Thanks to everyone for your very helpful responses. I will recommend to him to swing by career services to see what they can do to help him with the video- great idea!
Video submission follow-up:
So S17 chose Option 2, which was the obvious choice for him and the consensus among you all.
He booked a sound-proof room at his library for the task. He wrote a 2 minutes script - I helped clean it up with a few edits, etc. He put the script in very large font and made a pdf. He got a haircut and shaved (lol) and put on a nice collared shirt. Then he set up the pdf on his laptop screen and recorded the video as he scrolled though the script.
He wonât show me the finished product but he says itâs pretty good - Iâll take his word for it. This was way outside his comfort zone and Iâm happy he was able to put together a solid submission.
I was hoping he would be a bit more creative using his friends help, but I can only push so much.
Hopefully this type for thing will be easier for him going forward. Time to be an adult.
Thanks yâall for your help
@STEM2017 Glad the video is done!
S17 has been accepted to Vet school (due to early admit) for next fall assuming he doesnât drop his GPA below a certain level by the end of the spring semester (which would be really hard to do. I think he would have to fail every class.) They said our formal offer letter would be coming at the end of January when all the other students get theirs. From what I can tell this is just because they donât have everything set up for the class yet. The subject was Class of 2024 and it ended Congratulations. It was very short.
He also has an offer for a summer job in West Virginia an hour from DC. He has never been to that part of the country (other than a school DC trip years ago). Sounds like a good offer and has free room and board with it. He is asking a few more questions before accepting but is sounds good!
I hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving! Itâs been a while since Iâve checked in - itâs really nice catching up and sounds like things are going really well for everyone.
D17 is having a great semester. She is mentally back on track and excited about her new major. We got her an apt in the city that she can live in until she graduates, so I think she also feels a bit more settled - a real home away from home. Also, itâll be fun for me to use the apt. when sheâs home in NJ, ha!
She was able to secure an internship for next summer and sheâs thrilled. Itâs just great to see her passionate and excited about learning again.
D17 will be back for winter break in about 10 days! It feels like a very long semester because she didnât come home for Thanksgiving! It was a tough semester for her as well but seems like she will pull through eventually. She just got picked as an instructional aide for Thermodynamics class next semester. It will be a lot of extra work but she is very excited. Thermo is her favorite class so far! On another note, she might be spending her winter break helping S20 edit essays if his ED doesnât come through as hoped. Donât think she is looking forward to that! 
Iâm looking forward to the end of the semester - DS15 will be graduating next week (still looking for a job, so hopefully he finds one soon so he wonât have to live at home too long). And over winter break, we all head to Hawaii. DD is taking part in a geology field camp, and we decided to do family vacation before field camp starts. Looking forward to getting away from the cold for a bit! We are able to afford field camp since she is graduating a year early! In the meantime, she is working on grad school apps as she finishes up her final projects of the semester. Hope everyoneâs children do well with their finals!
D17 was just nominated by her university for the Goldwater Scholarship. Itâs a national scholarship and we wonât find our results until close to April. This is her second year in a row that she has been nominated, and we are hoping the second time is the charm. She is doubling in Neuroscience and Molecular Genetics and has been in a lab all three years at school.
She is also working on plans for spending 8 weeks in Shanghai this summer in a language-intensive program with a homestay. She is home tomorrow! She, too, will be working on grad school applications and studying for the GRE next semester.
Iâm enjoying catching up on everyoneâs kids. Mine is finishing up her semester with the last day of classes today. Sheâs happy that she has no finals. Just needs to finetune a research project in psych and then write papers for the other classes. She interned this fall which meant full days in Boston twice a week. It was an amazing experience. Sheâs off to South America for the spring!
Iâm upset!! My D purchased air ticket to come home even though not 100% sure about the exam schedule. Her TA said âIt should be OKâ so she bought the ticket. She later talked to the professor to confirm but the professor said âNO WAY you can get away that early date!!â AAAAHHHH. We had to pay $400 additional fees to change the date!
Here goes our Christmas budgetâŠ
@HiToWaMom Almost the same thing happened to my D. Her professor told them his final was next Thursday. So we bought ticket late afternoon of that day. She thought her last final should finish by Wed. At the time the Wedâs ticket was about 200 cheaper than Thursdayâs ( I donât know why). But we had to go for Thursday since the professor insisted his classâ final was on Thursday. Then after a month, he said he realized he made a mistake, his final was to be this Friday. My D was actually correct that her last final would be next Wed. I had to change her ticket so she can be home 1 day early ( she has been away for more than 6 months) and paid another $200 (we did get a voucher for the price difference, Wed was still cheaper than Thursday).
Final exam times are nearly always published by a college in advance of the semester even beginning. (Faculty have to plan their semesters too, after all!)
Serious advice: Never assume that a final will not be held as scheduledâalways buy tickets for after the published exam times for your student are over. I mean, if nothing else you might have something happen like last year up where I liveâan earthquake that shuts down campus for a few days during the last week of regular classes, which pushed some classes where no finals were going to be held to have class on their exam days, so as to make up for lost time. (Or this could even happen for more prosaic reasons, like because the professor falls ill for a couple days.)
After the published final exam times, though, the professor for a class (depending on university policy, but this is the norm) has no claim on their students.
@dfbdfb My daughter went with the published timeline so she thought she can buy ticket for Wed. The professor insisted his test will be on Thursday ( according to published timeline, his test should have been on the prior Friday). He accepted he was wrong only after a month and we bought the ticket.
In our case, it was 100% my Dâs fault. She rushed to purchase the ticket before confirming with the prof.
I really want to do everything for her so we donât waste money but then she will never learn. I shouldâve included âLife lesson cost by making lots of mistakesâ into our school budgetâŠ
(I finally succeeded in making her to make appointment to see an in-network doctor, not just walk into random urgent care for something she can wait a few daysâŠ)
Sorry for the vent.
Our HS2017 kids are already juniors! I cannot wait the day she will be fully independent and be responsible for all of her mistakes!!
Itâs good to hear the updates!
S17 has been home since late last Fridayâand then he promptly left the house to hang out with a couple of friends. We totally understood because one of the friends was home on leave from the military and had to fly back to his base the next morning. They took a midnight hike and had a good chance to catch up.
He had an excellent semester, especially considering how busy he wasâmock trial captain, treasurer of political group, 20 hrs/week field experience/internship, and 3 classes. Heâs a little bummed that although his grades are high enough, he canât make Deanâs list this semester because he only had 11 credits of graded classes (need 12 credits for Deanâs list) because the 8 credits for his field experience are pass/fail.
Now heâs getting a good chance to rest & relax, play a little hockey, hang out with us and his friends, and will go to a couple of Buffalo Sabres games. Unless he gets some compelling reason to take more classes/credits, heâll graduate next semester, a year early. And the law firm he interned with is keeping him on in a paid position for next semester, too. Crazy, exciting time for him, and heâs soaking it all in.
Happy holidays to all, and safe travels to all the kids traveling home!
@MSU88CHEng Is your S17 in the honors college? My D17 says a lot of her friends at MSU are graduating a year early as well. Itâs a good way to save some $$.
@bigmacbeth Yes, S17 is in the Honors Collegeâhe barely squeaked in, but it made MSU affordable (enough) for us with the scholarships since weâre OOS. And he was an IB diploma student in high school with additional AP and DE creditsâI think he entered MSU with 39 credits⊠Congrats to your D17, and good luck on the Goldwaterâweâll be cheering her on!
Hi All,
Sorry to intrude on this thread. It seems like a great group! Although I found CC in time to be helpful for my D17âs college search, I didnât know about this group until if felt too late. However, I know a number of you from the 2019 Parentsâ thread. Anyway, I was hoping to get some thoughts/advice about D17. She attends a LAC in the northeast and we are from Ga. She is an English major and Womenâs studies minor, gets good grades and is involved in some activities along with her campus job (as a lifeguard). Iâm very proud of her for working through some anxiety and going so far away to school (she had a terrible first semester but stuck it out and is happy now). It has been a great experience for her academically. However, she has never been a go-getter when it comes to looking for jobs. She applied for a number of internships last year over winter break and had to settle for regular summer jobs in the end (babysitting, retail, life guarding). I wasnât too worried because as a sophomore English major, I didnât expect there would be a whole lot available. My questions are:
- Are there any things in particular that helped your kids find and get internships?
- Any thoughts about types of jobs she should look into/explore for after college? I've read a lot of CC comments about people who were English majors and ended up with interesting and successful careers, but they often are not related to writing. D17 definitely has an interest and a strength in writing. She also is creative and has been involved in theater (a lot in high school and when time permits in college). She will be directing a play this semester and has written for the political review at her college. She just had to write over 70 pages for her finals and often is assigned 25 or so books in a semester. I can see her being an editor (she reads very fast), but could also write in a variety of settings. I just know there is no direct career path for her and that it may take a while for her to find her place. Any advice is welcome. Thanks!
@elena13 The place to start is her schoolâs career center. They will know what English majors have done in the past, have alumni contacts for her, and help her with her internship search.
@itsgettingreal17 - Yes, she finally started going there this fall thankfully. It has been a good resource for getting started. However, I donât think D has a good grasp of the job possibilities that she should target and she tends to have low confidence. I think most of the contacts/jobs that will be suggested by her school will be in NYC and I donât think she wants to be there, but beggars canât be choosers!
@elena13, putting on my English professor hat for a moment, she should also talk to a professor or two from her department who she trusts and has some sort of relationship with (doesnât have to be a deep relationship). If sheâs a really good student theyâll probably also suggest grad school (my opinion: a masters in English can be good for many students, a PhD much less so), but they should also have an idea where their majors have ended up, and how they got there.
(Protip: This is also a good move for laying the groundwork to ask those professors for letters of recommendation later on.)