<p>At first this did not bother me but I wonder if having non student roommates will cause a bit of a withdrawal from campus activities.</p>
<p>These are friends from his first semester in the dorms. (he will be a senior next year) ONe was getting all C's and parents no longer will pay for school so he is working and saving to get back in on his own. The other dropped out after one semester and now has a full time job in town.</p>
<p>Even in HS son2 did not really hang around with the top students and seemed more at ease with a different set of friends. His grades are decent and he is progressing well to graduate in 5 years thanks to a japanese minor on top of an electrical engineering major.</p>
<p>The biggest challenge I see is that while the roomies have every evening to have whatever fun they choose to have your S will need to stay in the apt (or elsewhere) doing his HW because an EE major takes a fair amount of exacting work. Your S will need to be content doing HW while the roomies go out somewhere and ask him to go along, while the roomies are having other friends over, while they’re just lounging, etc. It can work - it’s just that your S will have to be self-disciplined when presented with some of these temptations. The same is true to some extent even if his roomies were in college, especially if they were taking an easy major giving them lots of free time.</p>
<p>My D finds that it difficult to live near kids in a less demanding major in the dorms! That would be impossibly maddening for her to put up with their fun while she’s trying to study…of course, when it gets rowdy she just heads over to the library. Maybe your son would consider staying on campus until he’s through with whatever he needs to do/study for the day? I’m guessing, as an experienced student who has done well so far, he’ll be able to figure it out.</p>