It’s so great to hear all these happy stories!
DD was home this weekend for her HS homecoming. It is tradition that the previous year cheer captains are on the field “coaching” during the game. Her first month at TAMU has not gone as well as she had hoped. She has had a few big disappointments in terms of getting involved on campus, but this weekend she did find out she was chosen to be part of a FLO, freshman leadership organization. Everything seems to involve trying our, an application process or interviewing, certainly not the easy going join if you want to kind of atmosphere. I guess when you are at such a big school, there is always going to be competition due to the shear number of students.
Classes are going well, none are over 100 students, which has been a pleasant surprise, as we expected there to be some huge lectures. She has enjoyed the football games. Her dorm is really quite and no one really seems to hangout/interact too much, that is a disappointment. Her roommate is nice and they are getting along well enough. DD did participate in greek rush, she received a bid to the same sorority as her roomie, but DD ultimately decided that sorority was just not a good fit for her and she dropped.
All in all, I’d say it has been a bumpy start. Her words “It’s fine”. I have not gotten any calls or texts about being homesick. A few tears shed at the end of rush, but that seemed more to do with wanting to drop and being sure she was making the right choice than anything else. So, she’s not loving it and having the time of her life, but she is not hating it either.
My daughter likes all her classes and they have 18-28 students. She is on the club figure skating team which has around 25 members. She is going to the first meeting for a few clubs then will decide once she gets some details. She needs to do some service hours for a class and is hoping that the best buddies program will be approved. It needs to be approved by the person in charge of service learning but her professor and the person in charge of Best Buddies have approved of it. Best Buddies is a program in which students work with people with special needs and do things such as holiday parties, dances etc. I don’t know what age range they work with.
My daughter unexpectedly came home for the weekend due to a local area gas/power outage. There were gas explosions in the area so it was a precaution but they recommended that people who could go home did. She went back Monday morning so my husband could just take her on his way to work. They have gas and power back although they need to go to another building to do laundry for now. They do have a campus laundry pick up service but it is pretty expensive (around $600 for the year or maybe it was semester) so hoping we don’t need to resort to that.
She has a 19 swipe a week meal plan which incudes $50 in bonus money. She could switch to a 13 meal swipe plan a week with $150 in bonus money and a few guest meals for the same price. A 3rd allowed option is 9 swipes a week $250 bonus money also the identical price.
@labegg I’m so sorry to hear that your D is having ups and downs. Here’s hoping that she gets involved in a couple of good clubs and thrives!
Just joining in. My daughter is starting UCLA next week. We drive down to LA tomorrow. Feeling excited for her, but sad for me. My older daughter is a senior st Western Washington. It’s sad thinking if them both being gone. My daughter is thinking she will rush, her two other roommates might also. I’m mixed on it. Older daughter didn’t have a choice as Western Washington doesn’t have sororities. It’s nice reading all of your posts.
@labegg Crossing my fingers the semester smooths out, that your DD finds her people and realizes the expectations she went into the year with.
@momtwin Same here - Thursday drop off at UCLA. I’m pretty good with it but my wife says she already knows she’s going to cry. My daughter is also thinking of rushing but I don’t think she fully grasps the cost of a sorority. We’ll see if that deters her because we said that she’d have to foot that bill.
Any advice on homesickness? DD called the other day and was down again. Admits she is homesick. Ugh, what can you do or say?
I told her that it is normal and the best thing is to realize it isn’t permanent, keep busy, don’t sit alone in your dorm, etc. But she needs to be proactive. I sent her several links to all the things to get involved w/ on campus. She also really loved the gym when we toured, has an elevated running track, yet she hasn’t gone yet.
She gets along really well w/ her roommate, but seems she is the only one she is hanging out with right now, and roommate likes to spend a lot of time in their dorm. It was after dinner & DD hadn’t even gone yet, because roommate had a later class. Told her she is right by the student center to go over and pick something up for herself! Also, she could just go to the library and study there, maybe she would run into some classmates.
It is concerning me, as she does not listen to advice. I am thinking about picking her up and bringing her home, but it would be a very short stay. We’re looking at 5+ hours round trip, and traffic will be a bear on the weekends; so late home on a Friday after classes, leaving early to go back on Sunday. Wondering if it would be beneficial to her or make her even sadder?
@laralei I have read that 6-8 weeks is the suggested time for initial separation. I would continue to encourage her to get out there but I would not go get her. This is a major adjustment period and she needs to work up the courage to get out of her comfort zone.
I know what a concern this is for you but I would not let coming home be an out. Have you sent a care package?
Maybe find a cuddle or a throw pillow to send via UPS delivery etc. I have sent DD something every week, from a post card, to a 20# box of goodies, to a card with a small box of a favorite treat. Two weeks ago, I put $25 in her bank and told her to order out. I’m letting her know we are thinking of her…from afar
@laralei My heart goes out to you and her. It’s hard to know what to say. There is a thread about this which I thought had some good advice. Maybe there will be something in it that will help. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-life/2016222-to-those-who-feel-lonely-homesick-friendless-think-they-chose-the-wrong-school-etc-p1.html
We also have Thursday drop off at UCLA for S18. He is so ready to be off, because its 5 weeks since we dropped off his twin sister and she’s having a great time. Now its only two weeks until she comes home for mid-semester break, then two more weeks until the parents weekends (on consecutive weekends in late October) and Thanksgiving is three weeks after that. So we don’t have many weekends without seeing one or other of them this fall.
I don’t know how things will work out next summer given the 5-6 week offset in when their respective colleges finish and restart, and the uncertainty about whether they will be away for internships and/or summer courses. Certainly we expect competition for their car - D18 wants to drive it back to college after mid-semester break (750 miles away), but S18 may need it for his summer job.
Firsts.
I am not exaggerating when I say that for the first time in his life, DP Jr. is worried he failed a test.
As a parent, the immediate reaction is to console, or comfort, or explain, or excuse. But I admit a certain part of me is smiling that he knows he is being challenged and will have to get out of his comfort zone to be as successful as possible. I hope that doesn’t sound too severe; of course I want him to do well, and I certainly don’t want needless anxiety, but a small wake up call early on might be a blessing in disguise. He is a stellar test taker, and knows it. Hopefully this helps instruct him that being a good test taker is no longer “enough”.
I guess he will know tomorrow how he really did.
@davidpuddy. Your S is very lucky to have a parent with your attitude!
@sandiegodad2017 @momtwin @twoin18, another UCLA parent getting ready for drop off here!! It seems so late . . . I am hoping that makes it easier!
@laralei my daughter loves her school but definitely had an adjustment and was homesick. Due to Hurricane Florence she had to come home last Tuesday and in her words it was not good timing because she had just settled in and gotten over the homesickness. Sure enough she had a very long face, almost tears when I dropped her off at the airport Monday ( thank goodness I was on a conference call for work on speaker phone in the car so she had no room to cry). Monday night she was back to homesickness and Tuesday was only slightly better. I think she is rounding the corner again at the end of the week but I strongly advise you not to bring your daughter home. If you are that close maybe you could go for lunch and shopping on Saturday instead. That way your visit will have a beginning and an end.
I would see what you can do to encourage her to get involved, snoop around the website post on the parents FB page…there were many, many such posts on ours and folks with kids in the same dorms were sending their kids by to invite the kids to dinner or coffee. Also I did not call my daughter when she was down, I always took her call and answered texts but I let her reach out to me in case she was doing something and I did not want to interrupt. My daughter did go to the activities fair, is trying a few things now and applied for a job which she is starting next week. She is the type that has to be busy all the time, does not do well with down time so I knew part of the adjustment was finding what to do with her time.
When she called or texted I just kept telling her it is all normal, and while take time to find her tribe( she had a great one inHS). Also told her people only post how great there life is on social media so she will not be seeing HS friends post similar struggles but they are there.
The hardest was the first few weekends as she was willing to go to a party or two but did not want to party hard every night and many others did including her roommate. Also they did not go out until 11pm and would return at 3am and she was wanting to go at 9pm and return at 12-1. Weekends I would get the most texts, I encouraged her to go out one night and go home early so at least she was there. The other nights (Th is a weekend night) she would go to the movies on campus or say she had homework. She started to find folks like her and hang with them more. We will see how this weekend goes.
Also depending how upset she is you might want to look and see what resources the school has. Many have counselors for this or some type of student engagement. This is more common than folks think.
I fully expected an adjustment even though she loves her school but it was still hard to watch.
My heart is with you!
@labegg and @laralei, I’m so sorry to hear of the somewhat bumpy start(s). Hang in there. It’s very hard to watch your kids struggle, even from afar. I am convinced that things will improve for them, but I know this is hard. Sending positive vibes to you and your girls.
Good luck to those who are moving their kids in. I hope everything goes smoothly!
Our son seems to be doing ok so far. There are no classes he doesn’t like (which never happened in high school), and he isn’t finding them difficult at all so far. My wife cautioned him that it’s early to be declaring any class “easy”, though. His freshman seminar class is a study of The Simpsons; he told us that there are a few students in the class who have never watched the show. He hasn’t watched it much in the last several years, but he’s probably seen most of the episodes from the first 20 years or so multiple times. The first assignment was character analyses for two characters (he did Moe the Bartender and Duff Man).
@DavidPuddy I agree, a bit of humbling early on is a good thing.
DD called last night - interesting thing she brought up. She is in the process of picking her schedule for spring.
Currently, she does not have a single class before 11:30 AM and two days a week she doesn’t have a class until 4 PM. When she set this schedule, she was thrilled as she is not a morning person, loves to stay up and sleep in.
So, she was telling me of her spring schedule which includes two days with 9:30 AM classes and the other days classes start mid day. I asked her about this and she responded that she has discovered that if she doesn’t have class until later, then she doesn’t do anything all day but if she has midday she gets up and since she is up and about, she goes and does other things, even if that is just a visit to the library. So, she is purposefully setting her classes to force herself to be out and about by midday. I thought this was intuitive of her.
Yesterday used frequent flyer miles to book the ticket home for Christmas break. Incredibly it was going to require 60,000 miles to do a non stop from Charlotte to Pittsburgh but only 25,000 to go from Greenville to Charlotte and then Charlotte to Pittsburgh on the same flights that were 60,000 miles. Crazy stuff.
@labegg I’m sorry to hear about the bumpy start. Congrats on getting into a Flo. S18 applied to 3 and interviewed for 2 but ultimately was not selected for whatever reason they choose 25 guys out of 800. I was more disappointed than he seemed to be as I was hoping it would be his avenue to meet lots of new people. He is mostly hanging out with his roommate and a few friends from home. But he says that he likes it there and he has gone to the football games and still works out. He’s going to class 
and likes his professors so that’s good. I just was hoping he’d branch out a lot more, but then he has never been an extrovert so I need to remember that developing friendships takes time for him. I hope that your daughter makes lots of friends in her Flo. It seems like that may be a better fit for her than a sorority.