How to approach this

jumpedtheshark

Mrs.W wrote: »

I can see the sense in a straight three year UK based study course. Particularly if your offspring won't benefit from learning another language or attain additional qualifications along the way in that year abroad.

But as we all know, where our offspring are concerned, we can only offer advice and opinions.

But I think what people are trying to say is that there are so many intangible benefits of that year abroad that OP should be very, very slow to dismiss it.

I see this from the other side as a non-science lecturer, who actively encourages students to do the 4-year course. In my field at my university, it's significantly more competitive to get onto compared to the 3-year course. It's also harder to keep your place on it - students are held to higher minimum first year marks than on the 3-year course and, if they drop below those marks, they're forced to either complete the 3-year course or leave. Students also don't get a full 'qualification' from it but it does change the degree name put on their certificate.

I encourage my students to do it for a number of reasons. It broadens their horizons, both academically and socially. It's fun, and that might make it easier for them to work that much harder in their final year when they come back. We have good evidence to show the 4-year course students outperform their 3-year colleagues in the same courses in their final year. They mature a lot on their year abroad, partly because of coping with new experiences, partly because it's less hectic than here so they have more time to find out who they are as individuals. Networking doesn't always happen, but it is always a useful way to mark them out from their peers for job interviews - it gives them something to talk about, it shows they're adaptable and could easily work with a range of different types of colleagues and clients, go on work trips overseas, relocate to overseas offices, etc. if need be. Cost is a downside but very quickly outweighed by all of the positives.

Savvy_Sue

Of course, it's quite important that students check out what the options are, in full, at the various stages. DS1 had the option of a 3 year BEng, or a 4 year BEng with intercalated year (ie year in industry, or possibly abroad), or a 4 year MEng which would include a final year collaborative project, or he could no doubt have done a 3 year BEng followed by a one year Masters course. DS2 had the same choice with a Math instead of an Eng - and in his graduation ceremony there were about 16 separate Maths degrees listed, some of which had only one or two students who'd done that particular combination!

I was in no position to advise them about what was best: in my day you did an undergraduate degree followed by a postgraduate degree if you wanted more than a B-something after your name. And also in my day a year in industry was very highly prized, and practically compulsory at some universities and unheard of at others! Those two don't NEED the 'M' qualification for their line of work, so if they'd asked I might have pushed them towards the 'industrial year' to give them an edge in the recruitment stakes. As it is, they've managed just fine without it ...

But DS3 is doing Chemistry, and I know for some of the sciences that these days you NEED the 'M' qualification for some jobs or to get professional registration. So if he wants to work as a chemist, at least in some fields of chemistry, he'd better go for the MChem. Since he won't ask for my opinion, I won't have to offer advice!

belfastgirl23

You're saying that your son has not thought through the implications of this. But is it really possible to think through the implications of something that's two years down the line when you're 19? I don't know that I could do it right now and I'm ... well double 19 A lot could happen in those two years, please please let him enjoy the here and now, settle into his course and focus on his learning. It could be that knowing he has the year abroad to look forward to makes him study harder or stops him from dropping out when he hits a tough module.

And honestly I don't think you've really thought through the implications of him NOT doing it either.

cutestkids

What are these implications that you are talking about, you are being very vague just saying that his decisions have implications that he has not thought through but not what they actually are.

If you gave more info people would be able to help more.

That said ultimately this is his life he is now an adult and as such should really make the decision for himself without any pressure either way from anyone else.

Time and again we see on these boards parents that don't seem to release that when their child becomes age 18 they are an adult and their life is their own.

Please don't pressure him as it is probably the quickest way to loose him.

claire16c

It seems to me that the only 'implications' of your son making this choice are good ones.

Im sure there would be plenty of parents who would love to have a child who made it to uni and was ambitious enough to do something like this - but here you are discouraging him. I feel sorry for kids who have to fight for stuff like this with their parents. Why can't their parents just support them.

I looked at doing a year in North Carolina as part of my degree, and instead ended up doing a work placement for the 3rd year, but either way, Im glad I picked one. When I came back to do the 4th year, the few of us who had done foreign placements or work placements had so much more experience than the 3rd years. It gave me contacts for my dissertation too and 'real life' experience.

It makes me so mad to see someone actively trying to put their own child off from doing something which will only benefit them!!

And lets say it were to contribute nothing mark/job wise - how about the pure fact of being young and experiencing life in another country before you have the worries of a job/family/mortgage etc.

Maybe you are just jealous?

moromir

I'm another one wondering quite what the OP's problem is?

I am going to respectfully assume the OP does not have a science background?

I have a chemistry degree and when I applied to uni 8 years ago now, I nearly took the hand off Swansea University for offering me the opportunity of a work/study year in the US.

OP do you appreciate how many exciting projects are taking place out in Europe, the US and beyond for science graduates? 'Out there' is definitely where he wants to be for his career.

To have a years experience of the language and culture - I don't think you can underestimate how much that will put him ahead in getting a job.

Just a handful springing to mind:
the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva
Texas State University body farm in the US
the newly proposed foot & mouth research facility in Kansas, US

Not to forget global conglomerates like BASF Global based in Germany, one of the worlds largest chemical producers with sites all over the world, Kraft foods out in the US who have massive testing facilities if food technology is his thing, or the mining companies in Australia all of whom employ chemists and geologists, not to mention biologists for their environmental reports etc.

I have another friend who went to Wales to do marine biology on a sandwich course, took a year abroad, and has since worked in Madagascar and Australia at a high level - she was brilliantly clever but the experience really opened doors for her.

Is your issue with WHERE this year is taking place? You''ve not been forthcoming with the location I noticed.

mountainofdebt

I was hoping that by admitting that I was a tad emotional when I initially posted that this thread would fizzle out but on the basis that doesn't seem to be the case.....

Uni was always plan b - and if plan a had come off, he would have quite happily dropped out of Uni - but this week its become plan a.

However he may have another crack of the whip next year BUT (thinking of how it would come across at the interview) dropping out of Uni in yr 2 of a 4yr course wouldn't quite give the right impression (and yes dropping out of yr 1 was debatable as to how that appeared in itself) - if he was doing a 3yr degree then by the time they got their at together he would have probably have graduated.

Look ...at the end of the day its his decision I know that - he may not even decide to have another crack of the whip,he may decide to transfer to the 3yr course off his own bat or he may decide to stay on the 4yr course and yes I will be holding the tears back as I wave him off.

Fire_Fox

mountainofdebt wrote: »

He is an only child but its not a case of empty nest syndrome....I think its more a case of being fed up of him not thinking through the implications of his choices, and the week we've had have just highlighted that flaw in his character to the nth degree. And I think I was more than a tad emotional when I initially posted (dont' you just love the internet!)

If he really wanted to go then I wouldn't stop (honestly!) him going and tbh I said before he went away to Uni that it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he tried to complete his degree at the host university.

He does have to make some decisions in the next couple of weeks which may have a bearing on whether he stays on the 4 yr course but at the end of the day what I guess what I need to tell him is not to change courses but to realise that his decisions have implications that he has to take responsibility for.

Thanks once again
X

You are still being incredibly vague, what implications? Your son isn't likely to fail his degree or get a low grade as a a result, he might get a larger student loan but won't go broke unless he doesn't save/ overspends which he could do just as well at home. If he fails to save enough and his parents can't afford to sub him, tough he can't go that is a life lesson in itself. Most young people don't listen to nagging, negative parents even if they have a point.

So what if he tries to complete his degree at the host university? He is young and without any real responsibilities (wife/ children/ mortgage), why shouldn't he do things without thinking through everything so much that you don't ever take a chance/ risk/ opportunity? He is going to be another two years older by the time he does this, hopefully another two years more mature and prepared and take responsibility.

He can finish the last year part time if something better comes along, degrees are modular these days. Degrees don't HAVE to be done three years full time straight out.

poet123

mountainofdebt wrote: »

I was hoping that by admitting that I was a tad emotional when I initially posted that this thread would fizzle out but on the basis that doesn't seem to be the case.....

Uni was always plan b - and if plan a had come off, he would have quite happily dropped out of Uni - but this week its become plan a.

However he may have another crack of the whip next year BUT (thinking of how it would come across at the interview) dropping out of Uni in yr 2 of a 4yr course wouldn't quite give the right impression (and yes dropping out of yr 1 was debatable as to how that appeared in itself) - if he was doing a 3yr degree then by the time they got their at together he would have probably have graduated.

Look ...at the end of the day its his decision I know that - he may not even decide to have another crack of the whip,he may decide to transfer to the 3yr course off his own bat or he may decide to stay on the 4yr course and yes I will be holding the tears back as I wave him off.

I suspect Plan A was some kind of on the job training which meant he would not have to leave home? If that had meant that the employer would sponsor a degree then that would have been wonderful, but in the current climate those ops are few and far between. So, doing a degree under his own steam is now Plan A and you are finding it hard to come to terms with the path that might take. None of us with grown kids find it easy to wave them off, but it has to be done, and if we are to be the best kind of parents we cannot let them see the angst it may cause us, or worse, put obstacles or our doubts out there to unsettle them.

The year abroad is well done the line, sit back and let it pan out. There are a myriad of ways it could play out and you cannot spend the next 2 years fearing how it will go.

I sympathise with you, I really do, I have been there, but ultimately we raise our kids to fly, and when they attempt to do that it is unfair to try to clip their wings by showing the depths of your emotion.

JimmyTheWig

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

I have absolutely no idea why the OP has issues around this - hence asking what the issue actually is.

I don't think that the problem was that he would be a year older than his peers, but that the friends he had made in the first two years would no longer be students and the others on his course would all still be with the friends they made the two years previously.
I don't think either of those are problems. Of the four of us in our student house, I was doing a 4 year course, another did an access course in the first year and so was a "year behind", another did a LPC year following a law degree and another was doing a PGCE year. I.e. of the four of us, all four were there for four years.