Thread 51 - Covid GCSE Cohort - Summer 24 - End of Uni Yr 2

[Oblomov24]

2024 Summer, end of year 2 for those at Uni.

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.

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I haven’t caught up with all the chat yet but just joining in with the good luck wishes for the A level crew this week and hoping they all sail through and get the uni spots they want. I’m already stressing about the GCSEs for the 22nd, I’m sure there were a couple of us waiting for those too?

DS1 back in Notts for the past week looking for a job, DS2 back from a holiday with his friends and looking very tanned. I suspect suncream was an after thought..

DH had some serious emergency surgery two weeks ago, it’s been quite stressful but he seems to be recovering well. Just need to stop him from trying to do stuff which is hard when he can’t seem to just sit still.

Some very busy young adults (and parents)! Good luck for Results Day to everyone. I always find it really odd as a teacher, especially having to swap back and forth between celebrating and commiserating (and helping out my UCAS bunch if any need clearing).

@mummyinbeds when my dd1 did an Erasmus semester abroad I think she made money! Her German accommodation was £150 a month, she rented out her Sheffield room to a visiting Australian postgrad student for £100per month more than she was paying, and Erasmus gave her about £1400 for reasons I could never understand!

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn - really sorry to hear that about your DH. That must have been scary. I hope he is making a swift recovery from the op.

Good luck for everyone getting exam results!

Our summer excitement seems to be over - family holiday and DSs graduation.
House is crammed with two lots of uni kit - gradually sorting through DSs stuff as he has the box room with very little storage space so feeling a bit cramped after his double rooms in his student houses!
Still no jobs applied for and no driving lessons booked - he just gets really grumpy when I mention it. Not quite sure what to do - he needs to be earning soon!
DD can't move into her new house until early September.
Having both kids home is proving a struggle with constant bickering. Fun times 🙄

Sorry to hear about your DH JustHere, I hope he succumbs to resting up properly.

Thinking about you all awaiting results for your DC this and following Thursday!

We’ve not seen much of DD as she has made the most of the summer break. With less than 2 weeks to her departure to Cairo, it’s all feeling very real now; she’s brought forward her 21st to next weekend :)

Her incoming cohort at AUC are very international, not all Americans as one would expect from a US uni, she’s very excited. We’ll try and visit once settled in maybe Oct before the Egypt holiday season kicks in, have my fingers crossed that the ME challenges does not escalate to full out regional conflict. But mentally have had to prepare her that things could change…

Cairo sounds exciting @ealingwestmum , i hope everything goes well for her. Can’t believe France is saving you money @mummyinbeds 😮 When does he go?

@Seeline having your ds back sounds like hard work, but hopefully he’ll tire of having no money soon?! Could you give him a deadline by which he needs to be working, even if it’s only a stop-gap job? Sorry about the bickering 😩

@crazycrofter he's hopefully going two weeks today. He has to make his third trip to London to collect his passport from the visa centre on Tuesday - hopefully with a visa in it. Then we can apply to the French authorities to act as guarantor for his accommodation and then we can book transport. It's all getting a bit tight on timings. I think he's going to go by overnight bus (22 hours - I haven't told him quite how long) and then DH and I going to take a road trip with his stuff a week later. It's the southwest of France so would be rude not to have a little holiday 😁

@ealingwestmum Cairo sounds exciting and daunting in equal measure. What's the admin been like for Egypt?

The admin has been relatively straightforward mummy, so far at least. She applied for a visitors visa which the uni will accompany her when there, to convert into a student’s visa. Accom is on campus, she had to put in a request when portal opened (like release of concert tickets) and was lucky to get her first choice. She gets a meet and greet pick up from airport and then 6 days of orientation before semester start. The biggest challenge may be adjusting to a Sunday to Thursday calendar. And contact hours are 3x more than at TCD.

There are challenges, but overall so long as she’s sensible off campus and adopts a safety in numbers type attitude, she will hopefully be fine.

That sounds fantastic @ealingwestmum , so exciting for her finally to be going! My BIL did half his Arabic year abroad from Edinburgh at the AOC in the late 80S and still goes back now to lecture on Islamic manuscripts. Loved it. Also had an American au pair who spent a year abroad there from UCLA in the 2010s and also loved it. Her top tip was that she got MUCH less hassle when she wore a wedding band out and about in the souks and streets of Cairo, so she might want to think about wearing a plain silver ring on her wedding finger.
I hope she has wonderful early 21st celebrations!

That is a fabulous tip Delphi! *

Both DSs are off interrailing tomorrow for 2 1/2 weeks. Trying to be all zen about it!

The places they are going are all about 38 degrees at the moment so that will be nice...

DS1 has travelled a bit independently but nothing as complex as this. I think they are doing 7 countries including a side trip to Liechtenstein.

Must admit I don't understand why anyone would want to stay in a different place almost every night for 2 1/2 weeks. lugging a rucksack around, but I was never very adventurous!

I keep telling myself they are both in their 20s!

Ah, I'd love to interrail again, althoigh nowadays I'd be using a wheeled suitcase and hotels rather than hostels. Having said that I've got a solo trip to Edinburgh booked and will be staying in a backpackers hostel later in the year partly because of cost, partly nostalgia and partly because I like the idea of having somewhere other than a bar to hang out in the evenings. I interrailed round Scandinavia when I was about 22, it was fabulous.

They are doing a mix of hotels and hostels. Hotels in the less developed countries.

DS himself isn't keen on sharing a hostel room with 4 strangers but he chose to do it!

I loved interrailing back in the day! One of my former colleagues, now retired, spends about half the year interrailing and has visited pretty much all of Europe. I do think I'd want a bit more luxury than hostels though.

I just had to do three hotels in Norway with no aircon and that was enough for me!

That sounds exciting @piggywaspushed! Are they going together?

I'm really surprised my ds isn't planning on interrailing; perhaps he's actually sick of trains, having spent a lot of the last 3 years trekking round the country via train and trying to avoid paying😬

Dd messaged me yesterday to say it was nice having ds there too in Aber; apparently he's finally on the same level as her and able to hang out with her friends without embarrassing her!

Yes, together! Romania ( Brasov? Apparently Transylvania), Bratislava, Budapest, Vienna, Milan, Geneva, Paris.

And a day trip to Liechtenstein it seems...

Hostels in the expensive cities in the middle.

That sounds very exciting Piggy, and great that they are going together!

Did anyone else ever do the pre Internet thing to travel in the US where you clipped out coupons in free magazines in diners and phoned ahead for a room?

That was how DH and I did California. It all
went swimmingly. Lovely motels and hotels. Until San Francisco. We ended up in a homeless hostel cum hotel with no locks on the doors in a terrifying area. Fun times.

Haha @Piggywaspushed , we ended up in such a dodgy hotel in a dodgy area of San Francisco IIn the late 1990s, it was terrifying we were scared walking to it. In hindsight we think it may have been more of a rent by the hour hotel…. Strangely enough the lonely planet guide didn’t tell us that in advance! We left earlier than planned.

No, but DH and I decided to go camping in France without booking ahead on the basis that "France is full of campsites and they're all marked on the road atlas". Well, it got late in the afternoon and we found ourselves in an area with very few campsites on the map, eventually pulled up at one and asked for a pitch (I speak French fairly well but not fluent), were shown to a pitch and then realised it was the local "Camping Municipale" and it was awful, dogs loose everywhere, the worst toilets I have ever encountered, adults all smoking weed while the children ran round, teenagers roaring around on motorbikes. We pitched up, agreed to go out for the evening (and found the most beautiful hilltop medieval town nearby to have dinner), went back, didn't sleep a wink and escaped as soon as it got light.

Wasn't called Le Nain, was it??

@Piggywaspushed we did a few trips like that pre kids. Stayed in a 'lovely' motel somewhere in Florida complete with flickering neon sign, holes in the wall and dead cockroaches on the windowsill. Equally we stopped at a roadside motel in New England having driven for hours into the night without finding civilisation - opened the curtains the next morning to see the most beautiful misty lake, deer, mountains. It was stunning. Our last Greek Island hopping trip was planned meticulously with Ferry Hopper, Booking.com etc etc. The first time we did it in the late 90's we landed in Athens with a library copy of the Rough Guide, took the first ferry available and found rooms on arrival at each island. On one island we were taken to a room, sitting on sacks of potatoes in the back if a truck.
DS arrived back from a five day festival yesterday. That was his first time camping (since camping as a kid with mum and dad) and his first festival experience. He had to pitch the tent in a downpour, everything was soaked and covered in mud. He traveled home in yesterdays heat having not showered since Thursday but still wants to do it again. Maybe he's more adventurous than I give him credit for but I don't think he'd manage interrailing. DD is desperate to do Race Across the World - she got as far as reading the application form but couldn't take the time away from uni

I think RATW is what inspired DS1 to do this. He may miss the support cars and cameramen to give out hugs.