@carolinamom2boys , @payn4ward your boys are ahead of S19, he should have life now but hasn’t bothered to do BOR or turn in the paperwork!
It’s done though sigh, just annoying. And classic! Same issue in school, does things and doesn’t turn them in, He will have it at the next court of honor though. I am fairly sure this is the first time our troop has sent anyone to NYLT so it was really nice they picked S along with one other boy to go. It was cute though, apparently a boy from his OA was there. S, and his troop has several kids that are in the OA. However they don’t go to any of the meetings! He gave S a pretty hard time about it since S is eligible for brotherhood and now S may start going and getting involved more which could be nice.
Of course now he’s more interested in possibly adding SeaScouts and Venture into the mix and there is no time for that so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. His week was a coed one and he was glad, he felt he came away with a very different understanding thanks to the presence of the female Venture Scouts than had it been all male.
It’s kind of fascinating though, fully 50% of his summer was scout related. 3 weeks as a counselor, 50 miler and now NYLT. Without it? He’d have been playing video games all summer!
First Eagle Scout project for our troops class of 2017 is this week, I think this kids cutting it close as I’m almost sure he’s a September birthday! I’d love to see it done before his junior year starts too. I expect a few of the other boys at his age and level to get it done on the early side and that should motivate him.
@eandesmom Both sons and husband have achieved OA. They have attended 2 meetings and found many of the members to be quite cliquish which was a real turn off, so they haven’t been back. They have participated in the annual fundraiser though.
@carolinamom2boys that’s good to know. Since S has never been to a meeting he’s really no idea but did really like the one boy he met at NYLT who is very involved in his OA. S tends to be oblivious to cliques so that might not matter to him. Although practically speaking if all in his troop who wee OA went, that might turn into its own clique if they weren’t careful.
I’m sure each OA group is different @eandesmom . He really should go and see for himself. We have quite a few new OA members in our troop and we are at risk of taking over as well which may very well change the group dynamic , although I don’t know if that would be for better or worse.
My DS’16 is an Eagle Scout and an OA member. He absolutely loved the OA and made it up to Brotherhood. He was able to go to the 100th anniversary celebration at NOAC in Michigan in 2015.
School starts here next week so DD’19 is doing her very best to do as little as possible. Crew did start back up with boat maintenance and conditioning last week. They can’t go on the water until they take their swim tests so it’s just boring stuff right now.
DS announced today that French is not his thing and he will be making his college list based on which schools don’t require foreign language. Bummer since some of the schools I’ve pegged for him require an intermediate level of understanding at least. Just a few have no foreign language graduation requirements. He’s on track to take the French AP as a senior so I’m hoping he will just hang on until then. Looks like most schools will let him off the hook with a 4 or 5 on the test. Just because you don’t like a subject doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. I tried to explain that many kids probably feel this way about a subject like math and they still take four years in high school!
Yeah my d feels that way about Spanish. I’m hoping that dropping from honors to regular will be just enough less pressure that she will push through to AP. This year will basically make it or break it for her decision wise.
She got her schedule today and is pretty happy. Friends in most classes and the good APWH teacher.
@homerdog he is a sophomore. It really is too early to peg schools for him and he should be doing the pegging, at least in terms of the overall kind of school he wants and it’s super premature right now. Fun to think about and play but I don’t think we serve kids well pressuring them with what they should or have to take to fit into a box required by certain schools. Just my 2 cents. It depends on what you mean by “requiring” foreign language as there are lots of ways to interpret that. You have:
Number of years taken in HS to qualify for admission
Number of years taken in HS to be competitive for admission
Number of years taken in HS to qualify for waiver of classes IF the college requires a FL for their own core/gen ed req.
If the college allows kids to "test out" of a a FL for their own core/gen ed graduation requirement. That may or may not be a 4/5 on an AP test but rather a test of their own.
If the college requires they take FL for core/gen ed regardless of how many years you have or any test placement (i.e. no test out/waiver out)
and…
If the college requires they take FL for core/gen ed, is that a deal killer for the college list or not?
In my opinion only #1 and #2 should be a factor at this age. Lists will morph so much junior/senior year that to worry about 3-6 now is just a waste of time, it’s irrelevant. The vast majority of colleges in this country will be fine with 3 years, some only 2. Will having 4 or an AP help at super selective schools? Yes, probably. That said…if French is not his thing but he falls in love with a school that requires a FL, he does not have to take French!
Many kids look at it as a great study abroad boondoggle. My SS11 took an intensive immersion class, in Spain, in Spanish, to fulfill his private universities FL req.
My S17 bailed after 3 years of Spanish. He will not attempt to test out even if it is an option. Instead, if he ends up at a school with a FL req, he will try a new language. S19 may stick with french through to AP but who knows, his French 3 grades were a serious issue and he likes the subject. I hope to survive French 4 but we will see!
Our Eagles really vary. I think our HS may only have one this year, I am not sure there are any other seniors in the troop. Next year should see 2-4, and S19’s year should see 3, but the year following back down to 1. HS class is around 325. That is from our troop though, we have 2 troops at the HS although I’m not looped in on who might still be in the other troop. Ours is FAR more outdoorsy than theirs, so it pulls a different kind of kid.
Some good points there, @eandesmom ! D is not a big fan of Spanish either. She has decided to go for 3 years and be done. I guess she wants to spend more time in taking other courses and ECs.
Crowdsourcing advice: My daughter’s been interested in industrial design at least since she was middle school, and has shown tendencies in that direction for even longer than that. (This is a child who was making what were essentially construction-paper architectural models in kindergarten art class.) She’s already been looking at industrial design programs—at many places they’re the sort of programs that require portfolios for admission, so you have to get an early start—but she’s recently run across the existence of human factors engineering, which hits her design buttons plus her inherent math/complex systems geekiness.
As far as I can tell, though, human factors engineering only exists as a graduate specialty. There are a relative few undergrad industrial and systems engineering programs, which would presumably be the most logical gateway to that sort of specialization, but where else should she be looking? (She’d still want the ability to do design-related stuff, whether built into the curriculum or as a minor.) I feel fairly secure talking to her about industrial design programs, due largely to having a lot of friends who work in that and related fields, but the move toward design-related engineering takes it quite out of my wheelhouse. Any advice from y’all?
@eandesmom I hear you about jumping the gun. Kind of just playing right now. That being said, many of the schools that his guidance counselor thinks he could like and would be possible options for him require FL for graduation. Most let him pass out of the requirement with a 4 or 5 on the AP. If he does not take the AP, he will be asked to take a proficiency test which would definitely lead to more than one year of FL in college…especially since he would have not taken any French senior year of high school and would be rusty.
He can’t just eliminate schools because of the foreign language requirement. It would mean ruling out some schools he’s already excited about (NU, Carleton) just because he has a subject that he doesn’t love. As for taking another language instead, that would mean more like four semesters in college which I wouldn’t be thrilled to pay for if foreign language isn’t his thing.
I’m thinking ahead also to motivate him. If he does well enough in high school French then he can be done…or maybe if he tries harder, he will begin to love it. In my book, that’s a win/win.
@dfbdfb I’ve worked with a number of Human Factors experts and it can take a LOT of forms. I’ll PM you, probably eaiser than a long side discussion but the TL;DR version is, major in industrial/systems either design or engineering and double major or minor in Psych. And yes, likely consider grad school. But not always.
@homerdog you might be surprised, it really depends on the school. I’ve found my kids list to have several schools that do not allow testing out at all on the FL requirement and others that only accept their own test, not a 4 or 5 on an AP test. Those in that bucket simply use the 4 or 5 for class placement if the kid sticks with the same language versus starting a new one.
Then there are schools that require zero FL at all.
S19 texted me from school that he’d like to run for class president and asked me to please email in my permission, which I did. Picked him up after school and asked how his day went. He’s usually chatty and likes to share about his day. Today, nothing. All I know is that he’s making a one minute video in his room for his campaign. :-?
Too much to do! ;))