<p>He took college course before matriculating and one in particular had a massive amount of lab work so he knew that individual courses could be a lot of work but he had us to remind him of labs, homeworks, upcoming tests, etc. In college the amount of work was somewhat overwhelming as he had three math/science courses, learning to navigate the classes, understanding the professors, dealing with large lecture halls, dealing with assignments with different durations, etc. His school is more of a sink or swim place - advising isn’t all that good. Little things like your keycard not working so that you couldn’t get into the lab room can make life difficult - especially if you have to travel to another campus to get it resolved.</p>
<p>He felt constantly under pressure and had several near misses on homeworks, lab reports, etc. I somewhat expected this and set up Google Calendar (or maybe Yahoo Calendar) to list out due dates for assignments and would ask him if he had homework and if so, when was it due. The calendar also had classroom times, room numbers, course names and the names of the professors. I would remind him of due dates on
a regular basis and sometimes on milestones for longer-term stuff. I was always available
by email or phone if he needed me to look something up. He developed an online todo list which I had access to and I kept an eye on it comparing it to the calendar. Gradually he became much better at recording deliverables and at working on milestones. Towards the end of the semester, I stopped recording assignments, homeworks, etc. I still do make out the semester calendar for both of the kids putting in the classroom time, holidays, exams, deadlines, etc. I don’t think that they use the calendars very much but it’s useful for me as I know where they are during the day.</p>
<p>He eventually got to the point where he wants to get as much done as soon as possible so that he can relax. If he has something pending, he takes care of it and then relaxes when everything is under control.</p>
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<p>The obstacle thing can be a hard issue. Many students have trouble asking for help - I think that many did fine in high school without help or maybe that asking for help is a sign of weakness. I asked him to see the tutoring center for maybe five weeks before he would go to see them. Sometimes they would answer his question and other times they would just give him the Teachers Edition when they couldn’t answer it. He became pretty comfortable going there after the first few times. He did go to office hours because he liked chatting with professors but one of his difficult courses had hundreds of students and seeing the professor was near impossible.</p>
<p>I’ve given him a ton of advice on college over the years and have repeated myself over and over and over. Eventually some of it sticks. It sticks better if he tries it and it works. I think that it was the repetition and getting him to try solutions that he, for whatever reasons, weren’t palatable.</p>
<p>Self-confidence is built upon a lot of small successes and then gradually bigger successes. Other people may have answers to obstacles but kids need to find those
people and know how to ask. I would ask my son about his current problems and make
suggestions if he was over his head. Most of the courses that he was taking were over
my head but I could still make suggestions in overcoming roadblocks. I also had other
resources in that we had a few former university professors in the group that could
provide a professors perspective to problems and situations. That helped in a lot of
student-professor-TA etiquette areas.</p>
<p>In general, I stayed in the background letting him deal with his professors and TAs.
I would suggest to him what he should say or do but he had to do it himself.</p>