Update on my son

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

A word to Dopers who don’t yet have kids to watch make mistakes and still have parents to help pick up - these are brave parents, but Headrush very likely put them through a lot of pain they didn’t need to go through by wanting to be a “grown up.”

My adult sister is currently doing this (and is far too old for it) to my parents and to us. She doesn’t ask for help or advice early on in any process…when she is trying, it is all her, she doens’t want our help or advice. But she is willing to accept (and is expecting) help when it fails. Its harder - its more expensive, its more emotional, its more difficult - to pick up afterwards - its far better to pick up a little as you go along and never need to completely start again. And eventually, you people get tired of you not listening to them up front, and even your parents might tell you that “you made that bed, you can sleep in it.”

It may be a good way for you to grow up - but its hell on your parents, a real grown up listens to advice and accepts help before everything shatters.

22

You haven’t failed him. Nearly 20 years ago (that just doesn’t sound right as I type it but its true) I had a similar experience to your son. I ran out of money at college.

I knew I would only be able to get a little help from my folks if any. The school I wanted to go to was out of state. I waited a semester to start. I worked full time to put money away. I got my loans in order and started school in January. But I just didn’t have it all figured out. I couldn’t get instate status, couldn’t get a good summer job lined up. I just couldn’t get the money together so I had to drop out after my first semester. I moved home. Got a crappy little job, enrolled in community college and regrouped. That’s what this is, a chance to regroup and re-evaluate. Putting yourself through college is hard. It was hard 20 years ago and it’s harder now but it wasn’t my parents fault and it’s not your fault. I thought I’d figured everything out but I hadn’t. That extra time helped me to get get back on track.

I knew I needed more money and a better way to do this college thing so I enlisted in the Army Reserve. (Please note I am NOT advocating this for your child or anyone else’s. In the 80’s and 90’s this was a much safer proposition) While I was in basic training I applied to the University of Cincinnati. I was accepted and moved down to Cincy. My drill pay along with 25 hours driving a fork lift covered rent, books, food, car payment and most of my tuition. I covered the short fall with student loans.

It still wasn’t perfect. There were a few times when I ran short on groceries and lived on fried baloney and rice. One had less than $1 to my name and it was 3 or 4 days till pay day so I ate MRE’s left over from Guard weekends. That “I’ll do it my self feeling”, better known as pride, still kept me from asking for help, from anyone. Your son seems to have a similar sence of pride. That may not change but it will also help him through this. It helps to be determined.

23

There’s more to this story than not having bought textbooks. Nobody who fine in every way except for not having the textbooks fails every class in a semester. I should know, I’ve done both and they weren’t in the same semester. Ivyboy’s story sounds a lot like mine, except that he’s doing things a lot faster than I did. I took until sophomore year to get myself into trouble.

I started out in electrical and computer engineering. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Engineering was what math and science-y people who don’t like the prospect of academia do, and I like computers a lot. I made it through Digital Logic, but around Computer Architecture and Signals and Processing I started having serious doubts about the track I had put myself on. I was attending a very expensive private school with a very good engineering program and in theory my future was rosy.

I started college with only a vague grasp of what engineering is really like. To be honest even now I only have a vague grasp of what engineering jobs might be like. But it took me until I started considering the reality of life after college. Life without school didn’t really seem real to me until I was approaching my junior year and a lot of my friends were already researching companies and interviewing for jobs and internships.

At the time I couldn’t articulate so well that I felt I had put myself on a track that was too limiting, too constricting to me. Engineering is a field that doesn’t give you much time to study other things, and it rapidly gets into pretty specialized territory. I think at the time I felt a lot of unease and lost a lot of my confidence and desire to excel. I’m a terrible procrastinator when I get unmotivated, and I let things slide enough to fail most of my classes one semester.

I think it’s possible that Ivyboy isn’t necessarily sure himself why things went awry, and that makes it all the harder to talk to anyone about it. How can I justify my failure to anyone else when I know I was capable of succeeding and I can’t even really explain to myself why I didn’t?

It also doesn’t help that school always came pretty easy to me growing up, and the truth of the matter wasn’t that I failed because it was too hard. But suddenly I was no longer the kid who aced everything, and I was ashamed to admit it.

Ivyboy’s pattern of behavior reminds me a lot of my own, but I can’t say his reasons are necessarily the same as mine. But maybe this will help you to understand some of the things that might be left unsaid.

I think in getting past my problems what was most important was for me to take some time to really think about what life after school will mean to me, and actually really start getting some idea of what I want out of life. Everyone reassures prospective college students that they don’t have to have decided their life’s ambition just yet, but you can also too easily try to just focus on what’s right in front of you in college and not really consider the looming prospect of real life. School has always felt to me hollow, an exercise, a set of hoops to jump through. But now is the time to to consider that in a short while you will be done with the hoops, and if you don’t know what that means to you or where you want to go or what you want to do once you finally can, then college can turn into “the paradox of choice.”

Good luck to you and Ivyboy, and do try not to worry too much. I’m sure he tells you that, but really, try not to. Things will be fine. He’ll grow up, and from the sounds of it he’ll do so without any permanent damage :).

24

Missed edit window: imagine this paragraph is in the middle of that post.

I’m sure I could have finished my degree in ECE and then gone on to do any number of things, but it really felt like I was being trained for a tiny little specialty that I was in no way certain I wanted to do as a career. The problem wasn’t that the ECE degree would have limited me to engineering jobs, really, but that I lost the motivation to put in all the time and effort necessary for that degree. While I was grinding away at lots of hard courses in subjects I didn’t care enough about for their own sake, my friends were taking classes that would either really help prepare them for their future plans or taking courses in interesting and diverse subjects.

25

A.I. Wintermute says some wise things. I agree that there’s probably more going on than not having bought textbooks.

Through my job, I see so many students who don’t need to be in college at this point in their lives. These students and (maybe more importantly) their parents see it as the inevitable next step after finishing high school. But going to college without being ready for it or knowing what you want out of it is not the best move.

You seem like a great parent, Ivylass. If he wants to try again in January, that’s fine. But I hope you can let your son know that there’s no shame in working and living on his own for a couple of years before going to college.

26

Don’t be too hard on yourself. Your son is a young man, and like all adults, he’ll make his own mistakes.

If Ivylad doesn’t go straight into college right after high school and finish up in 4 years, that doesn’t make you or him a failure. It may seem hard to envision other paths, especially if he went to a private high school and all of his peers are on that track. But living at home and going to community college, joining Americorps, working for a few years before starting college–these are all good and healthy things for a young adult to do. There’s more than one route to a happy, productive life.

27

I just spoke to him. He’s completely out of the dorm and after Ivylad is rested, they’ll be coming home tomorrow.

He said he loved school, that he felt like he was home. He said he thought that needing money to buy something was part of being a grown up, and although he had no earthly idea how to get the money for his books, somehow it was his responsibility to come up with it, by himself. I pointed out that it would have been easier to swallow a little pride at the beginning of the semester rather than let things get to this point, and he concurred.

He understands he has some hard thinking and discussing to do, and I made it clear that if he doesn’t want to go back to school in January that was fine. He was quite emphatic that he was going back. I want to make sure it’s what he wants, not what he thinks his father and I want.

I pointed out that not only did he lie to his father and me and to his girlfriend, he also lied to himself. He refused to face that he was in trouble, and that made things worse. He said he thinks he lacked the discipline…not in studying, but in recognizing the reality of the situation.

So, he’ll be coming home for a couple of months, licking his wounds, and then go back, maybe a bit ashamed of himself but hopefully a bit more mature.

Boy, this parenting thing doesn’t get any easier, doesn’t it?

28

(((ivylass)))

29

Ya done good, ivylass. Ivyboy didn’t do the smartest thing, but his heart was in the right place–wanting to take responsibility, not wanting to burden his family.

30

All too true, and something my bull-headed self is still working on (fortunately, I’ve been able to stay out of those epic-failure-type situations since then, without even coming close to needing help, so I couldn’t really say whether or not I’ve learned that lesson yet). Hopefully, Ivyboy will take the lesson that it’s okay to ask for help, as well.

A. I. Wintermute’s college experience sounds remarkably similar to what I was feeling at the time. It took me a full year of working an entry-level office job before I felt I was ready to resume college, so as burundi said, there’s no shame in not being ready to start right up again come January.

31

I want to echo this, but with an addition. Not being ready to start again is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but the fact that he wants to go back at it next semester does not necessarily mean he’s truly ready. Be prepared for the possibility that things go sour again if there are other, underlying issues. I took the better part of three semesters to get a good handle on why I melted down, and at the beginning of each of those I was determined to get back into the swing of things and do it right this time. But it turned out blind determination wasn’t enough; I was butting my head against a wall that I had to recognize before I could tear it down.

I don’t mean to be a downer about this, but I think the worst scenario here is if you send him back off to school confident that all is now well, only to be blindsided by another mishap in the future. I put my poor parents through a lot in that time, and I’m just fortunate they were so supportive.

32

Don’t beat yourself up over this Ivylass there may be more to the story. Sometimes shit happens despite your best efforts.
I failed in my second year of college. Got tossed out. I felt lower than whale shit. I had failed, I let my parents down, I did not handle the mission. When I called them to tell them what had happened, my father told me something that I will all ways cherish. He said “No matter what happens you are always my son.”
It made me cry then, and I well up thinking about it now.
From the gallery of one hit wonders

Tell your son that it does not matter just how many times he gets knocked down, the only thing that matters is that the number of times he gets up is one more than the number of times he was knocked down.
Over the years, I failed at college, I have been fired from jobs (several times), had a engagement broken and so on and so forth.
Each time I got up dug in my heels and went back to work.
Easy? No.
Fun? No, but some of the things I have turned out doing have been a lot more fun that the job before.
Stressful? Damn right.
But at the end I am in a better place than I would have been if I had not gone through those trials.
I expect your son will go back to school more focused and in better shape.

33

My degree is Superior Chemical Engineer. That requires 5 years of classwork plus a thesis. The first year is selective (there’s only 80 spots in 2nd year, so only the best 80 students pass). All individual courses must be passed but you can retake the final for a failed course as many times as needed. You can’t start work on your thesis with more than two fails. Thus, the usual calendar for a good student is:
Year One, fail Grade One.
Year Two, pass Grade One.
Year Three, pass Grade Two (with some fails).
Year Four, pass Grade Three (add more fails).
Year Five, pass Grade Four (more fails, this is the hardest grade).
Year Six, pass Grade Five… more or less.
Year Seven, pass most of your old fails.
Years Eight and Nine, thesis.

Similar calendars are what you hear from people in any other Superior Engineering Degree. Actually, we’re on the fast side… the average for Telecommunications is 14 years. Mines, 11.

I started pretty normally:
Year One, fail Grade One (only one failed course, I was number 83, arrrrgh). My parents wanted me to apply for Nursing School.
Year Two, pass Grade One. My parents were surprised.
Year Three, pass Grade Two (with two fails). Mom wanted me to apply to Teaching School. Dad wanted me to apply to Nursing school.
Year Four, pass Grade Three (add another fail). Turns out that this meant losing my fellowship, which barely covered living expenses for two months but the parental units wanted me to drop out altogether and get a Vocational High School degree as an Administrative Assistant instead (for Og’s sake, I’d already passed the First Grade barrier! One third of the students never do)
Year Five, stop. Spend it at home. Pass the three Fails.
Year Six, pass Grade Four. Clean, no fails at all.
Year Seven, pass Grade Five, again clean.
Year Eight, Thesis.

My parents had been convinced I couldn’t cut it; my unusual calendar, including a “stop year” in a very strange place even ended faster than the normal one. If my environment had been slightly more positive than the yearly budget for a geranium plantation in Mare Tranquilitatis, I might even have done better.

A stop of a few months getting your shit together is not the end of the world. It’s an opportunity to figure out where you screwed up and do better next time. Why didn’t he buy his books? Could he have had access to them (or necessary parts, some teachers make people buy 6 books but you only really need one chapter from each) in other ways? Did he really need them? Why did he lie to so many people, either by commision or ommision?

To me those are the questions that need to be adressed… ohmygodIlostaterm should be the least of Iviboy’s worries.

34

The more I think about this, the more I believe this is more than just not buying the books. He seems to have a tendency to put himself is a situation where he will fail. I don’t know if he’s afraid of success, or if he’s self-destructive to some extent. He’s smart enough to know he needs to do something for his own betterment, yet, for whatever reason, he chooses not to do it.

He sees his counselor on Friday. Then we’ll see.

35

In my first year of college, I failed calculus, chemistry 2, and physics 2. Now I’ve got a great job, and am going to grad school. Like others have said, it’s not the end of the world.

The below quote was written by a friend of mine who worked at the college bookstore. I’m not posting it to be rude, and, upon reflection, it’s a bit more harsh than I remember it being. Your posts quite remind me of my mom, which is usually a good thing. :slight_smile:

36

Some kids go away to college and think that they are now in the grown-up world and need to be self sufficient yet they just don’t’ have the organization, emotional or financial skills to handle it meekly raises hand. I went to a big university straight from HS and bombed my first semester. Passed one class. Barely.

I was put on academic probation. My folks told me that if I came up with half the tuition they would come up with the other half (yeah, like I could do that over winter break :rolleyes: ) I knew I wasn’t ready for college full time, I just wasn’t mature enough yet. I joined the Army for a 3 year stint and got the college fund so I would have education funds for when I got out and not have to rely on my folks (they spent my college money on vacations while I was on active duty. Nice folks, huh). When I got out I went to the local community college. It is easier to handle the pre-requisites there than in a major university and a hell of a lot cheaper.

Now, I am not going to recommend your son join the service, especially during wartime. I will strongly suggest, though, that he not go back to the university yet. He will feel a lot of pressure to succeed academically as well as financially. I think that it would be better for him to go to the local community college until his pre-reqs are finished. He will have the support of you and your husband at home, he won’t have the temptations of parties and whatnot, plus he can work part time if he wants to. I’ve had plenty of friends who went that route, including my wife. By the time your son is a Junior and transfers to a university with his Associates Degree, he will be stable, mature and more self reliant.

Good luck to all of you. You sound like great, caring parents and I am sure your boy will turn out fine.

37

Could he also hate engineering? I was at Georgia Tech, and I hated every minute of every class. Except the “art” classes. I did fine in them (most of them, atleast), but the prospect of being an engineer was hell to me. I did not want to be Like Them. Nerds. Geeks. First semester of college and they are already trying to get into a Fortune 500 company.

Mind, I lucked my way into the cleanroom on campus, and I worked my ass off in semiconductor research for my entire year at Georgia Tech. That being my life, from here on out? Fuck that. Because of this, I got into some rather unsavory things. Not drinking or drugs, just breaking into things. Breaking things. Petty vandalism and stealing. Made me not feel like such a drone.

I dropped out, came back to Greensboro - something I NEVER wanted to do - and now am going to UNCG. And it is amazing. I spend 12 hours a day at school (30 minute commute) and the school won’t let me take enough classes. I have 19 hours and they won’t give me any more than that. Art kicks ass. Will I get a job? No. Will I struggle every day from here on out? Yes. Do I care? No. Whatever happens, happens.

38

I’m going to chime in with another “it’s not the books”. We all know there are all kinds of alternatives and that many of the books turn out to be supplements to the lectures.

Best wishes to Ivyboy that he gets it figured out and doesn’t beat himself up too much. I hope he takes this time away reflect and decide what he wants to do.