S19 is at UNA finishing up his 2-day orientation, this session was reserved for honors college students so hopefully he met some people that he will be living with and taking classes with this fall. He was placed in the honors college dorm but no roommate assignment yet. He received a local scholarship at the senior awards night, $2,000 per year renewable as well as a one-time $500 award.
Graduation went well and he did really good on his speech. We managed to get through his final FFA banquet and farewell speech as well as graduate recognition day at church, graduate reception at church, and then a small party after graduation. FFA left yesterday going to state competition and convention, he wasnât able to go because of orientation but his father is going to drive him down to Montgomery probably tomorrow so that he can receive his state FFA degree later in the week.
Project OPEN wonât announce their recipients until July, but if he were to be selected it covers 9 credit hours per semester for the first two years and 15 for the last two years. If he received that then his entire Pell grant would probably be refunded to be used for expenses.
I feel kind of bad about sending him off to orientation alone, on the other hand he needs to learn to navigate things on his own before this fall.
Great job - very happy itâs all going so well!
Do tell us how it goes with the honors orientation, if he made friends and is happy with the honors college.
My son had enough money from graduation gifts to buy what he needs to get started, which is good because Iâm not sure when he will receive his refund from the college. Bedding and towels have been purchased, he bought a MacBook air(not the latest model), dorm room includes fridge and microwave, we are going to wait until he moves in and then decide if he needs anything else. Move-in for his dorm is August 15th, very close. He has a banquet the 8th where he will be presented with the $2,000 per year local scholarship. Project Open did not choose him as one of their recipients for this year, he can try again next year.
He has a roommate assignment, though itâs not anyone he has met. They opened up the application for early admission to nursing again, so hopefully he will be chosen.
His fall schedule includes: biology 101 plus lab, first year composition honors EN111H, US History to 1877 HI 201, Honors forum, Pre-calculus algebra MA112, Honors general psychology PY201H. 17 total hours.
@ucbalumnus
Yes, I think the reason for the flip on psych is because he was trying to get at least 2 honors courses to stay on track with the required number and some either werenât offered or conflicted with something else(or maybe he just didnât like the times they were offered, who knows).
He finished the first semester with all Aâs, it was a struggle at the beginning of the semester but by the end his grades were good enough that he didnât have to stress too much over finals knowing he didnât need a really high score to pull off an A.
I think the social adjustment has been even worse, he came home a lot on the weekend. He wound up joining a fraternity, against my wishes, but says he might not stay in it the entire time, maybe just a year or two to make connections.
After getting adjusted to classes he found a work-study job in October and is working at Health Services a few hours a week. I think he can work up to 20, but his schedule only allowed for about 10 hours. He is paying fraternity dues from his earnings.
Also, he wrecked and totaled his truck, which only had liability, so he is driving my parents old 1996 buick and saving up for a good used car. Hopefully he will have enough by next fall, he says his father has agreed to pay the insurance.
He is finishing up an online class right now as part of winter term, which is actually counted as part of spring semester and covered by spring tuition. I think he is doing fine other than he procrastinated and submitted assignments 30 minutes late one day so not sure how much she is going to take off his grade for that.
He has 16 hours for spring semester:
BI 241
Human Anatomy & Physiology I
CNH 342
Nutrition (taking right now during winter term)
So glad he didnât get hurt in the wreck. Overall it sounds like he has found his stride - hopefully the fraternity will help with the social situation without becoming too much of a distraction. Great job on the grades - is he feeling settled about the nursing path?
Congratulations on the good grades and successful first semester - even if wrecking the truck is suboptimal, hopefully heâll learn his lesson without more cost than that of a new truck.
First year complete, he still has a 4.0 even with the switch to online classes for the rest of the semester. He and his roommate signed up to stay in their same room for next year, thatâs one less thing to worry about. We werenât too happy with the Universityâs refund amount for the unused room and board. They are giving $300 in the form of a scholarship for next fall($600 if you took a summer class, but he couldnât afford that), which doesnt seem like much considering he had almost $500 in dining dollars left besides all of the cafeteria meal swipes. He did get money deposited to his checking account though that was something to do with covid and students receiving certain types of aid. He has been working on the farm again since he has been back home and hopefully by the end of summer will have enough money saved for a nice used car. Hopefully the old Buick will hold out until he buys a vehicle. He and some friends got to spend a few days at the beach, so I guess that was a nice little reward for the good grades. His best friend works part-time for a local bank that owns a house on the beach at Gulf Shores, so he was able to get it for $250 for a week, so split 5 ways it was only $50 each. It was a nice 4 bedroom house so almost everyone had their own room.
Thanks for the update - happy to hear that he has done so well, even with all of the disruption!
And as great of an option as Berea seemed to be at the time, they ended up adjourning for the year without going online (because remote participation just wasnât realistic for too many of their students)⊠so it probably worked out better that your son was at the school where he could finish the year online.
Sounds like he has really found his groove - great to hear!
Congratulations! Thatâs really terrific. Wow on the 4.0 in Nursing.
I hope they were all safe at the beach -$50 each for a week is an awesome deal but the virus is rampant in rural areas, especially Alabama, and young people feel indestructible :(. The fact they had individual bedrooms certainly helped and hopefully they stayed a bit apart from others or each other at the beach.
So far, he still has a 4.0, though he didnât think he was going to have an A in statistics during fall semester, somehow he pulled it off. He took 2 classes during winter term to lessen his load this spring, and it was the hardest he has ever worked. They were difficult classes(nursing concepts & pathophysiology) with a lot of material to cover in about 3 weeks. All he did was study and by the end he was resigned to being okay with whatever grades he got, somehow he barely pulled an A in both classes though. Right now he has chemistry, microbiology, and literature. It doesnât seem like much but both science classes have a lab so I think he will still be quite busy. He also needs to start studying for the HESI which he will take near the end of the semester, I think. As long as he does well on the HESI, he shouldnât have any trouble being accepted to the nursing program. UNA completed and opened a new building for the nursing school this year, it looks pretty impressive. They also just announced a multi-million dollar donation that would provide nursing scholarships.
He is still in the fraternity and is treasurer for this year, it doesnât seem to be a huge focus for him which is good. Although he still comes home fairly often with him being so close, he doesnât come home nearly as much as he did last year. With all of the Covid going on he has been getting extra hours at his health services job, though they just cut it back to 20 hours a week again. With some of the classes being online and the schedule more flexible he has been able to work nearly 30 hours/week. He is still driving the Buick and looking for a car, he doesnât have enough yet for what he wants, but I think he is up to about $15,000 saved up.
How important is it for him to have experience in the medical field? Last summer he just worked on the farm that he did in high school and also did some yard mowing. He might be able to find something around Florence to do this summer for experience but the problem is that he wonât have a place to live up there during summer and would have to commute everyday, which will be expensive.
Good news! He received his acceptance letter to the nursing program this week, he just needs to finish this semester with decent grades and he will be starting nursing in the fall. I believe he is finishing up all non-nursing classes this semester and will only have nursing the last 2 years, so I guess in a few months he will see if he actually likes it.