Thread 52 - Covid GCSE Cohort - Autumn 24 - Start of Uni Yr 3

[Oblomov24]

2024 Autumn, start of year 3 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.

51 Previous thread - 51.

These awesome trail-blazing women! Loving these little insights and of course saddened by how some have been treated.
DM had to leave school early, without qualifications, as her DDad was terminally ill to help in the newsagents they had. My parents have been together since 16 and DM was mostly SAHM. DDad was first generation to go to univ. He puts it down to a primary school teacher who told him he was good enough for the grammar school.

@NCTDN I'm late replying to your question but fwiw my DS is very happy at Notts. He is doing Sociology and is achieving well. Tutor time was fairly minimal but finally in third year he seems to be addressing that and his tutor this year seems helpful and responsive (early days in the term though). He didn't have any need for pastoral support so can't comment on that. The campus is lovely and accessible and there seems to be plenty going on if you want to get involved. He doesn't plan to stay in Notts post-grad but we live near London so it makes as much sense for him to look for opportunities down South. Nothing against the city.

Catered was a godsend for him, it meant he ate (he didn't hate the food but it was variable at best!) and was sociable. He sat down with a random group at a table on one of his first nights and they are still sharing a house in third year and appear to be great mates. They are all from different subjects, one being aerospace engineering. All I've heard about that is it's a "love it or hate it" course.

HTH!

@NCTDN
I too am a bit late to the Notts party, but only because I don't have much to add that hasn't been said before. Ds1 has been very very happy there, and likes the city and uni a lot, in fact whilst on his London placement he looks forward to being back there. I think it's a big enough city to be entertaining without being overwhelming or too big. He found the catered food fine, but he is admittedly incredibly unfussy and like me eats literally everything, and I ate there twice. But I think more than anything it's just the cheapness of catered, the ease of it, the sociable aspect. I still praise God, am incredibly grateful, that I was lucky enough to be on this lovely thread and have Rutland recommended. Thanks again. ❤️

However, The course, and the lack of actual teaching, and the disorganisation of their dept / course, and how detached lecturers are, etc, makes me question Notts as the prestigious uni / teaching facility it claims to be. Or his course. Or is it all unis?

However I think that is sadly just the way many unis are these days. Back in the day I barely did that much independent study, none of this online lectures bullshit, because I was actually in uni, in class, being taught, lectures for hours, most days, doing Russian language for hours and hours, then all the supporting subjects, Russian literature, politics, history, economics, etc etc.

So I guess my sadness is just an old fashioned view of it all.

Where id you go oblomov? I worked hard at uni because I'm a hard worker but we genuinely had about 5 hours of input a week. This was on one of the most prestigious English courses! The input was mostly very inspiring but lots of people didn't go to lectures or hand essays in on time or do the reading! A big difference was that we had a closer relationship, almost friendship, with some tutors (went to the pub, round their houses, dinners at the heads of colleges houses - bet none of the York profs live on site anymore but each college had a dean). Everyone knew everyone, basically.

To me , universities have become more 'corporate' and lecturers are expected to give way more feedback of really quite a formal kind whereas we just did a few essays , had a chat and then handed some assessments in for formal marking (or did exams but York was a front runner in modular assessment so exams were rare) - which all got a mark but no feedback.

Mine was similar to @Oblomov24 , a very full timetable, but it was a science degree at a poly so two full days a week of practicals in the labs, but there was a lot of classroom teaching too, not dissimilar to A levels. There were only about 30 on the course so it was literally all in classrooms, I never set foot in a lecture theatre. I don't remember doing much independent study apart from my final year research project, just writing up the lecture notes and practical work, then masses of practice at working out reactions etc, revision for exams, there was a huge amount of content. If you had missed lectures it would have been extremely hard to catch up. I do remember being shocked that some of my humanities flatmates only had a few contact hours a week. We sometimes ended up in the pub with lecturers at lunchtimes but that was where the relationship ended, no clue where any of them lived, no dinners etc but it was a city centre spread out campus. Don't remember there being any tutorials either, it was very much a continuation of A level type study. In fact we all called them Dr Surname, no first name terms.

I did geography at a poly BSc, rather than BA, but I had hours of lectures! I remember first year being a shock as I had way more hours than I had done for A levels at a school 6th form. In every day from 9/10 until 3/4 apart from half day Wednesday. Subsequent years were slightly less, but every module had several hours of lectures, plus a 2hr seminar and then there was a tutorial with my personal tutor each week too. Each term had an essay for each module, plus a seminar presentation and paper, and exams at the end of the year. And we had extra sessions for computing. It was bloody hard work! I loved it though.
We got to know some of our lecturers pretty well because of all the field trips we did. They were all called by their first names apart from the HoD who very definitely wasn't 😁

I did engineering and had a 30 Hr/week timetable. I house shared with a psychology student who had 2 hours a week and lots of "independent study".... I am not sure much has changed as DD said she has a similar timetable and her housemates had a few hours....

DD2 got her first offer yesterday from Lincoln! They have said 104 points with a B in Maths. She is doing 4 Alevels so does that mean she can get BDDE and it will still be ok?

Piggy, I guess its because I, like Seeline and ED was at a Poly. I was at Portsmouth. I needed BBB to get into prestigious Birmingham, who were/still are renown as the best for languages, particularly Russian, but I gutted because I didn't get it, so after a year travelling I went to Portsmouth Poly, before going to Bristol for my MA, (where I was largely in lectures with the BA undergrads mostly and they too had lots of hours similar to what I had had).

Like I said cant remember how many hours of language I had but atleast 6?, plus listening in sound labs, for another 2 or 3. Plus 4-6 x supporting subjects, so up to 10 hours, there. Then 6 essays per those subjects, per year. I think I was in nearly every morning and afternoon, every day, apart from maybe one morning off.

But I still had time to have 3 part time jobs, and go out lots, eg a female rugby club weekly piss up, but still got up early the next day for a full monty breakfast at the SU, and then a 9am class.

I did History (at Leicester) and only had 6-8 hours of teaching a week. No jollies with the lecturers either, they were called Prof X etc and I don't remember ever talking to any of them outside of lectures! They gave decent enough feedback on our essays via a paragraph on the cover sheet...

I don't think things have changed that much really, except that you can now watch lectures online.

Well done BM dd2 for her Lincoln offer. Isn't the points just for 3 x A'levels? If it's a B in Maths, is that not thus BCC ?

@Oblomov24 it doesn’t say how many Alevels. Just 104 points with a B in Maths. On their website it says “at least 2 Alevels”.

@Piggywaspushed also English, also 5ish hours. Lots of reading. Lecturers varied as to how formal or friendly. My fave decided we should have a field trip like lots of other depts so we went to the Lake District for a poetry and beer fuelled jolly.

In other news, half DD’s degree has been ‘cancelled’. She has it from a friend who also didn’t go abroad but went into 3rd year, but also the course only shows 2024 entry on the website. No idea what they’ll do, hopefully continue until current 1st years are through 😭

My uni course was not dissimilar to DS's. Joint Law and Politics, 12 hours ish a week. Plus I did subsidiary one year courses in Computer Science and Management. Tutorials were a lot more friendly - usually sitting in the tutors office on a sofa, eating biscuits. We had PhD students for some politics tutorials - I remember walking into the first one in a particular module to discover I'd spent a night, a few weeks earlier, in his campus room with his friend. Oops 🤭 I actually dated one of his flat mates for a while after that so socialised with him a fair bit. A lot of staff lived on campus at Keele so we saw them walking around with their families at the weekends. The younger ones would be on nights out in the SU.

@BlueMarigold DD's points offers included her Core maths points with no mention of number of A levels.

Does anyone know much about Lincoln uni? We really liked it when looking around and the city felt very safe. It is the sort of place that just felt right when looking around. But I do have some concerns. Mainly that not many people seem to have heard of it! Do you think a Maths degree from a less known uni is worth the same as one from a more well known uni as the course is accredited by IMA?

I was at a poly too which turned into a uni when I was there. I did Architecture so the timetable was heavy, lots of lecture hours followed by lots of studio time and tutorials. I went out with a politics student who genuinely had about 3hrs of lectures a week and 1-2 essays per term! I was quite bitter about that when he used to come and sit in my room watching my little B&W tv and fall asleep while I was sitting at my drawing board at midnight trying to get my work finished! 😂

@BlueMarigold sorry, I don't know anyone at Lincoln but the cathedral is nice!

@BlueMarigold my DD has decided not to apply now, but when she was considering it Lincoln was her top choice (history). We really liked both the city and feel of the uni too when visiting. A friend of mine has a DC there and speaks very highly of it, only negative was that her DC and friends have found it to find pt work there, maybe because it's a small city. I think someone on here has had an older DC go there, maybe @Piggywaspushed ?

@Oblomov24 Portsmouth for me too, maybe we were there at the same time. I rarely set foot in the SU but we used to go early morning swimming and then to the greasy spoon by the station. Lots of pub crawls and student nights at the Gaiety. I found myself back in one of the pub crawl pubs recently, it hadn't changed that much, felt weird after all these years.

Interesting discussions. I was the first in my family to get a degree, also from a Poly. Then I went to Leicester for an MA in social work. I had a dreadfully dysfunctional family, so it was a miracle I got A levels really. My Dm raised us alone apart from her many boyfriends / husbands. She left school at 14 to go into the linen factories in Derry, and then sweatshops in the East End of London. My F was abusive, but not much on the scene. My dm was extremely volatile and impulsive, quite irrational. She didn’t support my studies at all. I would love to do a little stealth boast about how I did better with my children, but I can see now that I had no good role model, and it showed. Sometimes I was quite angry and stressed. It wasn’t easy to raise 4 + children and do a really demanding job. But it is on me that sometimes my mouth opens and out come words that have had no sensitivity checks . I think I upset my lovely girl yesterday, and I’ve been mortified ever since. She was here with her boyfriend, and babying the little dog , rocking her and using a little girl voice, and pulling him into it. I told her she was being weird. Boyfriend agreed, laughed and said so many red flags… She looked crushed. I really wish I hadn’t said it. I was cross with her, but not commenting, because she was making a big deal about having a cold, and I knew it was about wanting to sack off Uni and her job because boyfriend is visiting. We took them to the station then, but i bet she didn’t go. Grr. Sometimes I prefer not to know what they’re doing. Then I can’t have an opinion.

Thank you@blinkbonny and @Oblomov24

I'm very torn and it's not even my decision I know!

It sounds like the course is good but no better than Sheffield. But accommodation with the catered option is definitely my preference and that's not an option at Sheffield.

There's no one on here with a child at Sheffield is there ?

I'm the first one in my family to go to uni (or university college as it was back then). As a teaching degree, my course was pretty much 9-5 every day so I was shocked at DDs fewer hours of lectures.

Yes, DS1 went to Lincoln.

I'd recommend it (not him, he didn't make the most of uni!!) . Lots of my ex students went there too. It's a good, a manageable size, a nice city, accommodation is cheapish. The uni brings a lot to the local economy so, unlike a lot of smaller unis in slight backwater locations, Lincoln has lots of shops, pubs , restaurants and isn't run down. The teaching is variable tbh so worth looking at the NSS.

I'd think a maths degree from anywhere is gold dust!

@NCTDN I asked DS yesterday specifically for you 😄 He says he loves Nottingham and feels that the issues that we've experienced are probably the same everywhere but he would definitely pick it again or recommend it to anyone.

Aww thanks for that.