Leaving home at 17

rev_henry

Mely wrote: »

Firstly i have to say that you sound like a very decent, and grounded young man!
As for your situation, i think you should leave it as it is, and enjoy the time that you spend with your gf. Its quality time when you are together, and things change when you live with someone, and see them every day. Also you may find that your studies MAY suffer in that type of situation, due to the stresses that will occur. Make the most of living at home, you wont appreciate this time untill its gone!

Hello, and thank you for your compliments and advice!

Oldernotwiser

rev_henry wrote: »

Does that mean that if I do this, my grants and stuff will be based on GF's parents income?? That rather alarms me as you can imagine the difference between a mother and son in a flat and a large family in a fairly large house! Although a thought which just came to me is that I believe there is now some kind of guarantee of money for students on EMA who then go on to Uni, I'll have to check that out...

Your student finance will be based on your family's income, not your girlfriend's. Although there are no special extras for those on EMA, if your family income is low you'll get the maximum funding and you may be eligible for additional funding from the university.

Oldernotwiser

Mely wrote: »

Firstly i have to say that you sound like a very decent, and grounded young man!
As for your situation, i think you should leave it as it is, and enjoy the time that you spend with your gf. Its quality time when you are together, and things change when you live with someone, and see them every day. Also you may find that your studies MAY suffer in that type of situation, due to the stresses that will occur. Make the most of living at home, you wont appreciate this time untill its gone!

And if your mum's on her own she's going to be sorry to see you leave home before you need to and is bound to be affected by it. If you do go ahead with this, be gentle with her.

Savvy_Sue

I can imagine the school are going to be very anti- this plan, which if you're the kind of student they'd be expecting to apply for vetting is hardly surprising. Obviously you are giving it all serious thought, and I'm sure you can understand why your mum would be upset: we prepare ourselves for our babies leaving us at a particular age - I've only got one left at home full-time, and he's at the same stage as you, and I really NEED this next year to prepare myself for him going too.

One thing you could start doing, whether you go this summer or next, is equip yourself with all the domestic skills you need to a) survive and b) impress your g/f and her mother. Laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping on a budget.

Out of interest, how did you two meet?

mountainofdebt

A couple of things strike me.

Firstly, regardless of what your mum said, if it was my son (who is also an only child) announced something similar - regardless of what I actually told him - I would feel rejected and a failure as a mum .....after all you expect for your children to leave home to go to uni / set up a home of their own but to actually choose to go and live with another family whilst you are still - to a degree - fully dependant for the necessities of life .....not sure how happy I would be at that.


Secondly you've said that there are no universities near your girlfriend that does the course that you want to do.....so what happens if you get into Uni and she nags you to give it up becasues she misses you? Do you give the course up and transfer to a nearer university to do a course that your heart isn't in?


Also - and there may be people who disagree with this - the place that you study A levels in does make a difference to the university that you get into. I studied an A level in my local college and when I came to sit the exam I couldn't get over how half baked the 18 year old day students were .....certainly made up my mind that I didn't want my son going there (luckly he had decided to stay on at school for his A levels!)

oystercatcher

Mountainofdebt has just mentioned something that occured to me. Have you actually checked the average results of the sixth form college you are planning to attend? There some good ones about but in my experience most of them achieve much lower results than the local schools and are attended by the lower achieving masses who think a C grade is a good achievement (and it IS for some but not for vet school).

Having attended a good grammar school I'm not sure how aware you are of the distracting behaviour of the unmotivated brainless massess who are only there because they have no better ideas. This could well affect your results if the teacher is going over stuff multiple times to get the basics in rather than forging ahead to keep the brights ones interested.

Please be kind to your Mum ....... she is going to feel very upset.

Oystercatcher

Rosie75

General Studies doesn't really count for much, I'm afraid. I'm a university lecturer, and I can tell you that it's not recognised by my university (or any that I know of) as an A level subject. Best to see if you can carry on with your AS subject somehow and drop GS if possible to concentrate on that.

rev_henry

Sue - Haven't yet really discussed it with my teachers although I will do very soon. I have parents evening next week which was a reason I hav now told my mum, so it can be discussed then if need be. I don't think the school will particularly recommend it but tbh my teachers are all pretty good so I think they'll still be supportive.
Interesting point you make about domestic skills! That is an area I am distincly lacking in; you would be horrified if I told you some of the things I still let my mum do for me. Although I did get a student cookbook for xmas which I have done 1 meal out of thus far with success. I did enjoy doing that as well, and it was nice. I'm sure I could cook fine if I just followed a recipe etc, its just I've never had the need to try.

Gf and her mum know how domestically inept I am, it is a running joke over there almost. But luckily her mum is very much the stay at home and look after the house and kids type, which my gf takes after in much the same way, so she doesn't mind doing my washing etc!

Hehe, we met at a national church conference we used to go to. Twas an interesting chain of events...

Anyway I've got another lesson to go to now so I'll reply to the rest this evening

cjmarcantonio

Dude, you'll really want to think about that - current finnancial climate and all. Plus you never know (not a nice thing to think about) but you might really want to be away from each other in a few months / years.

But at the end of it, go for it if it's what you both want.

Oldernotwiser

oystercatcher wrote: »

Having attended a good grammar school I'm not sure how aware you are of the distracting behaviour of the unmotivated brainless massess who are only there because they have no better ideas. This could well affect your results if the teacher is going over stuff multiple times to get the basics in rather than forging ahead to keep the brights ones interested.

Good grief, I hadn't even noticed that! I too went to a good grammar school and then eventually became an FE lecturer. There is just no comparison between the teaching and behavioural standards between the two types of institution. This plan gets scarier by the minute!