Parents of the HS Class of 2017 (Part 2)

And that’s that!

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Very cool. Congrats to you and your son. Go Hokies!!

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@STEM2017 Congratulations! It’s been a long road since we first started in this group 4-5 years ago. Who knew there would be so much uphill at the finish? I wish we had a nice in-person ceremony like that.

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It’s a wrap here too. Amazing undergraduate ceremony and nice graduate ceremony. She’s a Double Dawg!

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Time for the Triple Dawg Dare?

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From the post a few months ago, it looks like she had 2 bachelors and a masters, so I think that qualifies as a Triple Dawg. At least in my book.

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I agree. Very impressive. I am going to stick my tongue on this frozen flagpole now. :slight_smile:

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D17 had commencement last Sunday and will graduate with honors with an AB in Astrophysics and Certificates (minors) in Computer Science and Russian. She’ll be attending Yale starting in August in the Astrophysics PhD program focusing on Computation Astrophysics and Cosmological Simulations.

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Congrats to all the grads!

So odd. I felt a lot of mixed feelings over the last week. My
S17’s gf had her graduation which we watched on TV and were so proud of her! We saw so many post’s of our son’s friends graduating. I was taken by surprise that I felt a little sad my son wasn’t sharing in all that.

That is so silly! He just finished his first year of vet school, he is a year ahead of a lot of his peers, he is happy, he is doing great he just doesn’t get his BS degree until this time next year. It is just the program that he is in has you enter vet school after 3 years and they give you a BS in Agriculture - Veterinary Medicine when you successfully complete your second year of vet school, so he could walk next spring but right now is choosing not to (that could change). He would rather just make a big deal of his white coat in Spring 23, and his DVM degree in Spring 24.

I’m proud of him and never felt I’d feel those little pangs of sadness. He did complete his first year with top grades! He will be doing the research scholars program this summer and also working for his cardiology professor, writing a paper and doing some work also. Last week in the summer he will move to another apartment (that he hopes to keep for the next 3 years) with one of his current roommates and then spend a week in Idaho working for a vet to get an hour credit. Then it is on to second year which I hear is REALLY hard!

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Anyone want to add what their students are doing since graduation (or not)?

S17 finished his National Veterinary Research Scholars program and presentations last week, went to Chicago for a SAVMA conference since he is president-elect of his chapter and is in Idaho for an externship for a week and an hour’s credit. Sunday back to his new apartment and starting school the following week for his second year of vet school. It has been a busy summer with one paper in the final pre-publication review and working on two others. He will have part-time work during the school year with the professors he did research with as time permits. Ready for the next step with totally in person classes (masked) a new vet school experience.

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My D is part of Teach for America. She started teaching 5th grade math at an inner city school this week. She is very happy . She ended up living “back home” but she has her own apartment 45 minutes away near where she teaches. She applied to grad school, but likely will take her time.

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My D has had a busy summer. She traveled to South America for the 5 week intensive Spanish study abroad program that got postponed from last summer. She had a fabulous time, traveled extensively in country, and is now fluent in Spanish. The pictures were amazing. Since that, she’s been studying Chinese in preparation for her fellowship in China and been enjoying a staycation with her BF.




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I’ve mentioned before some of my daughter’s winding path, but so it’s all in one place: She took a leave of absence from college, dealt with some severe medical issues (I knew they were quite serious, but just last month she let the spouse and me in on exactly how bad it got, life-threatening is not an exaggeration), and is now about to start her junior year at Muhlenberg. She dropped the neuroscience major (got annoyed at how aggressively pre-med it was, not what interested her about it in the first place) and is an international relations major with a focus on peace and conflict studies, with a religion minor that she may but probably won’t be able to turn into a second major.

So really, just kind of normal life after a couple years delay.

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Whoa, that sounds rough and I’m really glad to hear she’s doing well now and is ok!

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There’s a bit of me that’s sad coming back to this group and seeing that this is only post #35 because the original group was archived. I remember us talking about how we had crossed 2017 PAGES of comments!

My D17 starts her job as an EE in suburban Philly in a few weeks. She just bought her first car, got her own insurance, found her own place to live… just… wow.

I know there’s only some of the original crowd still here, but I’ve appreciated the conversation, support, suggestions and opinions over the years, so thank you!

I still have a D20 in college and an S23 starting his search, but I feel like I know so much more than I did in 2015 when this journey started.

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D17 is working for the company she interned with after Junior year. Of the 20+ interns they had, there was one permanent slot with their Strategic Account Engineering group and she got it. She’s in NC but has already travelled to Amazon and Google’s data centers, working on her company’s newest/emerging solutions.

She was concerned when she found her new boss was leaving shortly after she joined. But she just found the replacement is her boss’s boss from her internship, with whom she got along well (both native Pittsburghers).

Overall, she’s quite happy.

I was amazed at how “starter” apartments have changed since I graduated. I’m jealous.

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Today is first day of medical school classes for DS. He settled nicely with 3 roommates and less than 20 mins walking distance from campus. He did take his car to school but it’s only for weekend shopping and trips.

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We moved D17 into her new apartment in New Haven a couple of weekends ago, built a lot of IKEA furniture and found a $4000 sofa in the trash :smiley: Then we all went to Canada for a week and since I didn’t want to go through NYC traffic again I brought her back home instead and she’s going to take Amtrak back to New Haven this weekend since she doesn’t start Grad School until 8/24.

I also have a new neighbor that has a cool car that he only uses for weekend shopping and trips. I believe he owes me a ride before he gets too busy with Med School :smiley:

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Your new neighbor appreciates all your help :slight_smile: he will probably give ride when we meet next month.

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My daugther’s first day of vet school was today. Had some orientation activities at the end of last week. Spent a couple weeks there meeting some people in her class prior to orientation. Another step towards the dream that began when she was 6-7 years old.

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