Daughter to Uni - Question 2!

[Jasmine]

Oh, and impress on her that she mustn't ever leave opened tins of tuna in a communal fridge because they make everything stink. Tupperware ftw!

Yuck. I once made a cake using butter that had been exposed to a pot of opened pesto in the shared fridge. OMG 
Totally inedible

[Tim Hall]

Based on when I were a lad when the room had 2 x 13A sockets and 1 x 2A, we sent The Boy with, inter alia, a load of 4 way trailing sockets. His cell at Bath had something like 12 13A sockets.  I boggled.

[TimO]

If you did the sending a recipe a week/month thing one thing you could include is "how to make cheap punch" we did that a lot as students

I remember doing that for a party, using a small dustbin that we found in a cupboard somewhere, and scrubbed clean.

It was a mixture of cider, fruit juice, wine, some chopped up fruit, and anything else that seemed like a good idea, as I recall.

The cheap wine of that era was pretty foul compared to nowadays, but fruit juice will do a lot to swamp out bad flavour!


Ultimately, a lot is going to come down to learning by mistake, which is what most of us do.  You can try and think of everything, but as people have listed above, many things will be unnecessary, and stuff which you think will be unnecessary may be needed!

The best bet is for stuff that is useful in emergencies, and which isn't likely to be available when it's needed, like a small first aid kit (with pain relief aka hangover cure!), stitching set, small mechanical repair kit (as mentioned pliers, screwdrivers, cutters, adjustable spanner), assorted herbs and spices.  A small number of fuses (to suit anything she's taking with her, like laptop power supplies) could be a good idea.

That's the sort of unobvious stuff that lots of people won't remember, and which could gain her serious kudos when she comes to the rescue.

(Minimal knowledge on how to use it, is also likely to be a good idea, but harder to provide in a convenient instant form).

[jane]

My daughter took very little. She had a room in hall and as we have no car, had to go by train to Glasgow.  She took:
  bike
  laptop
  bag of clothes
  ipod
  mobile phone with credit
  toolkit
  2 good locks
  railcard
  £100

Despite the 2 good locks, she managed to get her bike (old black Lincoln Imp- built up as a gold and black fixie) nicked within the year- I think it looked a bit too bling, really, although in monetary terms, was not worth that much. I fixed it up for her with lots of begged, borrowed and otherwise legally, but cheaply, acquired stuff.
All the equipment that she needed, household or otherwise she bought once in Glasgow.  The hall of residence was right behind a Tesco metro and she (and many other students plus local homeless) fed herself out of their bins (the food they threw out was double sealed in plastic bags and perfectly edible) for quite a while, until they padlocked them.  So, I guess this will not be an option now. 

[TimO]

... The hall of residence was right behind a Tesco metro and she (and many other students plus local homeless) fed herself out of their bins (the food they threw out was double sealed in plastic bags and perfectly edible) for quite a while, until they padlocked them.  So, I guess this will not be an option now.

Time to learn how to lock-pick!

(or use a Padlock Shim).

That's probably as legal as removing the food from the bins anyway.  Strictly speaking I believe it's theft, although Tescos is unlikely to care enough to prosecute.  If you use a shim or pick the lock, you're not damaging the padlock, which could make you liable to a charge of criminal damage.

[jane]

I believe you are right. Tim, they were committing theft.  How crazy that deliberately wasting perfectly good food within sight of poor and hungry people is not a crime, but taking and eating that food is illegal.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again. When I was a teenager I had a part-time job in a Co-op supermarket. Food which was too damaged to sell, even at a reduced price, was stacked in the back warehouse ready to go into THE COMPACTOR. One guy was sacked for eating one chocolate from a box which was destined for THE COMPACTOR - they said it was theft. 

[TimO]

Whilst it's strictly speaking theft, I would think a court would impose little in the way of a punishment, since there is no monetary loss to the company (and arguably you've saved them money), and the basis for that theft is morally not unreasonable.

A court could be convinced that the reason for the destruction (and locks where used) is to minimise the risk of food poisoning, so that dissuading people from this action is for the better good, but I doubt Tescos would put that much effort into it.  Hence imposing a more serious punishment might be sensible, but it's probably easier for them to simply use better security measures, and hence make it too much effort to obviate those mechanisms, rather than deal with the cost, and bad PR, of a court case.

It's come up more often historically, where journalists and similar, have been searching through a celebrities bins for information that can be used maliciously or salaciously (also know as TrashInt in intelligence collecting terms!)

Sacking someone over it, would likely be considered excessive, so if you had a union, or took the company to a tribunal over it, I doubt they'd get away with it.  Unless the company has some stronger basis for that action, it's more likely they either wanted to get rid of someone they considered to be a troublemaker, or the manager was an arsehole.

[Jaded]

Don't think it is about food poisoning, but about removing the attractiveness of putting good merchandise out by the bins for collection later. A well known ruse.

[mcshroom]

Don't think it is about food poisoning, but about removing the attractiveness of putting good merchandise out by the bins for collection later. A well known ruse.

This was the reason at KFC when I worked there. They also had a maximum limit on how much food could be left over, otherwise the cooks would* be charged at the retail price for everything over and above that to stop people cooking too much and taking it home.

*Theoretically, it never happened while I was there. One guy got it wrong once but the manager decided to ignore that rule

[Soaplady]

Another question...

Son is off to uni soon (waah!! and sometimes yay!!) Will he need a printer in his room to go with his laptop or am I just being old-fashioned?

All the other suggestions have been very helpful here too - thanks.

Sara

[mcshroom]

I would say yes, as even if he has university printing services it's good to have your own printer available on deadline day for that one lecturer who won't accept email submission

[jane]

If she can get herself diagnosed dyspraxic, she might get one given to her.
My daughter was diagnosed such last year and received a package of resources to help her with her condition, including an apple laptop and printer with a range of  software to help her with her condition.  Very useful.
   This may well not be relevant to everyone, I accept, but it was interesting to me, as a teacher, to find out that at uni (in Scotland, anyway, I am not sure about the rest of the UK)  there are similar systems in place for diagnosing special needs as in mainstream schooling.  My daughter had gone through all her statutory schooling and sixth form with no one (me included, to my eternal shame) picking up that she had a specific difficulty, in part, because she has a very high IQ so was able to develop coping strategies which meant she achievd all the academic targets (in fact exceeded them).  Apart from her total uselessness at any kind of team sport, communal playground games, terrible clumsiness, inability to climb out of  swimming pool and learn any other stroke than backstroke (although she was terrific at this and passed her mile swim test before going to secondary school, )taking ages to learn to ride a bike and despite living with me and being forced to ride everywhere at a very young age, never learning to corner properly or descend, or off road.  All these things (plus many more, use of cutlery, handwriting etc etc) should probably have given us all some clue- but she was just labelled a bit odd and eccentric by teachers, who didn't care because she was bright, and a stupid useless geek by most other children (not all, but you know the ones I mean)
      Not until A levels did it cause any real problems for her, but to cut a long story short, she took a completely different direction educationally, got into Glasgow school Of Art and by second year was getting very stressed about completing work on time.  Her tutor was puzzled as she worked extremely hard and he could see no reason for it,  but after several chats and observations referred her to a counsellor, who decided she needed to see an Educational Psychologist.  After lots of testing, hey presto, she was declared dyspraxic.  And the college has really tried to help her with this, as much as they can.
   I digress to tell this story because I don't think many people know that these kind of services exist at uni- I certainly didn't and I'm a teacher.  I should point out that one of the reasons she was referred was because she was a very hard worker, and the work she did produce was excellent, yet she struggled to complete work on time and became severely emotional and stressed- this was why her tutor referred her.  Not just because she didn't get her work done , being too busy living the student life.  There has to be a real problem.  But if there is, help is there.  Make sure your child knows that if they re struggling, support is there.

[Clare]

Depends what he's studying, if it's anything requiring a portfolio submission he'll need to use uni printing services anyway unless you want to buy him an A1 printer! Having said that, yes a cheap A4 printer would be useful.

[TimO]

The trouble with cheap inkjets, is that the ink ends up costing a lot, and that's why the printers are often very cheap, because as far as the manufacturer is concerned, it's a loss leader to encourage purchase of the ink.

I'd go for a small cheap laser printer if possible.  The toner will last a long time, so probably won't need to be replaced in a year of use, and it won't dry out when left unused, which is what always happens to me with cheap inkjets.  I avoid using them, because of the running costs, and then find I have to use up a load of the ink to clear the nozzles and get the printer to work at all (if it would).  A laser printer will mostly just sit their happily.  It's no good for colour, but for a lot of work, that won't be an issue anyway (colour laser printers are another issue, some of them are cheaper than a replacement set of toner cartridges!)

[Clare]

I was thinking of a laser printer, I'd forgotten the horror of cheap inkjets!

[TimO]

When I was a student, printers weren't commonly available.  Since I had an account on the Vaxen, I could use the computer centre's line printers.  At that time they only charged for use of the one laser printer that the computer centre had installed.  To use the laser printer, you really had to use DSR (Digital Standard Runoff), that was complicated and easy to get things wrong even with the line printers.  The laser printer was (iirc) 10p a sheet, which is probably equivalent to something like 50p to £1 in today's money.  I couldn't afford that sort of money for my final year project, so just used the line printer and guillotined off the perforations and feed holes!

[Kim]

UKC was pretty good with public laser printers, though if you wanted one in a hurry you could guarantee that it was social sciences deadline week and the cartridge monkey hadn't visited yet.

The Computer Science department had a couple of its own lasers (one colour) that their students could use for a lower number of print credits than the public printers.  They also had a good old-fashioned lineprinter that was free of charge.  Rumour had it that you'd get higher marks on the Operating Systems module's token essay if you wrote it in vi and handed it in on wide carriage lined paper with the feed holes still attached.


However, as I lived off campus, having my own printer meant a couple of extra hours in bed on hand-in days.  After the usual pains of Epson inkjets, I happened across a job lot of previously-owned workhorse laser printers cluttering up the Local Computer Shop one day.  50 quid and a taxi ride home solved our household's (and the LGBT society's) printing needs for the next three years (minus a couple of presentations which were farmed out to the department's colour laser on our abundance of spare printer credits).  No toner cartridge required.

[mcshroom]

Then there was the 24 23 hr computing centre at the Mappin Building in Sheffield which was shut for cleaning from 8-9am each day (just before many hand in deadlines)

[hellymedic]

Then there was the 24 23 hr computing centre at the Mappin Building in Sheffield which was shut for cleaning from 8-9am each day (just before many hand in deadlines)

Oh Yes, I remember it well...
Had geeky medic boyfriend who did much spare time computing.

[Jasmine]

SNIPITY SNIP

   I digress to tell this story because I don't think many people know that these kind of services exist at uni- I certainly didn't and I'm a teacher.  I should point out that one of the reasons she was referred was because she was a very hard worker, and the work she did produce was excellent, yet she struggled to complete work on time and became severely emotional and stressed- this was why her tutor referred her.  Not just because she didn't get her work done , being too busy living the student life.  There has to be a real problem.  But if there is, help is there.  Make sure your child knows that if they re struggling, support is there.

I would encourage any student going to university to acquaint themselves with the student support services available.  Even if they don't think they need access to anything right now, it's good to know what can be available when things go wrong.  Just a cursory glance at what is available can prevent panic at the time: housing support, money support, careers & jobs, tutors & academic support, disability services, residency support within halls, student union, listening services, counselling etc.  Universities are generally now keen on developing these services as there's pressure to 'enhance the student experience' & also to discourage students from dropping out.

You definitely don't need to have 'problems' to access these services.  It's worth getting housing support to look at housing contracts for next year when you get to that point, just to be sure you're not getting screwed.

[Kim]

As barakta's away for a couple of days, I should probably point out that if they do have a disability (which probably includes things that you might not think of as a disability, like dyslexia, dyspraxia, mild visual and hearing impairments and so on which may not have been a problem in a school environment, but could affect their work at university) then the best thing to do is contact the university's disability support service *now*.  Things like applying for funding through DSA and obtaining medical evidence can take time and paperwork, and the sooner the process is started, the sooner support will be in place.  The disability officer will be able to help you through the process.

Even if it's something seemingly trivial like well-controlled diabetes, it's worth disclosing, as those sort of conditions have a habit of becoming a problem in exam season.  If they've already got you on file, it's one thing less to worry about when things get difficult.

[Fab Foodie]

jane, Jasmine, Kim, thanks, yes she has Dyslexia and mild Dyspraxia and has filled in the related applications for this, but good points about contacting the Disability service and support services ASAP.  Thanks!

[a lower gear]

Loads of pertinent suggestions upthread. I can only add:

* decent kitchen knife plus a sharpener for it. Hall / shared house knifes are usually very poor. Keep it in her room whenever not actually in use or it'll soon disappear.

Suggest to her that she stores food in hall fridge in forms that cannot be immediately eaten / microwaved as the thieving bast*rds with munchies after the pub target the easily eaten / reheated, whereas raw or only partly prepared food is too much hassle for them. I soon learnt they'd toast all the pre-sliced bread but couldn't be bothered cutting unsliced bread (unless it was the only bread left in the communal kitchen), especialy if stored in an opaque poly bag that somewhat disguised what it was. 

[Kim]

Failing that, cultivate a reputation as a chemistry/biology/pharmacology student, and store food in lab containers.