<p>Well said, Robotbldmom</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>he meets is only interested in getting wasted WHY would you want him to be in that environment anyway
Sound s like pure hell and I applaud your son for having the sense not to want to follow in their footsteps - getting wasted !!! OMG
Be thankful that your son wants to transfer out of this arena
Be thankful that he wants MORE
Be happy that he is not STUCK there and Id support him in a transfer ASAP</p>
<p>Gd luck</p>
<p>Good grief, Marsha. Do you live in a little bubble where nothing bad eve happens and kids are good little sober virgins who work in soup kitchens in their spare time? It’s COLLEGE. That kind of thing happens everywhere. Get a grip and take your righteous indignation someplace else.</p>
<p>marsha - truth is that at least 70% of freshmen drink. it is much easier to find drinkers than non-drinkers. transferring to another school will not change that fact, unless he transfers to BYU or similar.</p>
<p>do kids at brown, dartmouth, yale, oberlin etc. not drink? that’s news to me!</p>
<p>My DH just tweeted this and I just wanted to share. A must read for all College Students!
[A</a> Love Letter to College Freshmen. The World Needs More Love Letters](<a href=“http://www.moreloveletters.com/2012/08/25/a-love-letter-to-college-freshmen/]A”>http://www.moreloveletters.com/2012/08/25/a-love-letter-to-college-freshmen/)</p>
<p>I do not have a child at UA but being acquainted with many kids on many different campuses I would say that it would be very hard to find any campus, save BYU and a couple of others, that doesn’t resemble Animal House the first weeks.</p>
<p>Take heart OP - there is absolutely every reason to believe that your son will find like minded friends (it’s not a school of 200 people) and enjoy all four years at UA once he settles in and makes friends.</p>
<p>I think after a long arduous college search and acceptance/rejection season many kids have idealized expectations that all the hard work is behind them and everything will just fall into place, in reality this is a big transition, a major turning point in their lives - no reason to expect that to be 100% easy. Making new friends takes time and effort, missing old friends and family is often more difficult than they ever imagined (mostly because they didn’t imagine saying good-bye, they were caught up in the chase for college acceptance for many long months before they began to pack their bags).</p>
<p>I have known some hard partying freshman to settle down considerably once the work sets in - the freedom of the first semester away from home is an intoxicant unto itself for many, they do sober up both literally and figuratively.</p>
<p>Worst fear realized…the title says a lot. A kid who is unhappy after a couple of weeks away from home, this is your worst fear? Limit the texts to once a day and the phone calls to once a week and you’ll probably find he’ll figure it out on his own.</p>
<p>A not-religious group to check out: Alpha Phi Omega national service fraternity has a chapter at U of A. My daughter was in APO at the U of Texas and loved it. Did a lot of good, got some nice leadership experiences, and made a lot of great, not particularly party-animal friends. This is definitely not a “Greek” organization.</p>
<p>marsha marsha marsha…middle child troubles again?</p>
<p>^^^ haha ^^^</p>
<p>tptshorty, FYI…as the OP-</p>
<p>This is not my son’s first time away from home. He spent the entire summer last year as an exchange student to Germany with no problems. Lived with a family who only spoke German, attended school which was taught in German, and navigated his way throughout the experience. Therefore, when my son reaches out to me to let me know that he is having difficulty connecting at his college of choice, the last thing I will do is shut down my communication with him. I will encourage him via text messages as necessary, and phone calls every third day as we have agreed. I am thrilled that my son has chosen ME to help him navigate through his adjustment…someone who he trusts will “push him out of the nest” in a decent direction. This is my way of parenting, and if you ever have the opportunity to meet my son, I will make the bold assumption that you will be meeting a wonderful young man.</p>
<p>@denthyg – well said. For that very reason, I am sure he will find his kindred spirits.</p>
<p>Last year, the lady who cuts our kids’ hair (we call her Barbara the Barber Lady) told us an anecdote about a local kid who went away to NC State, our excellent public institution with special appeal for STEM majors. During the first few weeks he was horribly homesick. (It’s a big, impersonal campus, far less welcoming than UA.) His parents begged him to stick it out for a month or two. He did. Next thing they knew, they couldn’t drag him away. He didn’t even want to come home for fall break.</p>
<p>You are probably way too young to remember the old pop song “Hello, Mudda, Hello Fadda.” (sp?) It kind of says it all.</p>
<p>I do NOT at all mean to minimize your son’s pain, believe me. A campus of 30,000 kids can be overwhelming and isolating. But I hope, trust, and pray that those kindred spirits will come out of the woodwork – especially on Get on Board Day.</p>
<p>Is there any way your son could move in with different roommates? I attended a tiny liberal-arts college, yet i had NOTHING in common with my initial roommate (who was a real creep, frankly). I found a different roommate, and the rest was history.</p>
<p>Seriously, Marsha…The University of Alabama is a wonderful school, not a center of moral decay. Everyone on campus isn’t drinking excessively. Some, like my daughter and most of her friends, choose not to drink at all. Let’s not paint with such a broad brush here. The University of Alabama is a major university which may not be a perfect fit for everyone, but this reasoning is simply ignorant to judge all by the actions of a few. I wouldn’t want to form an opinion of any school that way.</p>
<p>denthyg…you and your son are on the right track. You have his back…he has a bright future at The University of Alabama. Homesickness is a strange animal. It strikes when you least expect it. It leaves when you least expect it. Continue to support him. If he made it through a study abroad experience…he will adjust to Alabama! Warm hugs to both of you.</p>
<p>LadyDianeski, “Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, Greetings from Camp Hiawatha”!!! 
Oh my gosh, I WISH I was too young to not have heard that song! Thanks for the laughs!</p>
<p>We are tabling the idea of moving to a different room…he gets along with the boys, but just doesn’t have much common ground. This is probably a great experience for him in the long run…I work with 18 women and 3 men, and some days I feel as if I don’t have common ground with co-workers either. The proverbial learning experience!</p>
<p>I did see a post that Get on Board Day had been moved to Sept. due to weather…IS THIS TRUE??? If so, ugh! I will let everyone know, however, that many of you have reached out to help my S connect, and I know these contacts will keep him busy if by chance the date has been moved.</p>
<p>And bamagirls, I agree with you wholeheartedly that UA is not an AA meeting waiting to happen. I attended our state flagship university 25 years ago; it currently boasts 58,000 students, and I can assure you that the gamut of hard core partiers to tea totalers existed and continues to exist there as well. Sometimes our kids just need to dig deeper to find their fit.</p>
<p>Get on board day has been moved to the 11th…YIKES, that is sooo far off yet. How disappointing!!!</p>
<p>denthyg: Please encourage your son to go to “Get on Board Day” , see info here:
[Get</a> On Board Day: Dusk Edition | Events Calendar - The University of Alabama](<a href=“Events Calendar - The University of Alabama”>Events Calendar - The University of Alabama)</p>
<p>Also encourage him to reach out to volunteer, her is a group that he might want to join, it is called “read Alabama” it is a mentoring program and is extremely worthwhile. Here is the link to the volunteer application:
<a href=“https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dFdmdXlmTHVOcWdaWk5yYmFvRUlnYVE6MQ[/url]”>READ Alabama Sign-Ups Fall 2012;
<p>Did you say that your son was in the Honors College? Here is a link to the Honors College Newsletter in case he missed it:
[Honors</a> Newsletter | 08.27.12](<a href=“http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ae726288e167e2ae85143fc37&id=28c50a9be7]Honors”>Honors Newsletter | 08.27.12)
several items I above are mentioned in the newsletter.</p>
<p>**YES, it does seem that “Get On Board Day” has been moved due to weather.</p>
<p>:). I hope he will feel more at home soon and meet some new people. Hang in there!</p>
<p>I think that some roomies probably do NOT want close relationships with roomies because then it can be difficult to make plans with other people and not include the roomie.</p>
<p>One girl told me that she chose a high school friend as a roomie, but things got tense right away because the roomie expected to be invited to everything that this girl did socially. She moved to another dorm the next semester. She has found that it works better if there is a respectful relationship that might only include doing a few things together.</p>