<p>My son A is a strong STEM student with near 2300 SATs and mostly 5s on all APs (will have 11),
3.8something GPA. He gets some social contact from his HS sports. But outside of that he just likes to
meet with his buddies online in multiplayer online games. With some badgering we can get him
to call a longtime friend to go do something. We've been looking at the top CS programs for him
as programming is one of his talents. But at turns I pause thinking I should also be looking at schools
which will help him broaden his academic horizons and have the positive peer pressure of students
who are smart in other dimensions and more at ease socially. Then at other times I think college
will be enough variability of social ease and emotional intelligence within the Engineering departments
and he'll just mature thanks to nature. But maybe not. Any other parents cross a similar bridge?</p>
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You wrote “we’ve been looking at the top CS programs for him” and “I should also be looking at schools.”, not my son has been looking or my son is interested in… I’d expect your son to be more involved in the process or at least to focus more on his interests and goals. For example, what types of fields would he like to study? What types of characteristics is he looking for in a college? Does he have ideas about what he’d like to do after graduating?</p>
<p>I share some characteristics with your son. I’ve been interested in games for nearly all of my life. When I was a small child, I used to get my family to play a board game with me nearly every evening. As I grew older, my interests shifted from board games to video games. By HS I spent enough time on video games to be published in magazines a few times as the first person to complete a game (usually related to non-traditional means of gaining an advantage). I rarely spent time with local friends, outside of classes. My academic interests and talents were very specialized – interested in CS/math/engineering/tech/logic/… and almost no interest english/language/humanities/… I chose college at Stanford, which offers excellent CS & engineering programs, but also has a large portion of the student body in less techy fields. The nature of a roommate and living with a large number of students in the same dorm that you run into every day led to me being more social, both with students on campus and in joining non-academic organizations at the school, such as the crew team. The wider academic possibilities and exposure to new and interesting challenges during my classes led to developing interests in several less tech focused fields. For example, I found chem interesting which was mostly pre-med students, so I continued on the pre-med track. I found some aspects of the pre-med biology courses interesting, which led to trying to make a self designed major that focused on a unified theory between biology and psychology, emphasizing neurological aspects of behavior and such. Ultimately I pursued electrical engineering, which is the same field I had planned on during HS, but I had quite a lot of exposure to other fields along the way. In short, college is a very different experience from HS, and I wouldn’t assume that your son will have the same behaviors while livimg at college that he had while living at home, or that he needs a specialized school to broaden horizons.</p>
<p>Thanks much Data10. The “I versus we” is indeed a central part of the discussion. It’s been difficult to get him to look deeply into such questions as to what types of comp sci programs or projects he would find interesting or what kind of career would be of interest beyond college. But we can say computing is in the picture for sure based on what he chooses to learn outside of school (python, c++, java etc) and coding competitions. He works really hard and then he wants to play video games or self study something difficult and interesting or go to soccer practice or read reddit. I know he wants to be with serious students and he was kind of horrified at some of the UCSB drunk fest videos on youtube (although I believe their comp sci program is quite good.) I am left to investigate colleges and programs and finance info - tossing him books and web sites via email much of which of which sits unopened or glanced at briefly. I’d be happy to turn over the research to the student. </p>
<p>Your story is very hopeful and helpful. Amazing really.</p>
<p>I have a similar DS. I am encouraging schools where he must live on campus for reasons like those described above. I am glad to hear it worked for st least 1 student. </p>
<p>I used to play video games all the time in High School. Don’t much any more. He’ll get over them at some point most likely. Some people continue to spend their days just playing video games in their late 20s and 30s, but it’s a much smaller portion. Take it as likely he’ll grow out of it. </p>
<p>Although, I have no college suggestions. </p>
<p>My friend’s son who loved playing video games is going to Notre Dame to study computer science. He still plays video games and his mother describes his friends as the big bang theory. So even in a well-rounded place like Notre Dame you never know.</p>
<p>@Cheeringsection What are your thoughts about sending him out of state or at least out of the area? I’ve half a mind to steer the conversation toward college on the other side of the country (our out of the country) to encourage still more independence. But selfishly I’d like to see him more often than twice a year. </p>
<p>@kiddie - oh no! 
</p>
<p>@Vladenschlutte - “He’ll get over it by his 30s” is not exactly what I wanted to hear! Ay chihuahua. :(( My guess is that once he’s around professors and students who have targets for their computing skills - he’ll latch on to one or more of those challenges. Eventually hopefully he’ll develop some of his own goals/targets for the skills he’s building beyond creating video games. One other piece I need to keep in mind is he’s actually far ahead of where I was at 17 in terms of direction. At least he’s focused on comp sci and engineering. I was a liberal arts dabbler who made good in Silicon Valley despite my meandering four years at college. </p>
<p>@Data10 Say what other schools besides Stanford do you feel would have done a good job supporting your academic and intellectual growth? We’ll certainly apply to Stanford but the odds are long there for even the very best of applicants. </p>
<p>He sounds very much like my son. My son applied to the usual suspects for Comp Sci, but I also made him apply to Harvard. He got into Harvard, liked it better than he expected when he visited, but still after much agonizing decided to attend Carnegie Mellon. I don’t believe if he’d gone to Harvard he’d really have taken advantage of the good things about the House system and the amazing extra-curriculars - though he might have. As it is he flourished (in his own way) at CMU. He hung out at the Linux Cluster and talked about computer games as well as playing them. The informal network found him an internship at Nvidea at the last minute when a planned internship was canceled due to the financial crisis. Connections also helped get him to Google where he is now an employee. He had more friends there than he ever had in high school. So that’s the good news.</p>
<p>The bad news is that he still has never had a girl friend, he lives alone. Some weekends he spends all his time on line, though some weekends he goes out and plays board or card games with friends. He’s more of a nerd than ever. He’s 25 now - we’ll see if he’s any different in 5 years. I’m not counting on it!</p>
<p>Encourage him to get involved in hackathons when he starts college. Many colleges host them and even if they don’t host one they probably arrange for their students to travel to other colleges that do. CompSci students travel to host colleges and spend 24-36 hours working on programming projects which are then eligible for awards at the end of the event. Hackathon participants are scouted and sponsored by good companies. But there is a social element as well, as they usually work together in small teams (they are usually allowed to work alone if they wish but most work in teams). It’s a good way for that type of student to do what he enjoys but on a more social interactive level.</p>
<p>@bookmouse In fact he’s done a couple of hackathons and I’ve never seen him so on fire excited as having to stand and deliver his team’s efforts at 9am the morning after. They won an award too. I guess that’s the thing - if there’s an urgent deliverable as in a hackathon then socializing to get something done is good. But hanging out just to enjoy friendships or see a movie or discuss things or whatever - not so much.</p>
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<p>Haha. Probably sooner. My point is that it’s very common for guys in high school to play a lot of video games, he’s certainly not the only one. It’s rather rare for guys in their late 20s and 30s to still be playing video games (at least a lot - I’m still gonna play Fallout 4 whenever that comes out but that’s just one game). Most people just get over video games at some point, seems for me and most of the people I’ve known somewhere in their early 20s. </p>
<p>@mathmom That’s another interesting story - looking some years into the future. I’ve had exactly the same kind of thought as to whether he would take advantage of the cultural/broadening aspects of say the Harvard House system or their ECs - or just hang out in his room at Harvard playing more video games with his buddies from high school! CMU is on high the list. That’s cool that he found his own way to flourish there. My son is just different than I was. I couldn’t wait to take Russian Lit., go to France, meet girls. Just want him to be happy and fulfilled. </p>
<p>@Vladenshlutte & @patertrium I’d like to interject that I have been playing video games since I was a kid and I still play online games (PC now) almost daily and for hours on the weekends. Not everyone grows out of it.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for anyone else, and I’m not implying that what I’m saying applies to anyone else, but I’m just not someone who enjoys “broadening” experiences. I did not go away to college (I got married straight out of high school), but I have consistently stayed relatively friendless my whole life. My best friend is someone I met in Everquest thirteen years ago and my live-in boyfriend of 9 years is also someone I met in Everquest. I’m extremely socially awkward and uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations and I’m an introvert at heart. New things are exceedingly stressful for me and I like to have time to read about them before I experience t hem. The first time I flew in an airplane, for instance, I spent weeks carefully researching everything about the TSA and what goes on in an airport so I wouldn’t be surprised by anything. I was still so worked up that I had a headache the morning we left. </p>
<p>I like to have situations and experiences I can rely on to be predictable. Online gaming lets me meet people and talk to them with the buffer of being able to carefully craft my conversation without appearing awkward. If I respond slow in type, I might be a slow typer or afk or any number of things, but if you ask me a question in person and I just stand there and stare at you for 45 seconds while I think about how to answer, you’ll think I’m weird.</p>
<p>@stressedoutmama Thanks for your reply. One of the tricks of parenting I’ve found is knowing when to nudge your kid into the pool and when to let them stand safely on dry deck. I nudged one into soccer amid protest, and another into water polo. Both of those turned out to be things they not only love to do and are good at - they are both in great physical shape moving into mid and late “teendom” respectively. College selection counts as one of my last fatherly nudges. I could keep A safely at home for a couple of years while he went to community college. But I don’t think he wants that. I was trying to think through whether a school which required more arts from its engineering students or more language or more collaboration or had smaller classes in a bucolic setting might benefit my son. But I appreciate your perspective that some people would just prefer to have and keep their distance. </p>
<p>If he’s not interested in broadening his social horizons, he probably will choose to hang out with the gamers in college as well. Both of you might be happy if he goes to an engineering program within a larger University where he will get some exposure and opportunity to broaden his horizons while still finding like-minded friends, although overall there may not be as many like him in such schools. For instance STEMy daughter (currently interested in CS and physics) decided she preferred not to be in a super-tech oriented school because she very much enjoys diversity of interests, both personally and in her friends. Mathmom’s son sounds more like your son and he made a different choice. So there may be some overall difference between the STEMy kids at mostly tech schools vs. others and he may find more like-minded kids at the more techy programs.</p>
<p>CMU has plenty of non-tech people if you go looking for them. Not only does it have fabulous art and drama, it has a well respected architecture school, a good business school and it’s got a perfectly decent arts and science school as well. That said, it has more kids who already know what they want to be when they grow up than your average college and if you want to wallow in nerd culture, it’s very, very easy. No one will make you go out of your comfort zone. Well the CS department actually will, they run a course for the freshmen with requirements to do things like visit something off campus. (My son went and got a library card from the Carnegie Library so he could check out more sci fi for that one!)</p>
<p>What about USC?</p>