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.

The weather makes such a difference. It was horrible when we went yo Oxford Brookes and York.
Both campuses so lots of outdoors in the wet.

Thanks @Shimy I was asking on behalf of @crazycrofter this thread is so useful!

I've just had also on spareroom.co.uk and it looks like rental prices have jumped a bit or it may be just a fluke. Quite a few 'rooms' seemed to be in the "£800/mth" price range with ensuite although some £6-700 were there also but you'd have to look carefully. Ds's is £695 inc bills in a 5 bed house.

@BlueMarigold Sorry wasn't very clear there. DS is yr3 (biological sciences like your DD if i remember correctly) so now applying for jobs.

@EwwSprouts good luck to your DS

Also hoping the job search goes well for your DS @EwwSprouts . The HireView one way process takes some getting used to 🤞

Wow those are eye watering rent prices. DD and her house have decided to stay another year in their houseshare: £390 including bills - he kept the price the same for them as this year. The house is old and a bit tired but he came round and turned the heating on beginning of the month and sorted a water leak promptly so it's a small price for no modern decor as so far he's proving to be a fab landlord.

Good luck to your DS with the job hunting @EwwSprouts

Thanks for all the job search best wishes. There must be many others on here in the same boat or are lots masters or year out? I know there are a few doing 4 years courses.

Yes, good luck, @EwwSprouts!

DD will be taking a year out to (a) see if she can get any freelance work or publishing contracts, (b) get a paid "day job" to save up, and (c) apply for a Master's. She says that she doesn't want to go straight into another course without giving (a) a go first! I totally approve of the plan.

DS isn't masters or planned year out but hasn't started jobhunting yet, he finds applications difficult and needs a bit of support, which is tricky when he's away from home. There aren't huge amounts of graduate training schemes in his field either I don't think although I have found a couple open now. I am also concerned that he mustn't let jobhunting distract him from his studies, I think overall coming home and working next summer locally then applying for individual vacancies or graduate schemes with results in hand might be better for him. Especially as he still hasn't passed his driving test....

@EwwSprouts I'm following the job search process with interest. DS is on his year abroad so will have another year to go. My two will therefore both be in final year next year - neither have a plan for what happens next.

@PhotoDad Your DD has done so well identifying opportunities so far. Hopefully plan a will will come to fruition.

@EternallyDelighted Can appreciate the need for balance between applications and study. Applications need some serious research and have so many levels to them I think it's quite intimidating.

@mummyinbeds That will be an interesting time! DS is just toe in the water at the moment. He's also not clear on what he would like to do. If he gets to an in-person interview I fear he may come across as less than 100%. He's not great at embellishing.

@EwwSprouts I know they don't want to get support from us all the time but subtly you could help him to start 'embellishing', even if he doesn't know you are are asking him to use SMART methodology (condense it if you need to, but just get the process going when you both talk). Or if he is open to help, get him to do this on his CV points of interest.

My DD had the opposite problem, can talk the hind legs off several donkeys. She was quite shitty with me at first but then got used to condensing info into more succinct sentences that didn't make me slip into a snooze coma.

Harsh I know but they need guidance if this hasn't been covered off at uni and they lack experience in interview requirements. I really don't think many of them really know what they want to do yet, and with odds so low on getting through the process, it's probably best not to over think applications but just get them off where there is some fit. Most options really are quite open to UG without stipulating course type, even if they may have a 'preferred'.

I did steer law applications off DD's initial hit list, I knew she wasn't that interested but she had included for coverage. There is a balance and whilst possibly able, it really would not have been her.

Good luck - it's not great when they have so much else to contend so structure (even if just a simple spreadsheet) helps, it's amazing at how they can forget who they applied to when with the juggling.

No chance of considering post studies here, she is desperate to earn!

Good luck.

That's useful advice @ealingwestmum , I am worried on several counts for DS and jobhunting. One is that he won't come over well in interviews, when he is under pressure his autism and other SENs become more apparent (avoiding eye contact, using waffle words like like - as in "it was, like, when I was working in the shop, like, we had a customer who, like....."). Plus he has difficulty filling in the forms in the first place. Then I worry that he has had a lot of support to get through uni which he won't have in the workplace (he gets two hours a week 1to1 from DSA). Still there's no point worrying.

@ealingwestmum Great thoughts thank you. It may be a bit late but I may have to try to help at Christmas. I can't see over the phone going well. I did mention setting up a spreadsheet and was told he had a working post-it😂
Agree money is a great motivator. Good luck to your DD too.

@EternallyDelighted Would it be helpful for him to make contact with the careers office before he leaves? Then they would know him if he asks for remote assistance after graduation?

@EwwSprouts yes, I have suggested that and he does go to the careers fairs. It's such a small uni that I get the impression he knows most of the student facing non-academic staff as well as his lecturers.

Interesting seeing the job chat. DS has another interview next week for the same job he didn’t get in March. No idea how it will go 🤷‍♀️. He has more to say in an interview now and has done some prep but probably not enough for our liking. He did ok technically but really bombed on the “soft skills” last time.

We are trying to help him with the STAR method, Situation, task, action, result method for describing situations and getting him to memorise a few scenarios.

@ealingwestmum what is the SMART thing you’ll mention (I assume it is different to the goal setting SMART which I know about).

It was my error @24newernames ; STAR is absolutely the technique they should be encouraged to use at this stage of their interview career.

DD needed help with goal setting tasks hence using both acronyms with her.

@ealingwestmum no worries, just wanted to make sure I was missing a trick!

Good ideas here! We’ve just had a tearful dd on the phone. She’d had a long day of work as a carer and got confused going through the city centre, as there were cones everywhere and roads closed off. Somehow she went the wrong way down a dual carriageway 😱 and got pulled over by the police. She already has 3 points and is in the first 2 years of driving, so likely to lose her licence and therefore her job 😢

Oh no @crazycrofter I’m so sorry to hear that, she must be so upset! Thank goodness she didn’t have an accident and is safe. Scary.

Oh no @crazycrofter city centre driving is bad enough without diversions, your poor DD.

I know @Delphigirl that’s what we said to her - it could have been so much worse 😱

Oh no, @crazycrofter! Hope your DD is feeling OK. Hate driving through cities myself.

Oh your poor DD @crazycrofter . That must have been upsetting and scary.

DS also going through applications still. Thry are so time consuming I'm worried they are a distraction from working. If RAF doesn't pan out I'd rather he had a year working any job and apply for what he wants then. Last night his College rowing alumni club had a drinks thing at the Oriental Club in London so the current rowers all went to that. Its a very different world....

DH car failed it's MOT yesterday with a seatbelt issue and the part not in stock until December. Am panicking now about collecting DS and room emptying for Christmas. That's not going to happen in my Kia Piccanto. I hate cars!