Retaking First Year at Uni

nad1611

I know this has nothing to do with Student Finance although indirectly it does. My daughter has been diagnosed with depression and came home early from the end of her first year at Uni, she was unable to take her exams and it looks like she won't be able to sit the ones this week, so unfortunately it looks like she will have to defer for a year, which the Uni are more than happy for her to do.
My question is could she simply resit her first year again, she didn't really finish the year having missed most lectures to do with the exams anywya. I will contact her Personal tutor about this but wondered if anyone had any experience at all.
My daughters main wish was not to defer as she finds it hard to make friends and deferring would mean she'd end up having to make new friends live in again.
Will Student Finance, finance an extra year??
All round it would for her be the most beneficial thing and I believe she would be able to cope going back under these circumstances and living with the friends in rented accomodation, rather than in halls after a deferred year.
Has this happened to anyone? She's very distressed and a little hope might go a long way!!

angelofmel

in terms of student finance, undergraduates are able to get up to 5 years of funding, so she should be able to get funding for a repeated year.

as for the other issue, whats the difference between resiting and defering?

nad1611

Basically she has made a good group of friends and will be living with them in Rented Accommodation. If she deferred she would not be able to live with them and would need to make new friends all over again something she doesn't find easy at the best of times.
She has just been awarded certain things through the disability Allowance etc and simply for coonvenience and less stress to her which she really doesn't need it would be easier.

angelofmel

ok sounds like it would be more benificial for her in terms of her housing arrangements, friendships and grades generally to retake the year again if she doesnt mind sitting through some of the lectures again and thats what she is happiest doing. But continue with the contact to her tutor like you mentioned as he/she will be able to advise better.
Hope this helps!

poet123

What course is she on that there are exams this week?

Even if she defers, she can live out, in rented accom, there is no requirement to live in halls.

Helix

angelofmel wrote: »

in terms of student finance, undergraduates are able to get up to 5 years of funding, so she should be able to get funding for a repeated year.

as for the other issue, whats the difference between resiting and defering?

No thats incorrect. Its not 5 years there is a formula, Length of the course + 1 minus any previous years of study. So assuming the OPs daughters course is 3 years she is entitled to 3+1 - 1 = 3 more years funding (if it was a 4 year course she would be entitled to 4 years)

Oldernotwiser

nad1611 wrote: »

Basically she has made a good group of friends and will be living with them in Rented Accommodation. If she deferred she would not be able to live with them and would need to make new friends all over again something she doesn't find easy at the best of times.

There's no reason why she couldn't still live with her friends; she doesn't have to live in halls for her first year.

nad1611

angelofmel wrote: »

in terms of student finance, undergraduates are able to get up to 5 years of funding, so she should be able to get funding for a repeated year.

as for the other issue, whats the difference between resiting and defering?

The trouble is her firends would then be a year ahead and she would miss out on making friends in her first year, not living in halls. It's complicated.

nad1611

poet123 wrote: »

What course is she on that there are exams this week?

Even if she defers, she can live out, in rented accom, there is no requirement to live in halls.

These are resit exams as she was unable to take her exams in June. As said above I realise she could live out next year but it's likely she'd end up being without the firends she would have wanted to live with, she does have problems socially.

poet123

What course is she doing?

Cross posted!!

MrsManda

nad1611 wrote: »

The trouble is her firends would then be a year ahead and she would miss out on making friends in her first year, not living in halls. It's complicated.

Surely her friends are going to be a year ahead whether she defers or resits? A resit means she'll retake the whole year, attending lectures etc... whereas deferring her exams means she'll take her exams next year without having to attend lectures/labs/do coursework.

Unless she's considering seeing if she can defer her exams from this year until June whilst still progressing into second year? This would take an awful lot of work as second year is hard enough without having to revise work from the year before and take more exams than everyone else. I failed one module in my first year and progressed into second year with the option of repeating that module but I was generally advised to forget about it that as I didn't need the module for my degree so retaking it would be unnecessary stress and may be deterimental to my other studies.

She needs to sit down with her personal tutor and go through the options, whilst being honest with herself over what she is capable of as there is no point in pushing herself too hard that she ends up in a worse position with her health later in the year. Is she getting help with her depression?