dehumidifier?