The first 2 months are known to be rough on very many students, who will voice reservations on calls home. Fortunately, for most it will suddenly click and what were big (and real) issues start to fade into the background.
Wishing him and you that this might be the case…
I bet he will settle in. My husband was also an introvert which is why it took him until sophomore year to find his people. But he did and loves Cal. His sophomore roommate is still his best friend and gave the toast at our wedding 
i will say its been a change for my D23. High school seemed easy and slow.
she’s studying mech engineering. She’s taking calc 2 - her online tutor is the BEST; A’s in the class. But her chem 2 class is hard; last test class average was 52%; she had a 67%. She was going to go visit her big sis in denver for fall break, but thinks she’s just going to stay and study. I like that work ethic; hope she’s enjoying college too. (she looked happy with sorority initiation last night 
)
also : edited to add: anyone’s STEM kids finding it hard?! curious on what other kids are experiencing.
Well my son just hit his first illness last week. Coughing, sore throat, dizziness, fever, etc… I told him to just skip class the first day and sleep and email his professors. I talked with him a few days later and he hadn’t been to class all week (although he said he’s been emailing his professors and keeping up with assignments), but still miserable. I asked him if he’d been to the health clinic, and he’s like “Oh, do you think I should?” SMH
Smart kid can still be so dumb.
He finally went on Saturday, tested negative for anything testable, so just some sort of respiratory virus, got some OTC medication and was able to go to some classes this week, but he’s panic studying for his chem test today. He said the first test was hard (class average was 57%, but he got a 90%), and he thinks this one is going to be worse and he missed some of the lectures. Again I asked if he tried to go to office hours to ask the professor’s help on prioritizing his catch up studies… “Oh, do you think that would help?” Sigh.
I assume he’ll figure it out eventually, right?
After making it through the first round of midterms, my engineering kid said he was pleasantly surprised that the level of challenge feels just about right. Grade-wise, he’s doing slightly better than in HS and he feels it’s a little easier. In retrospect he thinks his HS prepared him very well. But he said that a lot of his college classmates are finding freshman year to be very hard.
Other than his sickness throwing him off, my son had been feeling pretty great about everything. He tested out of Calc 1 but decided to take it anyway to make sure he was really solid on it and to not stress out too much his first semester at college. So his only hard class is chemistry, so he can focus most of his effort on that. He’s loving that decision right now b/c one of his friends is in Calc 2 right now and is swamped and miserable with the work.
He tested out of a lot of his school’s required electives, so he has a lot of wiggle room with his schedule which he used to take some intro classes (like nanoscience and computer modeling/data analytics), they’re easy and will give him an idea of what he wants to focus on.
Next semester will be harder though b/c two of the majors he’s most interested in now have very strict schedules and he’s a class behind in both of them, so he’ll be more stressed next semester.
Struggling with multiple choice questions in Intro to Engineering. Doing well in Honors Chem 1 and Honors Calc 3 so far. Says both those classes require a lot of studying as does engineering. I think he has a C in engineering and A- in the other two. I try not to probe him too much about grades etc. He is so far away and I feel like it is best to let him learn how to cope. We visited him this past weekend and he was delighted to see us. Seems to be happy. He is pretty introverted, so social life is little to none. Probably not such a bad thing if in engineering. Lol.
S23 feels his workload is more manageable than it was in high school even with weekly design projects, problem sets, writing assignments, and Calc being taught in a flipped format where lectures are asynchronous and class time is for active learning. He finds the work is more evenly distributed and not just concentrated in a few tough classes like it was in high school. Seriously, our high school does a phenomenal job of preparing students for college; S23 was fortunate to have fantastic teachers, some of whom had PhDs in their field. Some students are struggling but he’s in several study groups with a mix of weak/strong students and they all seem to be figuring it out.
To my delight as a former English major, he has discovered that humanities classes are not easier, and he seems to have a newfound respect for the effort required to read and synthesize hundreds of pages of text. His humanities class is the only class he actively complains about.
Which school? Did he choose Lafayette? I heard something about multiple choice in Intro to Engineering!
Well, my son said he emailed the professor to see if he could take the chemistry test later b/c he’s been sick and is only now playing catch up. The professor just replied saying if he’s sick, don’t come take the test.
My son told me he thought since he’s still coughing and feels less than 100% that meant he should just stay home.
So, I asked him if he still had a fever, or if he had a doctor’s note saying he was sick. Which was of course negative. He hasn’t had a fever in a few days, and when he went to the clinic they said he just had an non-severe upper respiratory infection and did not give him an excused absence.
I then asked him what he thought he’d get on the test. And he said he took a practice exam and got an 80 on it and that he had made some dumb mistakes on it. So I asked him to do a risk analysis on this…
Assign a probability on the professor not finding his illness an acceptable excuse and just giving him a zero, vs. the probability that an extra week of studying would raise his score, while still keeping up with the rest of his classes. And then determine his course of action…
He’s taking the test right now.
D23 is home for fall break! Classes themselves are ok—she is doing well in her classes though they are challenging. Her chem class is a small class only for those with a 5 on AP and appropriate diagnostic testing. Upperclassmen have said it is the hardest chem class there, harder than orgo—probably because part of it is orgo and computer 3D modeling analysis, so orgo will be a repeat of some of it. The biggest piece is not content difficulty per se, rather finding time to adequately keep on top of 5 classes (3 stem) at a school where the normal is 4, and still have some fun and sleep 7-8 hrs. The dual degree requires an overload every semester, typically 5.5-6 classes most semesters. She placed out of various things so that will help reduce the load a little. Her 2 humanities classes are predictably much easier A’s than Stem(but all 3 of her Stems are not the “standard” freshman versions, and one of the 3 is majority upperclassmen). The environment at penn is extremely collaborative and she has met great friends from across the globe, mostly engineers, yet has non-engineer friends in her dance group and a different club.
He is at Bama. Was waitlisted at Lafayette and chose to not accept a spot. How is your kid doing?
He is enjoying it very much! Very busy and has met a ton of people, which is a relief because he is not interested in Greek life and is not very into sports so I was questioning the vibe for him (to clarify, HE was never questioning it), but no worries. Lots of kids of all kinds at Lafayette.
It’s only normal for non-STEM kids in the College and Wharton kids. D19 took 5-6cu per semester. S23 is taking 5.5cu (4.5 stem + 1 humanities). It’s almost impossible to get through the engineering curriculum in four years taking only 4cu per semester (not counting summer term).
Yes of course Engineering requires more than the college: the College plus Wharton are a large majority of students: much larger than the 400 engineering students per year. As you must know, a single engineering degree at Penn is 37 units, or 4.5-5 per semester over 4 yrs. Only dual-degrees or people who chose to double major in disparate majors need more than 37. The average first semester freshman load is 4 u, and for engineering is 4.5. It sounds like yours too is in the minority, and taking an overload at 5.5(same as mine).
S23 (electrical and computer engineering) is finding the amount of work is more of an issue than the difficulty of the content. He’s doing well in all his courses, though he finds Engineering’s required Chem course (different than the university’s regular Chem) the most challenging. Fortunately, the environment is very collaborative and students have formed study groups and work on problem sets together. Some days/weeks are more hectic and stressful than others depending on what he has due. He did well on his first prelims (exams) though, and feels he’s in a good place despite the heavy amount of work he has. He applied to some project teams and was selected for interviews, so he’s hoping to get on one of those. It’s tough to earn a project team spot in your first semester though.
One regular complaint: the engineering building is on the other side of campus, so it takes 20 mins. to get there from his dorm on North campus. He logs an average of 17,000 steps/day and has reached a high of just over 25,000 steps in one day! He says the bus that runs through campus is often crowded and the campus is gorgeous, so he prefers to walk. I think that will change when the bitter cold and snow set in!
Most importantly, he’s found a way to balance having fun/hanging with friends and keeping up with his courses. In addition to the standard parties, homecoming events, and volleyball and football games, he’s even headed off campus for trivia night in Collegetown, the farmer’s market, an apple festival, and dinner with friends. He and some friends bought season tickets to the men’s hockey games (men’s hockey is a BIG deal at Cornell) and he got a season pass for the campus cinema.
Hopefully, he’ll continue finding a balance. I know engineering programs are a grind (to put it mildly), but I still want him to have a social life. So far, so good!
Same! S said he would rather do problem sets for his nano course than write another essay analyzing a passage for his English class! 
Saw the post on social media asking what do parents of college kids miss the most. Got me thinking.
Football games are much different this year only watching my daughter at halftime and not my son. Never thought I would miss being cold and getting rained on for hours! And their hs had their first choir concert and I didn’t go. I miss his random singing in the house the most I think. He did tell me his friends have heard him sing in the stairwells. What are you missing?
Yes, the random singing! And the laughter and the EC activities parents got to watch. And family movie nights. Empty nesting is hard.
Missing EVERYTHING!!! So happy for him and all his new experiences- but this is SO HARD!!! How many days til winter break???