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Are your children going off to university this year or next?
Are your children heading off to university this month or next year? I thought I’d share some of my learnings as a parent with you to give a heads-up on some of the challenges you may face. This is only relevant to the UK as I realise the set-up here may be different from elsewhere. However I suspect some of my learnings will chime with you wherever you are in the world.
The truth is as your children make choices about whether or not they want to go into higher education — in our case of our four children, two have so far made that decision — we as parents cannot help but compare their experiences with our own.
My husband has never been in higher education so it’s still a new and different world for him, I did do a degree back in the 1980s. When I started, I was late to the party because I went through clearing (UCAS). I stayed in a shared room, in a big block in the centre of Bath, where it was fully catered. I shared with someone I didn’t know and who was lumbered with me because I started late so I missed freshers and those important early weeks of forming first friendships. We rubbed along okay but it wasn’t ideal.
Our breakfast and evening meals were provided during the week and packed lunches. We had communal bathrooms and no kitchen facilities to make our own food, though full access…
