Not sure how other colleges’ study abroad programs work, I know some of them have the kids at actual colleges in the other country. NYU has its own centers around the world, which allows them to design the courses offered to align with their general undergrad degrees and requirements - different centers will have different courses but choosing an appropriate center for your semester (or in some cases year) abroad will give you the right courses/credit you need. There is no cost difference in tuition home or abroad. D19 has not yet settled on a major, but so far it seems a few of the options in the countries she is interested in will be suitable for her. She would like to go in second semester sophomore year but it may be tricky as it will partly depend on when her naturalization process completes - a general unknown at this stage. If the stars align she can do 2 semesters (one sophomore one junior) or a full year (junior) abroad, but it’s all a bit uncertain right now. She will have at least one semester abroad though. She is very excited to study abroad, and I would love her to do that too. I think the experience of living in another country, even just for a semester, is fabulous.
Her long winter break is about to end, and she returns to the east coast on the weekend. I’ve decided to join for a few days and combine with visiting family there. It’s been really wonderful having her home - we can already see the difference in how “grown up” she is after a few months of independence. And she has been spending a lot more time with us than she used to before she left!
It seems the second semester is going to go by pretty fast - we will meet her for Presidents’ Day weekend halfway, she’s home for her spring break, we are going to visit her over D26’s spring break, and from there it’s about 6 weeks till semester end.
S19 is recovering from a flu or something. It wasn’t too bad (he was vaccinated) but he hasn’t really been sick in years, so we were worried. Thank you MLK for the long weekend! Of course he still had to work on his homework because he’s already planning to go to a hackathon in a few weeks, and it’s pretty much impossible to take two weekends off in one quarter and not fall behind.
He’s planning to take even more classes next quarter, and this sounds unwise to me, but it might be the only way he could do a double major. However, his advisor thinks he’d better drop the second major and take more in-depth classes in his first major (math) instead. Hard to decide.
@yucca10 i remember hearing about how so many kids double major now. I’ve also read and heard that double majoring isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and it’s kind of a newer phenomenon. It generally doesn’t pay off in any particular way and it really should just be for kids who truly have two equal interests. When you double major, you end up being pretty limited on the other classes you can take since you need to fulfill requirements for the two majors. We got the advice from a few AOs during the college search process that, even though so many kids do it, they try to gently sway kids away from it so they can easily fit the classes from their major as well as be able to take a wide variety of other classes.
One of the majors D19 is looking at now (journalism, but that could change next week again) can actually only be done as a double major at her school. From knowing a number of journalists - this is eminently practical.
@SammoJ , my D17 is a double major and did her study abroad over a summer session, during which she took two classes. This was the only way to still graduate in 4 years (and this includes two summers of taking both sessions). Her school had a program abroad that included one class with a professor and students from the home school (that class was French), and another class that had students from all over. She hadn’t taken any French besides duolingo before that. So I don’t know that the language is a barrier for study abroad.
On the double major issue, this not the plan going in LOL. She just keeps finding things that she loves and wants to study more. For her its not necessarily a career move and we are OK with that but the 4 year graduation is our condition, we will support summer school and that has turned out to be required and also her preference. Luckily with computers these days, it seems pretty easy to map out all of the requirements and keep your graduation date on track.
My S19 will be home next week, his school has a J term and then a whole week off! I suspect he will be bored, but he does have several friends who go to school near us at the state flagship. If I wasn’t worried about S23 missing high school, I would have planned a little trip as it is near both of our birthdays, and total cabin fever season here for me! Idea for next year!
@homerdog He does have two interests, and decided to do a double major after figuring out that he’s actually interested in most of the classes which are required for a second (CS) major. But he’ll have to seriously overload almost every term. Plus he wants to be an undergrad TA next year - it’s just a few hours per week, but with it on top of everything else I’m worried that his grades and/or sleep will suffer.
@homerdog, I think you are right about double majors limiting a student’s ability to explore widely, so it’s not something I would have encouraged. But in some cases, it makes sense. S19 is thinking about double-majoring in psychology and sports science, which would open up all sorts of career possibilities - sports psychology, coaching, clinical psychology, etc. I think that, if there were a sports science minor, I might have suggested he consider that instead, but there is only a major. He does need to be strategic so he can fit everything in between the major requirements, the general education requirements and other things he really wants to do.
@dfbdfb Study abroad was a major interest for D19 during the search. The majority of schools we visited boasted of programs designed to allow the engineering and CS kids a chance to study abroad. Most had engineering dept brochures outlining the schools where there were relationships, language requirements, etc. Some summer, some semester. It has clearly become a marketing thing. My recollection was that Auburn had the most options. WPI had the free international project.
She chose a school that was most behind the eight ball, and they admitted it. But first semester she was on it, so she could plan the next two years strategically. She thinks she’s settled on Singapore, which shouldn’t threaten the plan to minor in math. Will likely save money that semester on room and board from what we saw. Would have been nice to pay their tuition rates.
Might be bait and switch for some, but seems doable right now.
@SammoJ My S16 studied abroad last year, his junior year, during his spring semester at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland. He loved it! He is an econ-finance major. He planned ahead with his school advisors and saved 2 gen eds for over there. He also took two approved courses for his major while abroad as well as Intro to German (required). All of his classes were taught in English. He really had an amazing experience in Switzerland.
My D19 wants to go abroad her junior year. She has gotten lots of advice from her brother about planning early. She definitely knows she wants a warmer climate then Switzerland. It was beautiful when we visited S16 last March but oh soooo cold!
Does everyone’s student have President’s Day off? D doesn’t and it’s so odd to me. It was always a long weekend in high school. We’re planning to visit her even though February is apparently the coldest month in Philadelphia. Yikes!
D19 wants to do a semester abroad. The twist is that it is in Israel. She is learning Hebrew, and she has many relatives there (including my wife’s sister and my older brother). The twist part is that, because she has two parents who are Israeli citizens, she became an Israeli citizen at birth, and since she is older than 18, she is subject to conscription. She has an official deferral, but it will expire if she either stays for 12 months, OR stays twice for at least a month within a 12 month period. So is she goes there, she will not be able to leave until the semester/school year is over, otherwise it will be considered two month+ visits…
Hi everybody! It’s so nice to hear all of the updates about your kids. I wasn’t on for a while - couldn’t get on for a long time during the changeover to the new passwords.
D is still doing well at Tulane. Her exams went well and she ended up with one B+ and the rest A’s. She was happy about the B+ because it was in her required French class, it is not her best subject and for part of the semester she was afraid she was going to get a C.
Winter break was great but busy. We visited my family in MA, D took the train from Boston to NY to visit her roommate on her birthday, we had a big NYE party with a bunch of old friends who were visiting FL then we drove to the west coast of FL for a quick one night visit with other college friends who were on vacation. Phew -by the time all of that was over D had to head back to school!
Classes didn’t start until Jan. 13th but D went back a week early for rush. Ugh, what a nightmare that was! It just seemed so much more brutal than when I was in school. It worked out for D, she got the house she wanted, but she felt so stressed about the whole thing she wanted to take a vacation when it was done. It did not work out for some of her best friends and she was feeling really sad about that.
We haven’t talked about it much since touring schools, but I think she is planing on doing a semester abroad at some point. I hear most kids like to go Junior Fall so they don’t miss Mardi Gras.
This year is flying by, can’t believe I have to start the process all over again with D21 - I feel like I am already behind where I was with D19!
@momtogkc I agree rush was more brutal than I remember it. My daughter went through it as well and was fortunate she ended up where she wanted. It was tough to watch her go back early - she had to go even earlier because she had to perform at the bowl game (but what a great opportunity!) and then fly back to NO.
@MWolf how does the deferral work when the kid is living in another country of citizenship? Two of D19’s dual citizen friends are in the Israeli army now (one from the US and one from our home country) but I got the impression they were just choosing to do so.
You submit a request for deferral for an Israeli citizen living overseas to the local consulate (in our case it was the one in Chicago). Because D19 has no permanent address in Israel, both her parents live in the USA, and she is attending college here, means that they will defer her service until such time as she decides to move to Israel for good, providing she is not too old. They are interested in having Israelis move back and to visit, so they do make sure not to create a situation that will cause Israelis, especially young ones, to avoid visiting Israel.
If a kid is 18 and wants to serve in the IDF, they travel to Israel, and report to the IDF, and they will start the process. There are a number of different routes for non-Israelis, Israelis who grew up outside of the Israel, etc. These include anything from citizenship + full military service to no citizenship and shortened military service (14 months) + 4 months Hebrew school. There are also many special services for single soldiers whose families live abroad.
So here is a new one. My D’s roommate, who she likes well enough but they are not close friends, hired another student to come in and clean her side of their dorm room. My D was soooo annoyed. My D was relaxing in her room in the evening when the other girl came in to clean the room. My D left for an hour (because she was put out for being disturbed) and when she returned to her room the girl was still their cleaning and folding her roommates laundry. (My D knows the girl so she trusted her in their room, that’s why she was okay leaving for an hour).
My D’s roommate just got accepted into a sorority so she had been very very messy in their room. She was in and out due to all her rushing commitments and quite frankly her side of the room was a messy disaster and was driving my D crazy. BUT to hire another student to clean? That is ridiculous, lazy and pretty princess-like if you ask me. Plus my D’s roommate was in another room socializing when the room was being cleaned. Unreal!
It’s a bad week for my D19. She has pretty bad GAD and sickness is one of her triggers (probably in part because she also has emetophobia). This week Haverford has sent out emails about coronavirus (of course), as well as notice that norovirus is going around. Tonight they were informed there is a case of TB at Bryn Mawr. She does take three of her classes there, as well as eats there and spends time with friends there, so she’s fairly well freaking out now.
@Stuffedquahog Princess-like? Yes. But at our state college, S19 knows kids in his dorm who pay other kids to do their laundry. One friend who does this says he makes enough money working summers to cover it, and it gives him more time for his freshman research position. I do think roommate should coordinate with your D to have the work done when convenient for your D, but D should just try to be grateful that the place is clean.
@milgymfam I’m so sorry for your daughter! S19 has always been a germaphobe - when he was 5, he wouldn’t share drinks even with parents - so dorm living has been a bit tough. Hope your D stays well - maybe you could support her with a care packet of all those natural remedies guaranteed to protect you. And make sure she knows how and when to use her college health center.