<p>I believe it's available for alumni, at a high level, counseling etc., but not the actual job listings.</p>
<p>Alumother, thanks for this thread.
With a Jr and Senior in College next year, I feel the "next" phase looming, and wondered how to assist, and exactly the kinds of issues you raised. </p>
<p>Interesting that many of us played such a large role searching, exploring, and finding the "right" college, and now with an equally "important" and "immense" next phase decisions, how do we guide? Not helicopter, but provide real guidance.</p>
<p>All colleges compile data of post grad lives-jobs, school ect, which offers a road map of where some students start out, but it all seems so random right now,and the worst part is how fast these college years have passed. Yeeks.</p>
<p>Yes, the college years pass quickly, but then they are adults! I really don't think I can guide my grad, or undergrad for that matter. I can support, and be a sounding board to help establish clarity, but I cannot guide. As calmom says, life happens. It is hard to recognize adulthood in our kids, but they do, in time, figure out their lives. Have confidence through the rocky early years, you've raised wonderful, competent people, love them, love them through to independence. They get to own their successes and their stumbles.</p>
<p>I say bring 'em back home to the old commune, dig up the lawn, plant veggies and wait for divine intervention,..</p>
<p>For those going off to graduate school... my wish list for my parents: </p>
<p>1) LISTEN. You may not know much about graduate school and its effects on students but we care about our work (at least some of us do). But graduate school can be very lonely at times and we just need someone to talk to outside of didn't the Bubble. Tell us what's going on with Grandma and Grandpa, your tennis partner, our hometown...</p>
<p>2) OFFER RELEVANT ADVICE. There's more to it than graduate school- we'll be living in apartments and dealing with day-to-day needs so yes, this is where you can guide us. Don't give us advice about our academic work, especially if you didn't go to graduate school. That part of offering advice relating to schoolwork was done long time ago.</p>
<p>3) TREAT US LIKE ADULTS. My mom kids that I'll be a kid forever for as long I stay in graduate school when I told her that when I graduated from college that it'd be my last time being a kid. But you know what? Graduate school IS a job itself because it's so tied to money. If we have to pay for it, that's a big investment of time and money, not to mention economic opportunities when we could be out there earning money. If the school pays for it, if we're responsible, then we really see this as a paying job. In order to support our studies, we have to apply for grants and those can be tough to get. So don't imagine us extending our four years of college. It's the biggest mistake, especially if your kid is not sure why he's going to graduate school. Graduate school is a whole different level and we are actually treated like adults (although with a different kind of respect by professors).</p>
<p>I think those are the toughest to get fom my parents as they make the transition with me. I'm still working on training them to do these things.</p>
<p>Thanks for the direct 20 something view! Adult's emerge and as parents we get to (have to) recognize/celebrate it. That's what we parents need to be trained to do.
From my POV it felt like a rebooting of my brain. </p>
<p>ticklemepink-- you'll train 'em, you sound like a wonderful coach for parents!</p>
<p>she will likely get her act together at the beginning of next year. Job hunting is relatively stressful at princeton because of the number of people going into finance/consulting. The interviews for those jobs are really really early, so it starts to make you nervous if you have other plans that aren't hiring that early. I know that I went to a couple interviews for that type of job because all of my friends were interviewing and I thought that it would be a good experience if anything. On the other hand, if shes not sure what to do, 2 years of a consulting job will give her enough time and money to figure out what she wants to do next. Or if she decides she wants to go to grad school she has the next 5 years to decide on a life plan.</p>
<p>"I say bring 'em back home to the old commune, dig up the lawn, plant veggies and wait for divine intervention,.."</p>
<p>I'm working on it....;)</p>
<p>I have to say I am surprised at the numbers of kids and parents who co reside even though they have graduated from high school/college.</p>
<p>Perhaps there is something to the study that illustrated that more financially successful parents have kids that are discouraged by the standard of living they were used to & the income/jobs required to sustain that.
On the otherhand, many of the first gen students aren't looking forward to coming back to a bedroom smaller than their room at college and know with a degree they can only go up!
:)</p>
<p>^I see it the other way in my majority first gen town, and my almost all first gen, low income students. Most of those do assume they will live at home (many lived at home through college). Multi-generational households are very normal here. Many kids live at home till they get married.</p>
<p>It's only online, among the UMC-ish majority of the CC community, that I see this "they're failures if they come home" mindset, like they've failed to live up to the class expectations (this of course is a gross over-exaggeration, but I have been taken aback by the vehemence of many here about expecting absolutely no detours home, and the creepy judgmentalism of phrases like "failure to launch." That's one that's probably never been used in my middle class town, and certainly not among my lower income students.)</p>
<p>Even though I left home at 17 and never returned (except for short visits), I don't buy into the "you' re 18 and on your own, don't come back" mindset. S1 lived at home while attending grad school (not the type in which grad students get fellowships) and working part-time. Much cheaper than living in an apartment. He's had no trouble launching after completing his degree and getting a job. </p>
<p>In lots of societies, it is assumed that students live with their parents (no university campus) and that several generations live under the same roof.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone is saying 18 and out. But after 22 or so it should be time unless there are mitigating reasons.</p>
<p>Why? (not meant rhetorically - I don't undertand the reasoning).</p>
<p>It's time to become an independent adult. If you contunue to depend on your parents for food and shelter you are hardly independent. Being an adult means earning money, paying bills and taxes and knowing the connection.</p>
<p>One can earn money, pay bills, and taxes and still live at home. (I do! ;)) As for "independence" - one person's "independence" is another's individualistic alienation. I think the American independence mythology dates from a time when economic forces pushed young folks westward. But there was a time before that, in New England, when happiness meant sons NEVER leaving the family homestead (though extending it if possible), and this was the source of massive family wealth in 18th Century New England.</p>
<p>If you told an Italian man that "independence" meant leaving the family home before marriage (usually in the late 20s/early 30s), he would most likely look at you as if you were crazy. Living at home is precisely the force that allows him to further his career, education, and amass the necessary capital to realize his future "independence" as a family.</p>
<p>I really don't come down one way or the other on having them live with me. If I have enough space, I'd love to have them. And their eventual I hope mates. And their eventual I hope children. It's a model that worked well for many over the years and still works in some parts of the country.</p>
<p>But I would object to being the sole economic engine, or even the main economic engine. I guess I could be the main economic engine until they found a job, OK, that's fine, maybe 6 months or a year. But heck. I am tired of working so much. I hope to retire early. </p>
<p>So I am mostly concerned with how they find a career that sustains them, or a mate that sustains them if that model works better, I guess, although I see a lot of problems with that as a permanent way. So a career that sustains them, AND they like it. That's the upper middle class piece. I hope they can be fulfilled. Hehe. Child of the 60's I guess, but that's my hope.</p>
<p>ec1234 - so you are Princeton Class of 2008? Do you have a job to go to yet? Do you like the sound of it if you do? Any lessons learned from your senior year that you would like to give us parents?</p>
<p>^Absolutely, Barrons. But why can't that happen under the same roof?</p>
<p>For instance, I have friends with four sons. After some fits and starts, none so far have stuck out college. All live at home. The oldest (26) works as a prison guard, makes tons of money, lives an independent life, but is based out of a room he carved out of their attic. (they own a two family, rent out the downstairs.) Is engaged and saving for house. the second oldest (almost 24) went to CIA but didn't finish, works as a caterer and police dispatcher. Lives in the family apartment. Both pay toward house expenses and all of their own. Third is a year out of HS, works full time at a grocery store, no long term plans yet. Shares room (unless permutations have changed again) with fourth son, a HS junior.</p>
<p>All of them work harder than any kids I know. All have independent social lives but are also very family oriented. </p>
<p>They are more adult than many college graduates I read about, and are very firmly grounded in reality. Just a different approach.</p>
<p>I agree with Mini's socialogical take. It's a recent invention.</p>
<p>We've been trying for years to get MIL to live with us. She's too darn independent!</p>
<p>I have to say I'm a little perplexed by the way many people refer to living with one's parents as "living at home" even for young adults well into their twenties. When does your parents' house cease to be "home," if not immediately when you move out? At what point do (or should, if we're going to be normative) young adults move on to creating their own "home"?</p>
<p>Maybe this is only foreign to me because I split my childhood between five addresses in four cities on two continents, or because my family moved to yet another city (to which I have no connection) after I graduated from high school, but as far as I'm concerned, "home" is my dorm room at Dartmouth, at least for the two weeks or so that I'm still living there. When I visit my family in New York, I sleep on a fold-out couch in my sister's bedroom. Maybe it's a Swedish cultural thing, but it's presumed that by going to college, I've officially Moved Out.</p>
<p>So I know my experience is unusual, and that to me "home" has never really meant much more than "wherever I happen to be living at the time," but I was wondering about the terminology.</p>