Sending daughter off to college

This is great. There is so much wonderful advice on this thread. My daughter will be a senior this fall, so she started a year later. She jumped right in socially. We were going to stay at a hotel near campus so we could have dinner with her that night, then drive back in the morning. She found some dorm activity and said it was fine if we wanted to head home instead. My wife was already crying, but that sent her into full-on bawling. It was a rough drive home.

You nailed it with the part about trusting her and listening to her. That means living with some mistakes, but that's college life. My daughter was a little too social and the joke that was her senior year in high school led to some academic issues freshman year, but she recovered and is set to graduate on time. The funny thing is we end up worrying more often when she's home because we know a bit of what's going on. When she's at school, if she does do something that might have made us nervous, we usually don't know about it until after the fact.

 

This thread caused me to remember when I was a college freshmen orientation leader. The best thing that my co-leader and I did was talk with the group about what to expect - academically, socially, etc. - from our perspectives. We took them to a lounge in the on-campus building where I worked, away from the other groups, so they wouldn't feel pressure from anyone else. The session was supposed to be doing a worksheet that a well-intentioned university VP was really proud of, but we decided against that. The other co-leader had lived in dorms and I had been a commuter and lived in off-campus apartments, so we could provide different perspectives, especially since our group was a mix. We gave a lot of advice, the group asked a lot of questions and we answered as honestly as we could. It was my hope that everyone got something out of it - I'd like to think they did.

 

Thanks, all, for the advice, suggestions, recollections and good wishes.

 

Keep us updated on how the first day went.

Also, something that I don’t believe was mentioned, but just a warning that, emotions aside, typically the logistics of Move-In Day are a clusterfuck. Thousands of people moving in. Not enough parking space. Not enough dorm-provided bins to carry up stuff. One elevator that you have to wait 10-15 minutes for since it stops at every floor. Carrying a lot of heavy shit.

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes. Take a lot of deep breaths. Bring some cold drinks. Set up whatever fans/air conditioners first as the room gets hot. Take some pictures, especially the cliche one of your kid in their all set-up dorm room. It’s an insane day, both good and bad.

One unique thing about COVID was that for two of our boy’s four years, Move-In Day rules were much different.

Freshman year was the typical day. Sophomore year, nobody was allowed to go with their kid even to campus, so our boy went up by himself. Junior year, one person was allowed to go with him, which was me (things went quicker since my wife wasn’t there to micromanage, both good and bad). Senior year, we all went up again, but it was old hat at this point.

 

Maybe it was easier back in the day, without texting, Facetiming, etc. My parents dropped me off, we had lunch at the Refectory and then they split. See you at Thanksgiving!

A phone call every two weeks or so, and letters. Sure I got homesick some, and being 10 hours away there was nothing to do about it, unlike some kids from Virginia who went home every weekend. So we made the best of it.

But times change. Micro Jr. knew how expensive his dream school (Denver) was, so stayed in town, lived in the dorms, we saw him when he wanted us to, he saved a ton of money and ended up at DU for graduate school after all.

So best of luck. Either way, there are shitty times when you're on your own and you just have to figure it out.

Success is survival
We’ll all tough it out
Yes, we’ll all tough it out.

 

When I first left for school, back in the pre-Internet days, my parents would get frustrated because they would call me at inopportune times and not be able to reach me. Such as during the mornings when I would be in class, or Friday or Saturday nights, when I would be, well, not in class.

Partway through my first semester, we figured out the best time to talk on the phone was Sunday nights after the NFL games. I’d be done watching them (until the Sunday night game), and be back in my room getting ready for the week.

We continued our Sunday night phone tradition even after college when I was at my first couple newspapers out in Bumfuckville.

 

We had three pay phones in a dorm for 60 kids. So I'd find another one on campus, call collect for myself, my parents would not accept it and then hang up. They would then call me back at the pay phone because it was cheaper in the days when calling on Sunday nights was much less expensive (1992-76).