Refresh our (at least mine) recollection on where he is attending
Heâs at Rhodes College in Memphis.
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Feels a bit nostalgic coming back here! So nice to see updates! Congrats to all the early graduates! I guess my update isnât quite as rosy as others, but within every cloud is a silver lining. My own path through undergrad was not perfectly smooth, so my D18 having some bumps is not entirely surprising. This past year (20-21) became basically a gap year. She nearly completed fall semester from home, but confessed to me about a week before Thanksgiving (notably after the drop deadline) that she was experiencing some very concerning symptoms that were impacting her ability in school. I wonât go too in depth, but we feared a neurological disorder, an auto-immune disease or well, we didnât know. But we knew 3 things - 1 - this had been going on all semester and sheâd kept it hidden from those of us she lived with, 2 - she wasnât going to be able to complete the semester, and 3 - she wasnât able to navigate any of this on her own.
So, we quickly got an appointment with her Dr, who referred her out to several specialists and helped us complete the paperwork for a medical withdrawal from school. (Lucky us, I always buy the tuition insurance, so we got most of our money back). We have spent the past 6 months making the rounds of doctors, tests, and doctors, trying to figure out what happened. We never got a complete answer, but we did make some changes to her medications, and she has started returning to normal. We have basically come to decide she has multiple unrelated but relatively treatable conditions, and this fall an unfortunate medication combo + psychological issues caused the âperfect stormâ for her.
After all that sheâs had an opportunity to reflect on where she wants to go from here and sheâs decided to transfer to a local university to complete her degree. She really enjoyed her time at Southwestern and felt like it was a good starting place for her, but she needs to be closer to home and maybe start back part time this fall to ease back in. So UNT it is. Sheâs pretty happy with the variety of degree options there as well, sheâs currently planning to pursue the Information Science degree with possibly doing their fast track masterâs program as well.
She is now resting on the couch recovering from her 3rd foot surgery. Yep, this is the girl who spent her HS junior year summer recovering from her 1st foot surgery. Her 2nd surgery happened over winter break her 2nd year at school, and now we are hoping this 3rd time is the charm. 
Itâs a winding path for my D for sure, but sheâll get there! And now Iâm busily working with my D22 on planning her path!
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Wow what a tough time she has had. Glad she had started to get better and likes the programs at UNT.
Hoping for the best for you your daughter going forward.
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So glad she is doing better but sounds like it was a rough road!
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Congratulations!
Update: My DD2018 graduated 
last Friday from Texas A&M University 
with honors (Cum Laude) BA: Psychology with a minor in Sociology.
She will begin working full-time on June 1st as a Mortgage Underwriting Assistant. (completely unrelated to her degree 
) She is contemplating/preparing for her next academic steps, targeting either graduate school or law school in the Fall of 2022, depending on what happens with her longtime BF (5 years) who recently applied to add a year onto his undergraduate degree to earn his Masters. Her job is a work from home position, so she boomeranged and will be moving back in to her old bedroom and taking over my craft room as an officeâ:grimacing: hopefully she will be saving a good portion of her pay 
âŠand just like that we are done; both of our kiddos graduated this year and are fully employed! Our oldest DD2016 is getting married in January. It is kind of shocking that we have arrived at this pointđŻ
(DD2016 graduated from Marquette University with a BS: Secondary Education: Broad Field Science in January, she tacked on an extra semester because she switched majors late in the game, and began work immediately as a 7th grade science teacher)
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CongratulationsâŠSo you daughter finishes a year early and BF adding a year. Also congratulations on your D16 wedding.
The gap year working is a good idea. If she is going the law school route she needs to spend lots of time studying for the LSAT. Law Schools are about 2 things GPA and LSAT scores. The LSAT is a test that with lots of study and practice you can definitely maximize the score. Also if she does decide on law school she should try to apply early in the cycle as many schools tend to âtake the bird in the hand applicant.â My daughter did not apply until Dec and in some instances January. As such she got waitlisted at some schools I thing she would have been accepted to had she applied early in the fall.
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S just got back on Sunday. They strongly discouraged students from leaving Ithaca, so we didnât see him for around 4 months. It sounds like he had a great semester. He had a campus job at the IT help desk, and was hired to work 20 hours a week remotely over the summer; he says he can work from the couch if he wants to. Heâs still with the same girl friend he met during freshman year; theyâve made plans to see each other a couple of times during the summer. Spring semester senior year he will be spending a semester in LA, hopefully interning in the tv/movie field. There were a couple of important events not related to school. First, his sibling (two years older) came out as a trans woman. Now he has a sister, which he seems to be taking in stride. The common interests they have havenât changed. Our 12 year old dog died not too long after he left. We did a video call where he talked to her and said goodbye while she was still with us, and a few minutes after she saw him she lay down and stopped breathing. She went peacefully at home.
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I know it is still summer but we said goodbye to S yesterday as he headed back to Memphis for his final year. We were lucky enough to have him home for 12 weeks and he is promising to come home for Christmas. As I said to him while he was here âwhen he went to the US for 4 years I wasnât signing up to not see him for 16 months!â
We have already booked our tickets in May for graduation. He assures me he will graduate!
Hope everyone else is still enjoying the summer.
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We are booked for May 2022 graduation as well! This has flown by! The kid had a fantastic internship over the summer so hopefully he is well positioned for full time employment starting in June.
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Long time no posts. Time is nearly done for us on here, but S has TWO masters offers - 2 still to come in hopefully. Just waiting to see who offers the most. But it looks like you (the US) will have him for another two years.
Hope all are well and that life is returning to some sort of normality in your lives. It certainly has been a strange 4 years. Letâs hope the next donât throw any more curve balls into our lives.
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Paid the deposit - Boston here we come 
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S18 graduates this weekend with a B.F.A. in vocal performance from FSU, with honors (almost a 3.7, weâll just call it a 3.7). Heâll take a gap year as he thinks his voice still needs to mature and he is not ready for the grad schools he wants to attend. But first he finally gets to sing in Europe this summer! Heâll attend a 6 week lieder program in Graz, Austria. If all goes well and he can find some musical employment, he might even stay over there for a while. Heâll continue working with his voice teacher and apply for grad programs in the fall.
Best of luck to all the 2018 HS class and parents, as they ready themselves for the next phase! Yâall have been a wonderful source of knowledge and empathy over the years. Congrats to everyone!
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One graduation down, one to go. D18 graduated today cum laude with a BFA in ballet and BS Hons in Environmental Studies.
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My son is soon to graduate cum laude from Dickinson College on May 21. He called me to tell me that he has finished all his classes/papers and is ready. He is will receive a BA in Theater with a Directing Emphasis and a minor in Film & Media Studies. He accepted a position with a software company in Atlanta to start in July. The time went by so fast. 
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Congrats! My S18 also graduated! BS in accounting! Thankful he had happy college experience, mentors, & friends.
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Oh thatâs so interesting that he will work for a software company with his background. What type of things will he be doing for them, anything related to his major, or something totally different?
My D will graduate in 2 weeks but just handed in her last paper and finished her finals. Sheâs so happy!
She will be taking a gap year and applying to med school, which takes my mind right back to 5 years ago when we were all helping our kids apply to colleges and worried about whether theyâd get into someplace theyâd like. Iâm looking forward to her graduation and meeting more of her friends. I think it will be interesting to see how life unfolds and whether her friends will be friends for life, or just really good friends for that stage of life.
Itâs good to hear from everyone whoâs posted. Our kids certainly had a disrupted experience and itâs so nice to hear when kids have done well with it. For my D, when her school canceled her main EC, she threw herself into volunteering at a local town and became very involved in that community. It was certainly not the college experience that I had thought she would have, because she wasnât using college resources, but she loved her experience. Iâm proud of her for being so resilient and finding something so meaningful to her, and for helping others so much during the pandemic.
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Mine has another year to go because of her co op. She is back to her co op company this summer for an out of rotation internship at corporate. Sheâs been told she should have her full time offer at the end of August. Nice way to go into senior year if that happens.
She also has an on campus job lined up for Fall semester working in a lab that does similar work to her last rotation. Overall sheâs really looking forward to her senior lab and design courses to wrap up her college career.
As her parents, we are still in awe about all the work experience she has amassed and all sheâs accomplished.
Congrats to everyone with students graduating!
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