Diarist Dr Paul Redmond


The Unbreakable Umbilical Cord


P


erhaps you are an investment banker. Perhaps you are a City lawyer. Perhaps you are


the captain of a fleet of nuclear submarines. Perhaps you are an uber-adrenaline junky and teach religious studies in an inner-city comprehensive. But believe me amigos, whatever high profile job you AGR members revel in, nothing compares to the emotional white-knuckle ride that comes from having a child apply to university.


Now I appreciate that some of you might have balked at the word child. And yes, you have a point. After all, eighteen-year olds are legally fully-fledged adults. They’re entitled to vote, marry, chauffeur powerful vehicles and participate in Britain’s Got Talent.


But if that’s what you think, prepare for a news bulletin: they’re anything but adults. Eighteen-year olds are works in progress, ongoing projects of self-discovery, living works of trial and error. One minute they’re exhibiting Olympian powers of self- confidence and bravado, seconds later they’re quivering jellies. Yes, they all want to save the rain forest, but don’t ask them to pick up their clothes from the bedroom floor. As


38 Graduate Recruiter | www.agr.org.uk


P.J. O’Rourke wrote about them, everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help Mum do the dishes.


This might explain why parents are so important when it comes to helping students apply to university, and why it’s the parents not the kids who shoulder the psychological burden of the university application process – a process so complex and risky that to those involved it can often feel like living through the opening salvoes of the Cuban missile crisis.


So it’s no surprise that this year, across the UK, parents have again outnumbered students 2:1 at university open days. Parents have also engaged far more actively in careers fairs. For universities, this was once unthinkable. Not only were my own parents not engaged in my choice of degree course, I’m not even sure they knew which institution I attended. All that’s changed: parents are no longer disengaged, passive observers; they’re out there on the pitch, organising the defenders and intimidating the referee.


Universities, it’s safe to say, are still not quite sure how to handle parents. Perhaps they’re in denial, preferring to cling to a time when


students wore tweed suits and smoked pipes. Our students, however, would seem to be far more comfortable with helicopter parents hovering above, thinking nothing of involving the folks in the day to day business of being at uni. And it’s so easy: the mobile phone has become the longest umbilical cord in history, meaning that parental intervention and support is never far away.


So what do parents fear the most when it comes to contemplating their child at university? They fear they won’t get a graduate job. They fear that after all the stress and anguish of A-levels and going through clearing and being accepted by a university that, after all this, their sons and daughters will still struggle in the job market. That’s why today the single biggest issue discussed by parents at university open days is employability. Employability is to Open Days what fog was to Dickens’s Bleak House: it seeps through every presentation, it clings to every display stand, it permeates every campus tour.


And that’s why graduate recruiters are so important when it comes to convincing parents of the value of a degree qualification and why, despite the emergence of new


Dr Paul Redmond, Director of Student Life, University of Manchester


…it’s


the parents not the kids who shoulder the


psychological burden of the


university application process – a process so complex and risky that to those involved it can often feel like living through the opening salvoes of the Cuban missile crisis.


apprenticeships there will always be a need for graduates, particularly when developing future managers and leaders.


That’s also why I’m so excited to be taking up my new role as a Director of Student Life at the University of Manchester. As a parent, having just gone through the stress of getting a child into university, more than ever I have been reminded of what a huge commitment, sacrifice and all round deal higher education is for students and their families. Today’s students deserve the very best help and support available to them from their universities, and developing close working partnerships with graduate recruiters is part of the overall student experience – an expectation shared by both students and their parents. n


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