Sending daughter off to college

I thought more about this thread on the drive to work this morning, and UNC hit everything I was thinking right on the money with this paragraph.

It's more advice for the parent than the student, but this is it.

 

Such great advice. The bold part happened to me and it was the most disappointing experience of my life.

Best of luck Dog8!

 

Having a roommate or living in a suite forces you to have primary/secondary/tertiary interactions with others. It sounds hard, but it's much harder to actively seek out meetings, clubs, or other activities on one's own. Yeah, a roommate can suck, but it can also be a good experience, much like anything else. College is the time to stop looking for reasons to say no and find reasons to say yes.

 

My niece is an only child who was timid when she was young, but became active in high school (robotics and a three-time golf state qualifier) and found her voice. (When a teacher at her all-girls Catholic high school told the class that in-vitro babies were a sin, she was furious because she was an in-vitro, later-in-life baby.)

She started in college (four hours from home) in 2020 and, like many others, felt like she lost out on some of her college experience because of the pandemic. But, she overcame that and has excelled academically. She earned her bachelor's degree this spring, while dual-enrolled in a master's program. She'll earn her master's degree next spring. She also has her first serious boyfriend, though he graduated and moved several states away to accept a job. When she graduates, who knows where she'll end up - it could be anywhere in the U.S.

Going away to college was the best thing for her - she learned to stand on her own two feet, but could still call her parents when she needed to. She's a determined, smart woman who will excel at whatever she does, partly because she learned a lot about life -- and its ups and downs -- in college, which is the way it should be.

Part of me wishes she could come home more (my granddaughter, 7, loves playing with her), but she's blazing her own path. I'm really proud of her, and I've told her so.

 

Love that, Eagle. I think many times, parents (and older relatives) have no idea what kids these days are capable of.

 

Beyond any parent being worried of dropping your kid off at college, my wife and I had an extra worry as our oldest is on the autism spectrum. He’s high functioning, but the autism still kicks in from time to time.

For his freshman year, we had him ask for, and receive, a designated single room. We rationalized this because we felt that he was going to go through enough trying to transition to school and I figured he could use a room to get away and be by himself if things got too overwhelming. And he would be able to avoid any roommate drama. It turned out well for him, so he got another single room for his sophomore year. His junior year, he had another single room, but it was in a suite with some friends and friend of friends. He did OK with it, but wasn’t that crazy about it as he stopped getting along with a couple of the guys. He got another single room his senior year.

Academically, we encouraged him to get accommodations for his autism, but he was very hesitant to do so as he doesn’t really want people to know. So at first, he struggled. A few weeks in, my wife finally took it upon herself, showed up at his dorm (we lived less than 2 hours away), and all but dragged him to the academic center. Once a program was set up for him, he kicked ass, made the Dean’s List a bunch of times and graduated Cum Laude.

His school didn’t really have that many clubs that he was interested in, but he worked 10 hours a week lifeguarding at the pool, and became one of the campus tour guides. He also had a car, which came in handy when kids wanted lifts to and from house parties. He’d serve as a designated driver sometimes, shuttle kids back and forth and charge $5 per trip (maybe a mile or so). He met a lot of people that way and made a pile of cash. Apparently the local police and campus safety cops were a little annoyed with him because he was costing the town money from fines for public intoxication and speeding tickets. However, the school did give him an award for being community minded.

COVID hit during his freshman year, so he didn’t really have a full college experience, but he had enough for him. He enjoyed his time there, got his degree, and is making more money than I am.

A lot of good advice already on how to deal with your kid, so I’ll focus a little more on taking care of yourself. I definitely recommend finding something fun for your family to do for a few days after you drop your daughter off, to distract yourself from spending too much time worrying. We went to see my wife’s family for a weekend after dropping him off, then went to a camp the following weekend. I got a little emotional in the third weekend as we were stuck at home, then rationalized that he was probably hanging with the guys and flirting with girls while I was being sad, so why was I getting sad? End of sadness. Also, if yoh have time, see if you’d like to find another hobby or fun activity for yourself to get you out of the house with all the extra time that you’ll now have.

I also recommend suggesting to your daughter that she join some clubs in school. One of my regrets is that I didn’t really join anything until my junior year as I was still socially awkward (still am). But joining those clubs gave me a greater purpose for school, my grades got better and I had more fun.

Good luck to all of you.

 

I lived 15 miles from campus so there was no moving into a dorm for me, but I did have to endure three days of freshman orientation.

 

I'll join the voices encouraging the kids to get involved with clubs or activities and not just zero in on academics. Working multiple part-time jobs and insisting on straight As left me no time for a social life during undergrad. When I graduated, I had a good GPA but no friends or experiences to speak of. I was closer with my professors than my classmates. Don't be like me.

 

"I definitely recommend finding something fun for your family to do for a few days after you drop your daughter off, to distract yourself from spending too much time worrying."

Oh man, thank you for posting that and making me remember one of my family's great stories, and by extension putting a huge smile on my face by remembering my late father.

My parents and younger brother went to Virginia Beach for several days after dropping me off at Three Chopt Tech. On their first day there, my dad got blasted from behind by a wave and it knocked out his upper denture plate, which of course was gone forever the second it landed in the Atlantic. So he had to go a week without teeth while they made a new one for him, back in the day (1972) when such things couldn't be made overnight or in a day or two.

That story became a family treasure for the next 45 years.

 

It’s amazing what schools do nowadays for the first week or so with Welcome Week activities to keep the kids busy and provide icebreakers for them to make friends. For our oldest, his school had their freshman convocation, had the kids pose for a class photo, then essentially kicked all the parents out.

Then they had fun activities, meetings designed to get them to meet other students, and also had them do a required community service work for a couple of hours during the first weekend. The kids were kept busy 24-7 the first few days before classes started. Then had other outings, barbecues and things to do all through the first week.

When I was a freshman 30+ years ago, my school did the convocation, had a somewhat nicer dinner in one of the food halls, and one (really good) standup comedian put on a show the night before the first day of classes. That was it. Otherwise everyone was on their own. No wonder kids went out partying the very first night (present company included).

 

Thanks!

 

We pretty much insisted my son stay in the dorms as a freshman because he needed to work on socializing. Things didn’t go smoothly with having a roommate and we wound up getting a note from his psychiatrist that allowed him to switch to a single room mid-semester.

After that first year he moved back home and now does the 25-mile one-way commute to campus. But he has stuck with it and developed a handful of friends with a campus ministry group, including a couple of short-term mission trips. He even went with his BCM buddies to homecoming last fall and enjoyed the football game, a sport he despised for years and still doesn’t really watch. He should graduate a semester early in December and it would have been sooner had an internship for this summer not fallen through after the deadline. Recently he’s started talking to my ex (a classic helicopter parent) about wanting to move out to a place of his own.

I guess I say all that to say if your child doesn’t blossom right away but isn’t hopelessly overwhelmed, let her cook a minute.