Congrats to Sophia!
StG
Very exciting! Congratulations to her! Similarly with a senior in high school myself, it has been a very weird time to be selecting a college and planning to move on!
Very exciting! Congratulations to her! Similarly with a senior in high school myself, it has been a very weird time to be selecting a college and planning to move on!
not that it matters but is your family Catholic? Just wondering if that played a role in school choices
Lol, yes. Sophia has been going to Catholic school since kindergarten. We’re not devout, but the Catholic schools in Knoxville and San Antonio were clearly superior in their education, so I used my membership card and got her in. 
Sophia, of course, is the official Class Doubter and has been for 4 years now.
It’s a crazy time to be starting college. Is St. John’s one of the colleges starting earlier and finishing (hopefully) by Thanksgiving? Our son will be a junior at Ithaca College, and they aren’t starting until October 5. He figures he’ll be able to make more money before going back; he’s planning on doing Door Dash or something similar when he gets home from visiting his girlfriend next week. Anyway, congratulations!
Sophia is either going to take remote classes or skip Fall semester altogether because of the pandemic- we prefer the former, of course. Hell, the Norton’s Anthology is the same wherever you read the damn thing, right?
Anyway, I want to wait one semester before I send my only child to the epicenter of the March 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.
Thinking about all the students and faculty going back and forth to the Vatican and other Italian destinations, it’s my contention that St John’s… being a Catholic University with deep ties to Italy and a 2020 spring break from March 2nd through 7th… may be largely responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak in Queens. So, yeah… she’s gonna sit S1 out and take ENG 101 here in San Antonio, tyvm.
No, it’s not the same thing.
Most of the education and the “going to college” experience comes from things done on campus outside the classroom.
Read a Shakespeare sonnet in the Norton Anthology, discuss it in a classroom while sitting in a circle with 15 other people (half of whom are of the opposite sex)…and then afterwards, as you walk back towards your dorm, still chatting about the professor with one of those classmates, you stop off for coffee.
And then you realize that the prof is weird, the sonnet was boring but your comment was really interesting …and , hey,we both like the same music… and each other. Let’s study together for the next test.
Lol, I know. I’m just trying to make best of a bad situation.
Almost 2 years later, just wanted to give a Proud Dad update.
Sophia dropped out of St. John’s.
She called her mother and I together a few months into schooling.
“Mom, Dad, this shit isn’t worth the money we are paying. All I do is Zoom classes, I have never met a professor, and COVID has shut down all the things we were sold on the college experience. So I’m going to drop out, live in Manhattan for 18 months, and when I am considered an official NY State resident, will attend a cheap community college to get all these required English 101’s and History 102’s out of the way, and then go to a name school after.”
(The above paraphrased, of course.)
Her mother and I were rather accepting of this. It’s her life, do what ya gotta.
And that’s what she did:
- Withdrew from St. John’s.
- Found an apartment in Harlem.
- Found two roommates to move in with her.
- Found a job paying $55k/year
- Found medical insurance for $65/month
She’s moved jobs since then, now works two jobs paying a combined $70k/year. Her savings is quite large for a 20 year-old because she never lost sight of the goal: just two weeks ago, she was accepted into a CUNY community college with her yearly out of pocket being $3,400 (compared to the $30,000+ commitment that St John’s was). She’s worked the numbers and is comfortable that she can continue working (one job) and go to school w/o depleting her savings or lifestyle too much.
It was rather amazing watching her take control of her life like this, but not totally unexpected - for those following
this saga, she does tend to get what she wants and, if she’s not getting it, is of a mindset that she will look elsewhere. Didn’t want San Antonio, moved ASAP to NY. Didn’t like a COVID education at St. John’s, hated the expense, so she dropped out, gave herself a gap year-and-a-half in America’s greatest city learning how to adult, and, in the end, is more confident about her future because she is the one creating it.
Whatever Mr. & Mrs. JohnT did in the upbringing process, they did it right and this young woman really got it together – you’re quite entitled to feel a Proud Dad, man.