son wants to leave uni and maybe get an apprenticeship

Hi all,

Hope some of you can give some advice. Our son started University in September. We have only just found out that he hasnt been attending since before Christmas. He says he can t cope with studying any more and wants to leave.

He has said that he has applied to some apprenticeships nearer to home and wants to move back in.

We have no problem with that, and would encourage him to do so. However, we have caught him out in a number of lies and after confronting him, we discovered that his best friend from home has basically been with him at his uni digs. This person is quite an unsavoury character and basically scrounges of our son all the time. He even persuaded our son to book a week long break in Amsterdam, not once, but twice since September. Once in October and again at the start of January.

Even when his friend isnt at the uni with him, they spend hours per night on the phone to each other. I only know this as I pay his phone bill.

We are worried that this friend has persuaded him to leave uni, and he has been kicked out by his parents and is looking for a flat and no doubt wants our son to move in as well.

We cannot make our son see sense, he thinks his friend is a good person, but he is not and other families round here know him as a total waste of space.

Our son is going to drop out in the next couple of weeks and we are worried he will throw his life away.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and sorry for the long post.

Thank You

Hi all,

Hope some of you can give some advice. Our son started University in September. We have only just found out that he hasnt been attending since before Christmas. He says he can t cope with studying any more and wants to leave.

He has said that he has applied to some apprenticeships nearer to home and wants to move back in.

We have no problem with that, and would encourage him to do so. However, we have caught him out in a number of lies and after confronting him, we discovered that his best friend from home has basically been with him at his uni digs. This person is quite an unsavoury character and basically scrounges of our son all the time. He even persuaded our son to book a week long break in Amsterdam, not once, but twice since September. Once in October and again at the start of January.

Even when his friend isnt at the uni with him, they spend hours per night on the phone to each other. I only know this as I pay his phone bill.

We are worried that this friend has persuaded him to leave uni, and he has been kicked out by his parents and is looking for a flat and no doubt wants our son to move in as well.

We cannot make our son see sense, he thinks his friend is a good person, but he is not and other families round here know him as a total waste of space.

Our son is going to drop out in the next couple of weeks and we are worried he will throw his life away.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and sorry for the long post.

Thank You

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated. One more question, could someone give me an idea as to what the financial implications will be regarding his student finance.

Thanks

Hi all,

Hope some of you can give some advice. Our son started University in September. We have only just found out that he hasnt been attending since before Christmas. He says he can t cope with studying any more and wants to leave.

He has said that he has applied to some apprenticeships nearer to home and wants to move back in.

We have no problem with that, and would encourage him to do so. However, we have caught him out in a number of lies and after confronting him, we discovered that his best friend from home has basically been with him at his uni digs. This person is quite an unsavoury character and basically scrounges of our son all the time. He even persuaded our son to book a week long break in Amsterdam, not once, but twice since September. Once in October and again at the start of January.

Even when his friend isnt at the uni with him, they spend hours per night on the phone to each other. I only know this as I pay his phone bill.

We are worried that this friend has persuaded him to leave uni, and he has been kicked out by his parents and is looking for a flat and no doubt wants our son to move in as well.

We cannot make our son see sense, he thinks his friend is a good person, but he is not and other families round here know him as a total waste of space.

Our son is going to drop out in the next couple of weeks and we are worried he will throw his life away.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and sorry for the long post.

Thank You

Quitting in the first year still means he will have 3 years funding left should he wish to resume Uni in the future. For my son it will be only 2 years and he wi,l have to self fund a year...so essentially he will never be returning.

Many people in the Uk, i have noticed (as well as here), take courses leading to a degree in English, Modern Art, History, International Affairs... etc, etc. IMHO, these are basically worthless and a waste of money. They will NOT improve your prospects of employment, nor add to your income - when it comes time to support a partner and family.

If he can resume at the start of Year 2 (probably at the same university) funding won't be a problem.

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Thank you for that clarification. His Uni has offered him the chance to return in January 2019 the same stage he is leaving at now. But he wants to begin the entire 2nd year again, which isn’t an option. I was just very worried about the funding so thank you for clearing that up for me.

I can only conclude from that, that they are hiring "non-professional" staff. If you are hiring - bartenders, wait staff, desk clerks, bellhops, auto mechanics, road cleaners & menders, etc, the 'degree' (if any) obtained WOULD be irrelevant.

I am an electrical engineer [BSEE] 1969. I worked for about 8 years for the US Federal Government, but i then noticed that more and more applicants for new jobs already HAD master's degrees. These people were 'fresh out of uni' - not experienced practitioners of the art. When i started in engineering [at a small hardware company - building electronic boxes for NASA, the US Air Force, and such - many 'real engineers' in the company didn't have bachelor's degrees. These were not 'technicians' [in the Uk sense, many people that would be termed technicians here, are instead, called 'engineers' - despite the fact that they couldn't engineer their way out of a paper bag]. These were real engineers, considerably more skilled that i was at the time.

I decided, after working there for a couple of years, that i needed to 'upgrade' my credentials, so i found a small school that would accept me - even with my 'spotty' academic record. [Me dad never finished 8th grade, and me mum finished High School, and then took a short course from a secretarial school to learn how to be a secretary. Neither of them were much help in encouraging my academic pursuits]. I had NO idea of how to be a student, consequently i flunked out of 2 different unis. I enrolled in the small school, cleaned up my act (to a degree), and managed to make the Dean's list all 3 academic quarters that i was enrolled. I then transferred to a uni that offered engineering, and managed to 'swindle' them out of an engineering degree.

I then found, that increasingly, i was being told 'how' to do something - and the 'how' didn't make any sense (in an engineering sense). Most of the people insisting that i do things 'their' way, didn't have engineering degrees at ALL!! They would refuse to listen to reason. Ultimately, when the project 'crashed' - they would blame me - saying that i hadn't done it 'right' - when i had objected (usually in writing) that their approach was flawed & wouldn't work. I got tired of this, so i went back and got a master's.

On this side of the pond, anybody in a technical field, that doesn't want people who don't have a clue what they are doing, telling them what to do, collecting the promotions for any successes, and blaming them for any failures, had better take the time and trouble to get a master's in the appropriate technical area for their own protection. A doctorate isn't yet necessary, but IMHO, a master's is. Best of luck!!.

What does any of this have to do with the OP's (year old) question?

What it has to do, is that if he drops out w/o degree - he's going to be stuck for the rest of his life, having 'non-knowledgeable' people telling him what to do, and blaming him when it goes wrong - due to their incorrect direction. Personally, i found that infuriating!! Some people might not i will admit. And altho some of these posts are a year or more old, i don't necessarily think that they are unique - in that other people might not have the same issues sometime soon. Cheers.