Time to move to a new thread for the summer. The Class of 2015 graduated this morning. Congratulations to the students and parents of the Class of 2015.
We are in route to the West Coast with a stop in Phoenix for our nephew’s graduation from Arizona State. I have to give a big shout out to Southwest Airlines. The best way to move a student from Tennessee to California. 5 checked bags, 2 backpacks, a trumpet, a flugel horn and a guitar. Good price on the tickets and we even changed them to stay longer on the East Coast so that we could include a quick trip to Orlando. And no baggage fees.
We had just about given up on Son’s internship in Tennessee and then today he gets an email saying that he should hear within a week. I’m not sure my husband is looking forward to a drive across country, but it would be a great opportunity for Son.
With the first day of school moving back a week this year, enjoy the extra week with your student if they are home for the summer.
Thanks for starting this go9ersjr! Much appreciated! go2girl is home! Hurray! She has an internship here at home for the summer and will join us for a family vacation in July. I’m sure it will go by quickly. She had an amazing year at Vandy–so glad she took a chance on the South! Hope every mom out there has a fabulous day!
Thanks for starting the thread.
DS has been home since May 1st and will start his research internship starting next week. I am so happy to have him home for the next 3 months!
The spring semester seemed to be just as difficult as the first semester - at least for the weed-out classes!
Well S is home for the summer. He hasn’t heard a fnal answer from the internship in Tennessee, but he got a job at home tonight. He’ll be working at the beach renting and maintaining specialty bikes. It should be a fun summer job and give him some practical mechanical experience. And the good thing for us is that we will have him home.
Sure hope that you are enjoying having your student home for the summer. We’re all ready planning to take him back in August. I booked our airline tickets yesterday. Today I’m working on our plans for Family Weekend. I already have the lodging booked for the weekend. We just need to decide how long we are staying. We’ll be bring good friends of our from California this year. It should be a lot of fun to show them Nashville.
Looks like any honors such as dean’s list have just been placed on the spring semesters academic records.
Hi Guys! My son will be a freshman in Engineering in the fall. First registration is Monday… has to register for lower math because AP scores for BC Calculus are not in yet. How hard is it to drop/add when AP scores are released in July?
@lorielliott1 If your S plans on taking the AP credit provided he gets a 4 or 5, then he can enroll in 2nd year math in June. My S assumed he was going to get the AP credit and enrolled in Math 175 (It’s a new number now). He was glad that he skipped 1st year math. If he doesn’t get the credit, then he can change his math class during add / drop.
In my experience, it was more difficult to get a good time slot/professor for “lower” calc courses than the higher ones. For me it was easier to enroll in general calc and move up if the appropriate scores came in. If I had enrolled in multivariable and then had to move down, I would have been stuck in an 8am course with a lousy professor.
Any helpful advise for parents of incoming freshmen? Anything you know now that would be helpful as we prepare to send our students to Vanderbilt?
@KSMom1518
Jake’s Bakes is always a great surprise!
No matter how wonderful people say Move In Day and the move-in crew is, quadruple it!
@KSMom1518 don’t buy everything they suggest for the dorm. They really don’t have space for a lot of extra things like butterfly chairs, extra drawers, etc. The kind of chairs that fold up flat are better; they can be stored under beds. Bunking beds gives them a bit more room. My girls both sent their bean bags home. If they bring a rug, the low pile kind will clean much easier (the fluffy soft ones are not dorm friendly… take my word for it. No amount of vacuuming gets glitter out of a fluffy rug). Ear plugs were a must for many nights (getting used to the dorm sounds took some time). Buy lots of command hooks and strips. More than you think you could possibly use. Bring a hammer, screw-driver, and mallet if you have one for move in day. I bought my daughters a hammer that unscrews and has small tools in it, and they said they used it (and everyone else on the floor) many, many times. Label EVERYTHING with your room number and name. When you get out of your car, they swoop in and carry everything to your room. We lost a rug and some nice boots because they were put in last minute and not labeled (we thought we would be carrying a few things up!). The boots returned, the rug never did. Funny story, half-way through freshman year, the 2 girls whose room the rug was mistakenly put in realized that neither of them had brought the rug… and it was the one that everyone had been emailed about at the beginning of the year! They were mortified. One more thing… dress very cool and comfortable.
hilarious re the missing rug. that will be funny for them always. One piece of advice I have is to avoid the difficulties of not having your books in hand for classes because your well meaning son or daughter has found cheaper prices online. Our son would place big orders online with our Amazon Prime and not look at how obscure the dealer was or how far away…and his books would slowly trickle in…often too late. We appreciated his trying to save us money but sometimes the easy way (buying on campus) is the best way. Online used books are great if you can get 2 day delivery or very good delivery guarantees…that is the ticket to making online ordering work
Thank you @moonpie. Luckily this is my son heading to Vanderbilt this year and he is pretty low-maintenance. I did add ear plugs to my list. He doesn’t have one yet and won’t for another month. Other obligations come first for him, but then I need to hit him pretty hard on the shopping and gathering.
This is getting more real. He spoke with his adviser today and registers next week for classes. He is stuck in the last group to register but hopefully he will be able to get what he needs. He will be on at least one waitlist.
I mailed letters to my list of freshman parents this morning. It’s a nice tradition that Vanderbilt has to have current parents welcome new parents to the University. My tip list continues to grow. This year I added renting a car at the Avis near campus instead of at the airport if you don’t need a car for your entire visit. The $25 in cab fare is more than made up with the savings of one less day of rental car and hotel parking.
The summer is coming to an end. We fly into Nashville on August 16 and he moves into his dorm on August 18.
We’ve enjoyed having our son home this summer. In reality this may be his last summer home. Next year he should have an internship and I know it won’t be near where we live. I know that we will see him several times this Fall. We are going to Parent’s Weekend and we’ll be with him at Thanksgiving. He just won’t be home until Winter Break.
Enjoy your last few weeks.
We moved Son into Lewis House today. This is a much better room then he had last year. I cannot believe how much space he has. It’s a 2 bedroom apartment with a living area and small kitchen. Son was excited to see his friends in marching band. It’s going to be another great year.