university , my daughter is beggining to think its a waste of money

[45nanny]

My daughter did really well at college and has just started uni in preston . Spoke to her this evening and she said she is so bored. She has no lessons this week apart from a talk on monday and a hour or so lesson on thurs . she is up to date on her studies and has a good social life too . She said she thinks the whole uni thing is such a waste of money and i,m so worried she'll throw it in and come home . she worked so hard to get a good place and just feels that there isnt enough to keep her focased.
i ,ve said to go chat to soemone in her department about how she feels , is this normal , no lessons . help .

I think you will find the purpose of promoting fashion is to sell it. It is a business. If it doesn't sell, it folds. The purpose of advertising is to sell stuff. The purpose of magazines is to sell stuff. See a trend here?

All those people working "behind the scenes" (not sure what you mean by this, do you?) are cogs in the oily wheel of selling stuff.

Chloe and Chanel are also trying to sell stuff.

Surprised you are so hostile to a perfectly reasonable suggestion that entry level, hard slog experience is good for anyone looking to get ahead, in any industry.

'Surprised you are so hostile to a perfectly reasonable suggestion that entry level, hard slog experience is good for anyone looking to get ahead, in any industry. '

Yes, I agree, georgi, it is a bit .

It's only 4 weeks into fresher's week and it's all about making loads of money at Chanel.

Btw, French and knowledge of French is handy for that house!

Yes, 45nanny. I have heard that Preston is very good for fashion now too and there is alot of money being pumped into the courses. My sil who currently works in a university in Liverpool in fashion is being interviewed for a job there next week she would be doing the same job and getting paid double the money.

learning to sell stuff well is a good skill to have just in general, especially in times of economic downturn.

some people, however, are naturally good at selling stuff.

others, like models, are good advertisements for clothes.

that's why people like alexa chung and movie stars get sent loads of goods for free. because if they chose to wear it and it looks good on them, it's advertising.

Have had a nosy at the course and this is what the course is about (sounds v interesting, actually!)

"The Fashion Promotion course will develop your skills in: Photography, styling, market and consumer research, product development, retailing, trend prediction, PR. Advertising, graphics, computers and campaign development". So OP is correct, it's not necessarily about clothes per se.

Plus: "Our Fashion Promotion students have also been successful in winning prestigious awards, such as the RSA Student Design Awards, the Graduate Fashion Week, Creative Marketing, Fashion Accessories and The River Island Product Development Award". Sounds impressive - I see why she was attracted to the course.

It mentions that their work placements vary from visual merchaniser, photographer's assistant or assistant events manager. Could she focus some of her spare time getting work experience in any of these fields?

Come on georgiemama and expat, you may well be right but have a heart - the OP is just a mum who's desperately worried about her DD being happy, settling in, not getting into lots of debt etc. She's understandably defending her DD as best she can when probably is not greatly clued up on the course herself. I don't think OP is "hostile", just defending her baby. Give her a break/some support!!

'Give her a break/some support!!'

Um, I am. So's everyone else from what I've seen. If we're not all phrasing it the way she wants to hear, it's really not my lookout.

I teach a traditional subject in a pre-92 university, so you can take what I say with a pinch of salt if you like...

It would ring alarm bells with me that your dd is feeling under-occupied at this stage. It's not Freshers' Week. She should have started work on her courses in earnest by this time and should not be feeling that she doesn't have enough to do. I often tell my students that they need to think of their studies as the equivalent of a full-time job. If they're not working as much as they would at a full-time job (so somewhere around 40 hours/week - not all in lectures/seminar, but including private study, essay writing, preparing for seminars, etc.) they are not working hard enough. (Admittedly they often do look at me as if I've just arrived from Planet RidiculouslyOutOfTouch at this point...!)

As someone else has said, she should be doing roughly 100 hours' work for every 10 credits she's taking. A normal year's work would be 120 credits.

Also, IM (relatively limited) E, post-92 universities seem to give students more in the way of contact hours than more traditional ones. Think of Oxford, where lectures are optional and as long as you pass your exams at the end no-one really minds what you do in the meantime (it seems - only limited experience there too!).

I think your dd is absolutely right to start by talking to her tutors (personal tutor or course leader is the place to start). There are all sorts of reasons why she might be feeling under-employed at the moment. Has she signed up for all the courses she needs to take? Are their courses which only get going a bit later into the term? Is there something she should be doing to prepare for work she'll need to hand in (or present or whatever) later? Does the course have a mentoring system which would allow her to hook up with a second-year student who was where she is now a year ago and can give advice?

Hope this helps. As I said at the start, my experience is not all that relevant, but I'd be very worried if it was my dd and she did not feel that she had enough to do. If your dd's tutors can't answer her questions and reassure her about the extent to which the course as a whole will be able to occupy and stimulate her, then maybe (just maybe) it's not the right course for her. But hopefully they will be able to do so and she'll have a great time and a wonderful career ahead of her.

45nanny, well I know a small number of people in the fashion industry, they are designers, buyers, events organisers and journalists, and I think more or less all of them have degrees from somewhere or other (not necessarily London unis). I think getting a degree will stand her in good stead actually.

She will still be fabulously young when she's finished and hopefully gain good entry level employment. At 18 she may still need to get her head round the idea that her time is not supervised but she is expected to be managing her own work load. It's still early in the term though isn't it. Good luck to her.

45nanny, I would think that getting some kind of paid work if she can would be useful even if it's more to earn some money for herself than experience. But another suggestion for your dd is to look for activities to get involved in on campus, eg if she's interested perhaps in journalism, perhaps she should try to get involved in the student newspaper or magazine. She might well gain experience there that would help her with the course and with the kind of jobs she might be thinking of looking for in the future.

Expatinscotland and georgimama, sorry if it comes across that i am hostile , i was just a bit miffed that you would presume that going to do a degree at preston was worthless, i totally understand where your coming from in some of your comments , and you dont need to write it any other way. I didn't need someone to say the course is crap , when they know nothing about it and to tell me my DD is just wanting to make loads of money.You brought up chanel and chloe not me , i hope she works hard and gets to do a job she really loves regardsless of money she then earns.
I feel much better about the situation and when she is home next weekend,she will feel better about her situation i,m sure by now she will have sorted things and looking at others things to do. Thanks again everyone .

i was just a bit miffed that you would presume that going to do a degree at preston was worthless, i totally understand where your coming from in some of your comments , and you dont need to write it any other way.

I said nothing about Preston University. Not a single thing.

Sounds as if, like so many, she is used to be overly "taught" rather than to use her own initiaitve and time creatively. This could be work experience - such as part time in a large retailer - researching trends and creating mood boards and a portfolio. It is these things which will distinguish her from the other graduates when it comes to competing for jobs. Her tutor should be able to make suggestions, even though it is early days and they may be being eased in gently, or maybe she could be mentored by a student further along the course.

However I agree with others here that very few "behind the retail scenes" people have specific degrees from such insititutions. Designers and stylists tend to come from the London Fashion and Design schools, other roles are filled by those with less directed degrees and just a particular eye and flair or general business and numeric acumen to make commercial decisions.

Uni isn't always the best way to get into that world so it is a good idea to have a degree just as a fall back as many jobs do seek graduates.My younger brother is 29 and did film was hailed as fantastically gifted at uni and is still 7 yrs later working as a runner and has no permanent job or flat etc He says he is working with some others who trained on the job and did't bother with a degree.

SORRY, your right expatinscotland , you didnt mention preston , i should have worded it better, you think that some courses are a waste of money , i took it the wrong way . its hard being a parent and was just defending my child.

it is hard 45nanny She may just have realised its not right for her which many people do in the first few weeks.Maybe she could spend her time looking at other ways to get into that field?

yes, i do think some courses are a waste of money, but nowhere did i say specifically i think your child's is or that preston university is.

there's no reason to get defensive, FWIW, people have mostly been quite reasonable in their responses. and, as motherinferior pointed out, adults need to start taking charge of their own lives, even when they are our own children.

that can be true, noddy.

having worked at Edinburgh University, we have seen this happen many times.

and it's definitely NOT the end of the world.

but sadly i've also seen many students who didn't change course or take a break when they should have (mostly due to parental pressure), and so have wound up being asked to leave 2 or 3 years down the line when they've unfortunately wasted a lot of time and money.

who knows if that's the best course for the OP's child to take, BUT if she comes to such a decision, it's definitely not the end of the world.

I found the first year of uni quite hard and I was very depressed for some of it. I think a lot of people feel like this to some extent, but it got better as I made good friends and got used to it. It's a big adjustment in lots of different ways and it may be that she's just finding that hard and it's not about the course at all. I would just say to be as supportive and encouraging as you can and tell her it will get better.

I thought Preston had a pretty good reputation in the industry tbh.

Not all people in the industry have degrees from London, when I was in the industry, Newcastle was the place for the best graduates.

A small elite of Londone based people may have degrees from London uni's, but this wasn't my experience

I never found having any retail experience made any difference to anything. The people who are recruiting ususally know exactly what they require, and are looking for that specific thing rather than retail experience.

If she wants to do this is a job, I would suggest getting experience in the following way. Find a local designer, and work with them in spare time promoting them (there should be planty of designers in Preston as it has a good fashion course..I think[hmm). Don't expect to get paid, do it for free

That will get her the experience she needs

(wishes she was 18 again, and about to do all this stuff again)

Expat, my comment "'Give her [OP] a break/some support!!'

was in light of comments such as

"Even when she graduates, Chloe and Chanel are not going to be falling over themselves to snap up fashion promotion graduates from Preston University. Sorry but they aren't". (georgiemama) (how d'ya know, OP's daughter might just know her stuff)

and

"It's only 4 weeks into fresher's week and it's all about making loads of money at Chanel". (expat)(sarcastic).

This is not what I would call supportive expat - dress it up all you want ie "If we're not all phrasing it the way she wants to hear, it's really not my lookout". Nice. Are YOU an expert in the fashion industry, anyway?

Did I ever say I was an expert, Gettingbigger?

Um, no.

Nor did I ever slag off the university or even that particular course.

Others were far less sparing in their opinions because newsflash! this board isn't all about 'support'.

Um, for an non-expert you have plenty to say about the fashion industry

"Others were far less sparing in their opinions because newsflash! this board isn't all about 'support'". Far be it from you to raise the bar and be the most sparing/supportive for a change!!! Try it, you might like it.

Good evening...

'Far be it from you to raise the bar and be the most sparing/supportive for a change!!! Try it, you might like it.'

That's the funniest thing I've heard all day, and I even watched the David Cameron speech.

So, the onus is on particular users you stalk select to be 'supportive'.

PMSL!