We decided to beat the crowds and visit last weekend. By the time Family Weekend happens we’re close to the week-long Thanksgiving break. We had one meal with S and gf, one with S, gf, and one of their friends, and one with just S. We also watched the Nationals take the first 2 games from the Cardinals with him.
Didn’t do parents weekend but last weekend did go to my brother in laws cabin in North Carolina about an 1.5 hours from Clemson for daughter’s fall break. She was able to get away for a few days and unwind. Was able to go to Clemson FSU football game as well which was fun. Now it a long haul until Thanksgiving but then she comes home for Christmas only about 2 weeks later for about a month’s break.
Going to Parent’s Weekend in 4 weeks!
We were nearby Parents’ Weekend, but only to see S18 in a play at a theatre outside of town. Never set foot on campus or in the town.
We went to S’s voice studio recital and choral concert. He has been home a few times as well.
It’s nice that he isn’t that far away.
I wasn’t able to go to parent’s weekend this year. It’s either a 2 day drive or a full day flight because of layovers, so visiting is tough. It certainly does feel odd, after devoting so much time to raising my child, to have her away from home and seeing her so little. I really hope that when it comes time to leave college she will live in the same part of the country as me! But I wouldn’t change this college experience at all. Some wonderful things going on in her life are that she’s still on a sports team and winning lots, she’s a TA, she volunteers significantly, and she’s getting great grades and she has great friends. I honestly don’t know how she does it, but it makes me unbelievably happy that she is so engaged with life.
@melvin123 I kind of got choked up reading your post. I can relate, as this is that next season of life and I am incredibly grateful, but still miss my girl.
DD is doing fine. Called this week to discuss class options for her spring schedule. She applied for a few summer internships, but I doubt they will amount to anything. Finding an internship is proving to be very hard. Anyone else have a kid who is having trouble nailing one down?
My D should be looking for internships and REUs but instead is thinking about a change in major.
This is her third semester of not enjoying the engineering class at all. We were thinking it would get more interesting for her as the topics became more specialized, but so far that isn’t happening.
She enjoys the math and science classes and her grades are good, but I think she wants to work with people more. She absolutely loves being an RA and mentor.
If she does decide to change majors, it’s probably a good time because she’s finishing up all the foundational science and math classes and can easily transfer into almost any science major without worrying about being behind.
We got back from parents weekend for S18 in LA on Sunday to a power shutoff which lasted through most of today. Everyone is waiting nervously to see if the power goes off again tonight. Ugh!
Anyway he’s enjoying himself, he even got an extra day off classes because of the Getty Fire on Monday, which gives more time for his midterm papers. He’s hoping to go to DC next summer, the debate is whether to look for a political internship or focus on something that might be more relevant to a masters or PhD. It’s definitely been very competitive to find opportunities on campus, this year he’s being more active about applying to multiple options in parallel rather than the less successful sequential approach he took last year.
D18 is freezing in record cold temperatures (for October) in Salt Lake City and is very busy taking 24 credits this semester, rehearsing for performances and staying involved with her sorority. But delighted to have been cast in the spring performance. I doubt she’s even had time to think about next summer yet. Hopefully doing that over the holidays won’t be too late.
@Twoin18 24 credits?! How is that possible? Back in the day, 12 was full time , 15 kept you on track for graduating on time, and you needed special permission for anything over 18 and that was rarely granted. Is it really so different at your D’s school? How does she have time to breathe?
@Meddy I think we’re in the same boat! Tonight I was in Walmart buying some printer ink, and when I passed the book aisle I started getting very nostalgic about all the books and games I bought for my D from there and how much fun we had reading and playing with them together. Those childhood years go by too fast!!!
@labegg I’m sorry but I forgot. What is your D interested in for a career? Is her school’s career office helpful at all? If it makes you feel any better, I have several nieces and nephews who graduated in the past several years and none of them had internships until Junior year and they all landed excellent jobs straight out of college. But of course we all want our kids to have as many experiences as possible to help them decide what they want to do!
@MACmiracle would your D have any interest in becoming a science or math teacher? We certainly need them, and your descriptions of her, and how much she wants to help people makes me think that she might get deep satisfaction from being a teacher.
@melvin123 No special permission needed, but you can’t sign up for more than 21 credits until everyone else’s signups are done. She has 11 credits from her ballet BFA core courses (4-5 hours a day of studio time but relatively little homework) plus 2 more performance credits (5-10 hours per week of rehearsals at the moment) plus 11 more credits from three online courses for her second major, which are flexible enough that you can fit them around everything else.
I don’t know how she does it (she seems to be quite happy writing papers from scratch in the evening before a midnight submission deadline - she got used to that in high school with dance after school until 7-8pm every night), but she felt she had room for another course after taking 19.5 credits in the spring semester. She really wants to finish in 4 years (because that’s how long her scholarship will cover everything for) and will need to do about 160 credits for both the BFA and BSc degrees plus her required honors courses. That’s an extra 40 to fit in over the normal 120 credits, but she stayed for part of last summer too, and so will be up to just over 70 credits in total by the end of this semester (with a 3.8-3.9 GPA), which means the remaining course load in junior and senior years won’t be too bad without having to stay for another summer.
@Twoin18 thanks for the explanation! It’s so interesting to see how different the paths are, depending on the major. It certainly sounds as if your D is making the most of her college experience and will come out with multiple degrees. Good for her! All the best.
Just back from Family Weekend at Amherst and if you were at the Hartford airport and saw a middle aged woman wearing way too much Amherst Purple, that was me! Oh, what a wonderful weekend we had with our girl. We hung out, ate, shopped, passed on the football game-they lost, watched the men’s soccer game in the glorious fall sunshine - they won.
This year her good friend is her roommate and we met her and her lovely family. They have invited D to Thanksgiving, which will work well I hope. I mean, the break is short anyway, the weather to and from that time of year can be sketchy and they are serving dinner up at their beach house, which is better than we will be doing this year 
I will miss my kid and so will her sibling, but this is the next chapter of our lives doggone it!
I hope none of you are dealing with fires unless they are for s’mores and taking in the wonderful Fall colors.
We’re lucky that our S has a whole week for Thanksgiving. He only had 2 days for fall break, but his gf’s parents hosted him and a couple of their friends for the long weekend.
@melvin123 She’s actually mentioned nursing. She never considered it before, and I think that was because she had a traumatic surgery and hospital stay when she was younger. But last spring she was hospitalized for a few days for testing, and I wonder if that made her look at the medical field in a new light.
There’s no BSN at her college and she wouldn’t want to transfer with the scholarship and RA position she has, but with the money she’s saving she will be able to do an accelerated BA/S to BSN later.
And you are right about her. She’s very motivated to help people. My concern about her changing her major is that the majors should could easily switch to and graduate on time are not particularly people oriented either.
She is currently weighing whether or not to withdraw from calc 3. She’s afraid of losing the activities and benefits she’s entitled to as an honors student for a class that might not be necessary in any other major she’s looking at. The professor thinks she’s doing fine and told her she had the highest grade on the exam, but she has a C with little chance to bring it up and that will hurt her gpa. She has to stay above a 3.5 for honors which isn’t easy in engineering.
@MACmiracle how about pharmacy?
Most pharmacy schools only require 2-3 years of prerequisites, not a BS.
My D needed Gen Bio and Chem 1 and 2 with labs, Ochem 1 and 2 with labs, Calc 1, psychology, statistics, and some humanities classes.
My D did an internship at a hospital this summer and found it very interesting to shadow pharmacists in different departments and go on rounds.
@MACmiracle
re the calc class, that’s a tough one. I had the same situation in college and since I didn’t need the class, I dropped it. Afterward the prof let me know he was very upset because he was going to apply a massive curve at the end, and my 42 was actually an A plus. It sounds like your D has the same situation. Maybe she should talk to some kids that had that prof in prior semesters to see if he really does curve and if he’s generous with the curve. That could put her mind at ease with the decision either way.
Am I right in thinking that she can switch out of engineering and still be in the honors program at her school (that the honors program relates just to her grades, not her major)? And you said that the concern about her changing her major is that the majors she could easily switch to and graduate on time are not particularly people oriented either. But I’m wondering if her plan is to go to either a post-bacc undergraduate program in the health sciences, or to a grad program in the health sciences, whether it makes a difference what her undergraduate degree is in as long as she has the requisite classes that she’ll need for the next program. So, for instance, maybe she can be a chemistry or a bio major? If she stays where she is and switches to one of these more flexible majors, that could be a good thing because: (1) it will give her time over the summers to work in a hospital or other health care setting, so she can get more exposure to different fields to help her decide what she’d like to do, (2) like as @mommdc was pointing out, by taking various pre-requs in college she might be able to go straight from college into a masters or other advanced degree program in one of the health fields rather than doing a post-bacc BS program. This is neither here nor there for the things you mentioned, but I want to share that one of my friends worked at a hospital as a nurse’s aid and the hospital paid for her to go to school part-time and earn her nursing degree, and another of my friends is a nurse and the hospital she works at is paying her tuition for her to go part-time to get her nurse practitioner degree. So maybe that could also be a path forward for your D getting a debt-free degree after college.
@mommdc Thanks for the idea about pharmacy. I hadn’t thought about that possibility.
@melvin123 I got to talk to D and shared your suggestion that she talk to the calc 3 prof before formally dropping. She got back to me yesterday telling me she followed the advice and let him know. He was surprised because in his opinion she is doing well, but once she explained he understood. I guess it’s confirmed there’s no chance of a curve or extra points beyond the exams.
I think she has really mixed feelings right now. On the one hand, she seems very relieved to get out of engineering, and in her words, she is “excited to start learning again.” But she is not 100%, absolutely, completely sure about a new major. She has been comparing the requirements of majors to see what will best let her pursue her interests, as well as leave open the possibility for a health care career like nursing as well as research and graduate school. Right now she’s leaning toward something that will allow her to keep doing science and research with a people focus.
The good news is that the professor who runs the lab where she’s been working really wants her to stay despite the change in major.
@MACmiracle that’s too bad the prof won’t add a curve! But I’m glad she found out for sure, so she can feel comfortable in her decision. I think it’s great that your D has already discovered some things that she does NOT like. From prior posts it seems like she is blooming, and discovering more and more things about herself. Keep us posted!