<p>U.S</a>. News - Missing SD student turns up at NY Occupy protest</p>
<p>If this were my son, I would hide his backside. I am not sure what would burn me more, lack of communication, or what appears to be the complete blow off of his first semester at college. If he does not return, that is a pretty big financial loss to his parents.</p>
<p>Yeah. My kid would be at <a href=“http://www.occupyyourowntuitionpaymentdotcom”>www.occupyyourowntuitionpaymentdotcom</a> after that.</p>
<p>Either that, or occupy your bedroom. </p>
<p>whichever they could afford first.</p>
<p>Good one, poetgrl! What a moron. He was probably complaining about the high cost of tuition and lack of jobs. I’m sure he feels entitled to be supported by others.</p>
<p>There is more to Occupy movements than what Fox News is telling you guys…</p>
<p>First off, this student is an idiot. I hope his family cuts off any financial support they were giving him. </p>
<p>With that said, the OWS is <em>not</em> about wanting to be supported by others. I’m so sick of that characterization. What they’re reporting in the news is often either the vast minority of cases or simply not true.</p>
<p>Sorry Romani, that may not be what initiated it or what some of the hard core activists were intending. But that is surely what it has turned into.</p>
<p>I totally support his right to protest, but common courtesy would demand that he notify his parents of his location.</p>
<p>bus, I disagree completely and the majority of people who have actually been to a demonstration (not just watch it on the news or believe what is spewed at them) are on my side, but after a week of family, I’m not in the mood to argue.</p>
<p>I don’t think he is an idiot. He is an 18-year old idealist and a romantic.</p>
<p>I certainly DO agree that blowing off a semester of college that someone has presumably paid for is bad form, though, to say the least. If he were mine, I would not be springing for any more tuition until I could be sure that he would actually stay at school.</p>
<p>I would make him pay for the semester through a loan. It is good to be idealistic when one afford it, but not on someone else’s dime.</p>
<p>This thread was not started to be political. It was started because many moms (and some dads) come here expressing their irritation that their son or daughter is not communicating with them as they expect they should. My issue with this kid is not that he followed his heart to Occupy NYC, but that he had such a warped sense of reality that he didn’t think his parents might notice that he left school and didn’t communicate his actions. I don’t know what you call that…but I call moving into adulthood an act of growing up that requires that one actually realize that the world does not revolve around them. These parents, or worse, the federal government, coughed up the money to send this kid to college and the least he could do is respect that enough to see it through or be mature enough to turn the offer down in the first place. Goodness knows there is some kid at a CC (or not in college at all) somewhere who would have loved and respected the opportunity.</p>
<p>PS…nice URL Poetgrl</p>
<p>regardless of intent, anything regarding the occupy movement is political. i agree with romani–the movement is certainly about much more than ‘handouts’. overall, i’m glad it’s getting the public discussion going about income inequality. </p>
<p>still, this student was inconsiderate and idiotic. maybe mentally ill?</p>
<p>Oh so idelistic. So young. He had no clue his parents were worried about him. Fortunately they were understanding.</p>
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<p>All I see in the article was that he was missing for several days. That doesn’t sound like he blew off an entire semester. I’ve seen many classmates take off on trips for up to a week and yet, kept up with their assignments/readings so their semesters weren’t lost. </p>
<p>If one plans out one’s assignment/readings/study plans well enough, missing even a week or two won’t torpedo an entire given semester.</p>
<p>Obies routinely left the campus for some days in the '90s to take part in off-campus protests or to join short-term arts/musical projects without having those absences necessarily impact their academic performance. </p>
<p>As for not notifying his family…that’s not ok. </p>
<p>However, this underscores a great change in college expectations as back in the '90s…most college classmates checked in with their parents once every 2-3 weeks at most…not once every few days. </p>
<p>If he pulled off what he did during my college years, unless he stayed out of contact for a week or two…his family may not necessarily have even known he took some days off to participate in a protest.</p>
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<p>Inconsiderate with a touch of idiocy, possibly. However, he may not have been thinking…or maybe he was trying to prove to himself he can cope with embarking on a long adventuresome trip to a big unfamiliar city independently. </p>
<p>I can sympathize a bit with the latter as it is a common desire among the vast majority of young adults…especially young men.</p>
<p>hey…the kid just wanted to party and do some drugs, maybe his school was a little too strict.</p>
<p>Cobrat - I am older than you are. i spoke to my parents once a week when i was in college, and so did my friends, at minimum. I was a smart student, missing a week of school would have set me back. If my parents found out I was MIA, my a*s would have been grass.</p>
<p>And there’s a difference between checking in and your parents not being able to get ahold of each other. My parents and I might go quite a while before talking to each other (we’ve gone probably up to two weeks with nothing) but if they were trying to get ahold of me or vice versa for over a week with no response then you bet your butt that we’d be in trouble with one another (including if my parents made me worry for a week).</p>
<p>“Schmidt, who is unsure if he’ll return to school and has returned to his hometown of Waunakee, Wis.”</p>
<p>Think some of you missed that statement. Sounds like he blew off an entire semester of school, maybe even his entire opportunity at that school. No getting a refund at this point. Anybody here betting the odds that this semester of school wasn’t paid by the student? Pretty easy to blow off your parents money, financial aid or even student loans, not so much your own.</p>
<p>I would take an educated guess that none of the students here, nor students of the parents here would blow off school quite so lightly.</p>
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<p>He was only “missing” for 5-6 days but has decided not to return to finish the semester. (Unless his parents have something to say about it.) This is where “blowing off the semester” is coming from.</p>
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<p>I understand what you are trying to say but the thread was started to draw attention to what can happen when a parent is not able to reach a student. It didn’t really matter if he was on the beach in Aruba or at O-NYC.</p>
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<p>Among my HS/college classmates, being in contact more than once every two-three weeks with parents was commonly taken as a sign either the parents were excessively micromanaging/overprotective or the classmate has serious prior health/maturity issues requiring frequent parental check-ins. </p>
<p>This was especially the case if this applied to male students as some of our parents expected us to be able to cope with functioning independently in a college dorm environment without weekly parental contact as they’ve had similar/worse experiences with universal military service/university back in their respective home countries.</p>