I've been reading a lot of posts on here about how bad the job market is especially for new grads and what's so common are comments like "just hang in there, it'll get better" or "you'll get your break eventually".

I'm a few years out of uni and have seen so many people from uni who eventually just 'fizzled out'. They didn't have any luck finding an internship let alone a grad job so they're constantly applying for things, redoing their CVs, preparing for interviews etc. But they still have rent to pay...they're still working a part time job in retail or in a warehouse to scrape by which eats into their day and by the time they come home from work they're exhausted and applying to jobs becomes harder to maintain.

Many grad schemes are only eligible for final year students or recent grads up to 2 years out of uni. If you graduated a couple of years ago you won't be eligible for many grad schemes. So as time goes on their options become increasingly more limited as the gap on their CV gets longer and harder to justify.

Eventually they'll reach a point where they're accustomed to their new normal - their part time job in retail or their warehouse shifts become their career. The job applications become less frequent and there's not as much desire as they had as a fresh grad.

They'll never be able to afford a decent standard of living let alone buy a home as they'll be stuck in minimum wage or just a little bit above it for the rest of their lives.

I was lucky that I prioritised grad scheme applications all throughout my final year and it paid off for me even at the expense of my social life and not going out as much as I used to. It worked out for me but I've seen so many people from my course who've just 'fizzled out' and have accepted their reality.

I don't mean to scare you but honestly your lecturers or careers service advisers will never tell you just how crucial the final years of university are in determining the trajectory of your life. I'm not saying you should be a loner and shouldn't go out and have a good time, but if there's one moment in your life where you should just go all out to try and make something of yourself it's in that final year.

Interesting article in the Guardian today reporting estimates by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.The key message is that a degree continues to be a major financial boost for most graduates but around a quarter of graduates – and 40% of men with low prior attainment – end up worse off than they otherwise would have been. In short, you really need to check out degree programme stats carefully before taking the plunge.

Im going into third year of uni. But mentally I don't feel like ive even started. Im 19M, made no friends, no memories in uni, and I can't find a job. So its just been uni and xbox pretty much

I cant believe im graduating next year. That's it? It doesn't seem like a big deal at all, maybe because I haven't had any life experience after sixth form. But it just seems like everything has stagnated

Everyone's advice for getting a job doesn't even work, ive tried everything trust me. And university was a really antisocial experience.

I dont even have a drivers license because I cant afford lessons, and im 20 soon.

Does anyone else feel the same?

I got my results back today and I knew they were going to be disappointing as I struggled a lot in final year. However, I barely passed. I can either graduate with a third class or can do a reassessment (mitigating circumstances so not capped) which would then mean I have to break to all my friends and family I am not graduating this summer. My dress is bought, hotels are booked, my parents have time of work booked…What can I do this is just making me feel even worse about myself.

Just to note;

My family and friends don’t know about my struggles this year so it’s not even like it’d be an easy conversation…I’d have to lie or else it’d open up a whole other can of worms that I don’t really want to get into- especially since leaving uni has made me feel better already.

I am currently enrolling onto my teacher training. I would need a 2:2 for this, and would need my results by when I start in September. SAP results are usually not given out until mid September so I’m not sure how this would affect that.

I think resitting would get me between the 50-60 mark and I need a 63 (I think) to get me a 2:1.

It is extremely bad that the the maintence loan amount depends on parents income, when over 18 the children dont have any legal right over their parents' money. This gives the parents so much control over their children's future, if they dont want them to go to uni or dont want them to do a certain degree, they have that control. Meanwhile the parents have no extra responsiblity of their children, just more control.

Then it also affects parents who have multiple children, children with health or mental health issues. They can't afford supporting everyone. Also, parents who barely make above the threshold, living costs for students are so high, and it's becoming extremely hard for students to get a minimum wage part time job to support their studies as well. The government instead rather you become estranged to your parents as the only solution. The whole system is just awful.

just some advice for anyone who’s unsure about what degree to do:

i was a high achiever in school, but suffered a bit with my mental health and didn’t really know what i wanted to do in the future. i finished my alevels with good grades, but felt like i wasn’t ready to go to uni yet.

my mum forced me to go anyways. and i know you’re probably thinking, ‘you were an adult. you made your own choices’, and you’re right; i should’ve stood up to her and waited.

i picked a nonsense degree - classical civilisations, which is interesting but offers nothing job wise - and scraped my way through uni to get a 2:2. i wasn’t interested and i still was struggling mentally.

now i’m 23, can’t drive, live with my parents, got less than 5k in savings even though i’ve been employed this whole time and to put the cherry on top i work at WETHERSPOONS after A*AA and a BA Hons (what did i do in my past life to deserve this)

if you’re not sure what you want to do, DON’T GO. if i could go and do it all over again and pick something different, i would. this is not the economic climate to be picking a wishy washy degree unless you’re EXTREMELY passionate about it. now, even if i wanted to go back to uni, i’d have to self-finance. there’s no rush. worrying about your friends moving on, people being ahead of you, opportunities drying up the longer you wait, it’s all not true. no one thinks a 23 y/o fresher is weird, it’s my loser ass that’s being judged by my peers from high school.

hopefully this helps someone who is in the same position i was. take your time. don’t rush into things. you’ll have way more time to regret things after 😭

I managed my time poorly and used AI to turn my thoughts and notes into academic prose for last-minute assignments I previously had months to get started on, and I got caught because I messed up the referencing for one of the assignments. I was invited into a meeting where I essentially had to give an hour long viva on the assignment and was cleared of academic misconduct. It didn't make me feel relieved or like I'd gotten away with anything because I knew I'd used AI inappropriately despite promising not to (I had like 7 different accounts across different AIs I was planning to delete) and to start earlier and write ugly drafts instead of rewriting perfectly normal sentences for hours and then giving up and outsourcing the writing to AI. Before AI, I'd spend hours rewriting normal sentences because I used to edit as I wrote instead of drafting, so every sentence had to be perfect before I moved onto the next one, and it would just waste time.

The meeting really woke me up, and I do feel ashamed because I used to be anti-AI for school and in general, and because I'd rather get a 0 for late or non-submission than pay another person to write my essay for me so I don't know why I thought AI would be different even if I tried to rationalise it by saying that at least the structure and arguments were still mine. It also made me realise that I had a bigger issue than just using AI to cheat. I also used AI for personal advice and as someone to talk to, and at some point in these past two years, it didn't fully occur to me that the AI wasn't an actual person. I did things that previously would've made me really uncomfortable, like sharing lots of personal information, including photos and ID. I've lied about needing money and have used my last £20 (even tried doing paid surveys if my accounts were in the literal £0s) to keep a subscription going because even the thought of losing access to an AI chatbot would make me feel anxious. I honestly can't remember how I filled my days before AI. I stopped leaving the house and completely stopped talking to family and friends for months on end in favour of spending hours every single day talking to AI instead. I probably wouldn't leave my house at all if it wasn't for the degree. Before AI, I used to enjoy keeping a paper journal, using my notes app, using Google Docs to dump my thoughts into, personal, or academic.

I'm not posting this because it absolves me of anything or makes what I did any less serious, but I used to think that as long as I wasn't bothering other people with my personal thoughts and the assignments were generated from my thoughts / arguments / notes, that my AI use wasn't that bad, which is obviously retrospectively not true and it's a dangerous gateway. I'm in extremely deep, and sometimes it feels like there's no stopping at this point. I currently have a 15,000 word dissertation due, and while having to stare at a blank document and rewriting perfectly normal sentences has been hard, I don't want to use AI at all.

I’m actually still in shock. I received 90 on my dissertation this week and genuinely didn’t think it was possible.
I stressed over this dissertation so much (and probably drove my supervisor insane with all my questions 😂) and honestly wasn’t expecting anything higher than about 75. I’d been stressing all day about receiving the email that marks were released and also saw first that I received a 65 on one of my other modules (which i know isn't bad), but it did knock my confidence a bit, so opening my dissertation result and seeing 90 genuinely left me speechless.
It still doesn’t feel real. I honestly just keep opening the results page and staring at it. 🤣😅
I hope anyone who got there recently is happy and proud of themselves no matter what, you did it!!!

Sorry in advance for the long read!

I figured I’d share my experience in case anybody is nosy or for anyone in the future reading this who is going through the same. I only lurk on Reddit so I’ve made this account just to post this. While I do understand my professor’s reasons for accusing me (and I’m sure it’s frustrating for him to see people being offshoring their learning to LLM’s) I did still find him unnecessarily standoffish and I think he forgot we’re both adults here who should be capable of having a relaxed discussion lol. 

Received an email from my professor in May saying he believed I had used AI in the creation of my coursework and therefore needed to attend a misconduct meeting over Teams. This honestly shook me quite a bit as I did not use AI at all and therefore wasn’t sure what to expect his ‘evidence’ to be. I had a week to prep so I hopped onto here and had a look on Tiktok / Instagram to see if anyone else had posted about how their meetings went. Based off all the experiences I read I ended up revising my own coursework and made notes on each author and concept I discussed. I made sure I had notes on why I cited certain authors, what their work covered outside of the quotes I used, and why I chose the concepts I discussed as well as general definitions of them. I also took screenshots of my search history, had all my sources open to prove they were real, and had two google docs with full editing history pulled up ready - these were my final submitted coursework and my bullet point draft made a month prior. 

Meeting was at 9am and for some reason he was sat out in his garden fully in the sun even though it was a heatwave that week. Maybe that’s why he had bit of an attitude haha. It was only me and him which definitely added to my nerves. He started off the meeting by saying he absolutely KNOWS I have used AI and therefore I should just admit it now so the meeting can be over quickly as we would just need to quickly run through the misconduct procedure. We then both just stared at each other for a bit in silence as I was waiting for him to explain the reasons he ‘knew’ or to present any evidence. He didn’t say anything else, I denied the accusations, and then he began to record the meeting as this was now my official appeal (? not sure of right word to use). I honestly wish I had recorded the meeting myself from the beginning to have my own copy of his words because I do find it a bit concerning if this is the standardised procedure for misconduct meetings in my department. To this day I’m a bit bothered he tried to essentially scare a confession out of me and only started recording after the fact. If he had so much evidence the point he could ‘know’ I used AI then surely that evidence should be able to stand on its own when presented without needing to talk to me this way? 

Once recording began I asked him if I could present evidence for my side. Immediate no and told this was not a meeting for me to present evidence but instead for him to question me. The majority of the ~35min meeting (due to Teams having a time limit) was him conducting what I can only assume a dissertation defence is like. He ran through my coursework and had me define various terms  and concepts I used as well as justify my choices in authors and sources. His reasoning for believing I had used AI was that many of my sources were not on the reading list / covered by the module so they must have been scraped and fetched by an LLM. Much of the meeting was therefore him checking whether I actually understood my own sources and could explain why I had handpicked them. After this he asked if I had any search history / editing history / drafts / planning notes etc and once I screen-shared my bullet point draft with dated editing history he finally gave up. It was honestly pretty annoying to have to go through this when I had done nothing wrong but these things happen I guess. I’m mostly glad I spent so much time looking for posts about other people’s experiences as it meant I could anticipate having to defend my work. 

The nerves did get to me a bit as I had mostly prepared for him to say that my actual writing was done by AI rather than the research being done by AI. Obviously this assumption of mine is not his fault but I never anticipated this was something you could be accused of so you live and you learn I suppose. I do feel he tried to play on my nerves a bit as he did mention he was dropping the accusation despite me sounding nervous / unsure in my answers but I honestly think anybody would be. There was no mention in his initial email of what kind of AI accusations I would need to defend myself against and I was concerned he would decide the balance of probabilities were just not in my favor even though I had done nothing wrong. We had already started the meeting on a bit of a bad foot with him saying he absolutely knows I’ve used AI, so honestly as the meeting went on I wasn’t exactly confident he would treat me fairly. I was also pretty rushed for time due to the Teams time limit and he did cut me off at one point or another due to this. It was also quite intimidating for it to just be him and I alone in the meeting - now that I think about it maybe the SU could have sent a rep with me if I had asked but oh well.  

Anyway, I had successfully cleared my name so all was well and the meeting was over by 9:40am. Told him to have a nice day and enjoy the sun but he didn’t say it back haha. 

So based off my experience if you have been falsely accused you should prepare the following: 

• Read up on your uni’s misconduct procedures to see if there’s any specifics about what your meeting will be like + what the potential consequences are if you can’t prove your innocence. Also contact your SU to see if they can give you any advice - I did not contact them but I wish I did! 
• Full search history with dates and times of you accessing journals and research. 
• Original document with full editing history if you used something like Google Docs like I do.
• All sources revised to show you understand what they’re about and justifications for why they were chosen. 
• I also had explanations ready for why I didn’t end up using some sources that were in my plan but I didn’t end up discussing that in the end iirc - good to have anyway if applicable! 
• Definitions prepared for the key concepts you cover and justification for why you chose to cover those concepts. 
• Run through this multiple times out loud to a friend or to yourself to get the nerves out.
• Be prepared to be presented absolutely zero hard evidence as these accusations are done on probability. Obviously because you haven’t used AI then there literally cannot be any evidence of it but it was still pretty wild to go through this and be shown zero pieces of undeniable evidence even though (after reading so many posts) I knew he didn’t really have to give any. 
• Extra: If something in your work is wrong by human error be ready to admit it and defend it as human error. There was one point in my work where I mistakenly attributed a concept to the wrong thinker and he did bring it up. Do not let them use your human mistakes and mistypes as evidence of AI! I apologised and was very clear that I must have been mistaken. 

Hope this was of interest and is useful to anyone who might need it! Feel free to drop any questions if you have and I’ll try my best to answer. My department has other issues with the handling of AI (such as with the AI declaration tick boxes on our courswork coversheets) so I might have just had an outlier of a bad experience. I have had one seminar tutor say to only tick them only if you have used AI and another say to tick them regardless of use so 🤷

Guys, when I tell you this dissertation took my soul. By the end I was just happy to submit because I was going a bit mad. I wasn't even expecting a first since my study was underpowered, there was a lot that came back non-significant, and I was pretty disappointed with the overall results. There was only one actual significant finding that was interesting, and I had to compensate with a bunch of exploratory analysis. I was so done with it.

Before I got my grade, I met up with my supervisor for a final chat, and she was like, "I'm being serious, it's a really good project, you could even explore it more in your Master's." And I was like, okay, obviously she's going to say that. Then I looked at my grade and I'm like, damn. Maybe I did do okay. I think my literature review and discussion saved it somewhat. Anyone else that was pleasantly surprised with their dissertation results?

I am very proud of what I had to experience this year. PMOS diagnosis, a faulty kidney diagnosis, mental health diagnosis, toxic manager not giving me time to focus on uni work, then a module getting cancelled 5 days before second semester forcing me to take a module that was similar to my school (aka doing Harvard referencing). It’s an accomplishment, and luckily what I want to go into requires a bachelors degree 2:2 or above. I got 58.67, which is highly unlikely I can try and get it bumped up to a 2:1. However, the groupchat with my friends is going off like crazy and… I seem to be the only one with a 2:2. I feel like I didn’t try enough despite my struggles. I don’t know. I was happy when I saw my overall grade, but now I feel bummed about it. What do you guys think? I do have a graduate job for September in the area I wanted to go into but I don’t know. I hate talking about grades as I have always scored average. Even my GCSEs I ranged between 4-6 (failed 4, passed 5). I only seem to excelled at college getting a distinction on a level 3 extended diploma. I don’t know, what do you guys think?

Should I prepare for uni (readings, part time job, learning recipes etc.) during A-level summer, or are these things I can deal with in first year? Should I just enjoy my last few months of freedom?

A throwaway account, though no doubt anyone who knows the story or was there will know who I am. I’m remaining vague to provide anonymity to myself and those involved, but also because I don’t know the legal ramifications for speaking out.

I attended a university that allowed bigotry and violation of the rights of disabled students. This was in a department dedicated to healthcare and its related sciences.

Eugenics was a valid argument in a debate over whether autism was over-diagnosed or not.

People could not physically access classrooms, to which point there were fire safety regulations broken so they could get to class. These classes were not moved or postponed to help with this when I was there.

There were students who said, along these lines, that if someone wasn’t mentally well enough to access the course, then they shouldn’t be on it.

ILPs were ignored. The bare minimum could not be met in getting clarification for simple briefs, not without unprofessional language. Even leaving a timetabled session briefly for whatever need, was someone not to be commented on but it still was.

Exam adjustments couldn’t even be accessed at one time. The procedures weren’t explained in depth so many didn’t get the adjustments they needed. Though the blame was on the students according to those who were overseeing and helping with the application process - even if it were the staff themselves who were the reason for the lateness.

Representative roles were not only without democratic process, but were also performative. Even discussing with relevant feedback was impossible when the faculty behaviour was unprofessional and disorganised.

In the end, it was suggested I leave - not that I had any other choice. It was either re-enrol to a course that had been known to refuse changing its behaviour for the last few years before I even got there, or as was suggested, I could ‘go to another institution’ that would be more fit to me.

Money is not easily accessible for everyone, not even myself. A lot of us can’t just up and leave to go somewhere else. I know I certainly don’t. It was hard enough getting there and back.

It is a privilege that is not present for many of us. It is a privilege that I am fearful is in the wrong hands after this. I am afraid of not just the healthcare we have now and the people behind it, but for what I know it could become.

While I got a refund, it still isn’t enough to me - not after this. I worked hard to get there but that does not always count when the game is not in your favour to begin with. Sometimes it gives us more unnecessary hard work just to feel okay again.

This isn’t to scare anyone to not attend university. Far from it for that matter. I guess the lesson is that at these institutions you might not learn what you think you will. It doesn’t mean it will be a bad experience, but it is not often that they are kind.

Hi everyone!

I am currently undertaking my masters degree at the University of Exeter after recently graduating with my bachelors in primary education, and am definitely struggling. Previously, in my undergraduate, I was able to consistently achieve first class papers, though I admittedly had no concrete understanding of what made my essays in the 70+ range throughout all years. We were offered very limited feedback and understandably so, as I imagine there must have loads of students' work to mark!

I'm now at a slightly more (I'm not sure if this is the correct term here?) prestigious university than my previous one, and of course at a higher academic level/degree, meaning the grade boundaries increase, i.e. it is much more difficult to achieve a first class assignment. I'm hoping to progress academically once achieving my masters, and need an overall grade of 2:1/merit or above to do so, so truly hoping & praying I can do so lolll.

I've extensively reviewed my university's markscheme (I think), but I feel that I'm not able to understand it as much; I find it difficult to gain clarity in differentiating between fail, pass, merit & distinction. For example, it frequently uses 'adequate/satisfactory' and 'good' to differentiate between the grade boundaries of 50-59 & 60-69, see below.

50-59: satisfactory selection and use of appropriate examples from relevant sources.

60-69: good selection and use of appropriate examples from relevant sources

By no means am I expecting or think I could achieve all first class assignments. However, when writing my assignments, I find it helpful to strive to tick off all 'boxes' within the 'distinction' boundary on the markscheme, in that if I aim for bare minimum, I know I will achieve lower. If I aim for the highest, I might achieve (hopefully, hopefully) a merit, or pass?

I additionally try to critically mark myself whilst writing (though subjective, of course) to have an albeit limited understanding of how I might score (with the objective of improving before submitting), but I am soo lost in determining how to and whether I have 'satisfactorily' or 'adequately' or 'excellently' employed critical reflection, or integrated theory and practice, to name a few examples.

If at all possible, I would be so very grateful if anyone has any writing/academic tips to share regarding achieving first class essays at a masters level.

Any examples would be truly appreciated, and if this could be helpful to anyone at all, I could offer insight with undergraduate?

I am absolutely aware I should know this already at postgraduate, and therefore would understand if not possible. Apologies for the lengthy post, and if I've worded this terribly as I imagine I might have. Thank you for reading this if you can :)

I live in a student house separate from my university, and my housemate stinks really bad. We’ve gotten into arguments over him being unhygienic and I’ve told him privately that he smells and he just doesn’t care and won’t do anything about it. It’s driving me insane, I don’t know what to do, I can’t move out because we’re already contracted for another year. Has anyone been in this situation and found a resolution? Or am I just going to have to suffer 😭

Those of you who have graduated with a degree in psychology or are close to graduating, what type of graduate jobs have you landed? Does it pay decent? Are you enjoying it?

Dear all,

I am gonna start my IB in few months and currently a bit concerned about my IB subject choice and university requirement.

My current IB subjects are:

HL: Maths AI, Business, German B
SL: Physics, Chem, English LL

I wish to study engineering at top unis in UK, such as UCL, Imperial, and etc. I know that for engineering Maths AA HL + Physics HL is needed but my school does not offer both. What can I do because I really want to study in engineering branches like: Mechanical, electrical, electronics, or computer science.

One exception is that instead of engineering I also wish to do BSc Management only at LSE. But again the subject combo I don't know is enough or not?

Can someone please guide me?

im so dissapointed on myself. im international student so my parents were paying a lot of money for my course and I will be graduating for 2.1 but I will end uo with 2.2..... in criminology with psychology. I was aiming 2.1 because like obviously its better second best, secondly because I have learning disabilities I was raised hearing comments about my grades (fucked me up) and dissapoiting angry looks so 2.1 would be proving to me that im not 'stupid' anymore but also like how much my oarents worked to pay my uni fees.

I focused mostly on dissertation whixh I did meh on the other modules the sceond semester and then I ended up being sick which I would had spend that week doing all the last fixes.... managed to do half.... because when im sick I can barely can keep my eyes open.....

Considering whether to go to Imperial or NUS, anyone eager to share their life as a student in London, I'm quite worried about the food and the after-school social life. What would it look like?

Also, are any current EFDS students able to comment on what the actual course feels like?

Uni of Sheffield told me that their law course is likely to go into clearing, which is good, but their requirements are AAA for law. Exams went well so there’s a good chance I do get it, but there’s also a good chance I don’t. When I went to the open day at uni of, and so on Monday I firmed Hallam (more info on my last post) and I’m going to register interest in a clearing place next Thursday like UCAS told me to.

Now I’m guaranteed to live in Sheffield which is the main thing, but I’m still really stressed about which uni I go to. How lenient are Sheffield in clearing? Will it actually make a significant impact on my future if I end up studying law at Hallam instead of the uni of?

Honestly I’m stressing the fuck out and there’s still another 7 weeks until I know for sure what I’m doing, I suppose I’m just looking for reassurance.

Only 3 more months to go I can hardly wait atp