Parents of the Class of 2019

[design_mom]

That stinks @yeahdisney. Is your son "allowed" to move in and is choosing not to? Our son's university gave kids the option to stay home (with room/board refund) if all of their classes are online. At the time, my son had 3 in-person classes scheduled. It has now changed to 1. Sigh... but he's still planning to go. I would be upset if you are paying for something you aren't ALLOWED to use. If the dorm is open and he's choosing not to go, then I guess it's a bit of a grey area. It would be nice if they'd refund, but I might still choose to keep him home.

I'm not sure what to do about next year and leases either. My son's school has first and 2nd year students in a dorm. A lot of "the best" houses rent 2 years in advance (so freshmen sign leases for junior year). My son hasn't even started looking yet. Upperclassmen are ALLOWED to live on campus, but not many do. But, like you, I'm somewhat hesitant to sign a lease with so much uncertainty about... everything.

 

[Colleen27]

Well -leases for next year 2021-2022 are going to start October. What are you guys thinking?
Both our kids are not in their paid for college rooms- both kids have all online classes.

I can't imagine many colleges will be able to endure remaining closed for another year, but I'm really glad we don't have to make any decisions for a good long time yet.

I think most colleges will be at least mostly back to normal by next year, though. I don't hold out a lot of hope for spring - I don't think the financial benefits to schools that kept campus closed for fall will be significant enough to outweigh the virus concerns, because so many students have already secured alternative housing for the entire academic year. But I think most schools will be under immense economic and enrollment pressures to have a normal 2021-22 academic year.

 

[mom2rtk]

Mizzou actually had a modest increase in enrollment this year, just over 3% more than last year. I assume because it's the "state school" more kids decided to stay closer to home. But I'm still kind of surprised they added more than they lost.

It's going to be fascinating to see what kind of cuts to aid packages will come next year. They already announced they're dropping a big one for incoming freshmen next year.

 

[design_mom]

DS has been dropped off. His dorm is a definite upgrade from last year. In-person classes are supposed to start tomorrow, although I don't exactly know what that means for DS. A week ago, he was supposed to have 3 in-person classes (or at least hybrid), now it's down to 1. I think that class is on Tues/Thurs, so I'm not sure if he'll go in-person both days, or just one, or what.

 

[PollyannaMom]

DS called earlier. He's got two tests on Tuesday, and is stressing out big time. He's been struggling with organization for his hybrid classes, and just doesn't feel ready.

It's so hard to help long-distance.

 

[PollyannaMom]

On a brighter note -

I had a lot of fun planning and sending the pumpkin care packages last year. Anyone have cool ideas for this year?

 

[mom2rtk]

On a brighter note -

I had a lot of fun planning and sending the pumpkin care packages last year. Anyone have cool ideas for this year?

Oh wow. I almost forgot about the pumpkins! Not sure if I even have any new ideas this year. I don't even have her address yet! LOL.

 

[mom2rtk]

DD is heading home tonight for a week. Once they fixed the A/C (took about 3 weeks) she finally settled in and started feeling more settled in. Her birthday is this weekend so it will be great to have her here. She got a test yesterday and got negative results today. I know it's not 100% but we're going with it.

They aren't out of school. She's just enjoying one of the only silver linings to having so much done online right now.

We are about to exit the teen years at our house. For the first time in in 14 years, we won't have any teens. I have mixed feelings about it.

 

[design_mom]

@mom2rtk -- Happy birthday to your daughter! My son turns 20 Monday so they're practically birthday buddies. I'll still have a teen at home (DD is 16 and just got her driver's license last week).

I'm glad you'll get to see her. I don't think I'm going to get to see my son for the first time and I'm feeling kind of bad about it. We just dropped him off last weekend (and we had a treat and gave him his gift before he left). The school is discouraging non-essential travel to/from campus. I asked if he'd like us to drive up next weekend to maybe get a picnic lunch -- he was like "Um, why would you do that?" and DH was like "Seriously? That's a five hour round trip." And now it looks like it might rain, so a picnic might not work anyway -- but I will miss not seeing him on his birthday or at least his birthday weekend.

In happier news, he has one in-person class and it had its first meeting today. He said there were only 6 students in the room and it was great! I was a little concerned because the professor is Chinese with a pretty strong accent. I was worried that wearing masks (required in the building) would make it harder to understand him. However, DS said it was easier to understand him in person than over video -- and that he went through examples, and asked the students to do examples and helped them when they got stuck... so much better than an online lecture. I wish more of his classes were like this, but I'm glad he's at least got this one.

 

[mom2rtk]

@mom2rtk -- Happy birthday to your daughter! My son turns 20 Monday so they're practically birthday buddies. I'll still have a teen at home (DD is 16 and just got her driver's license last week).

I'm glad you'll get to see her. I don't think I'm going to get to see my son for the first time and I'm feeling kind of bad about it. We just dropped him off last weekend (and we had a treat and gave him his gift before he left). The school is discouraging non-essential travel to/from campus. I asked if he'd like us to drive up next weekend to maybe get a picnic lunch -- he was like "Um, why would you do that?" and DH was like "Seriously? That's a five hour round trip." And now it looks like it might rain, so a picnic might not work anyway -- but I will miss not seeing him on his birthday or at least his birthday weekend.

In happier news, he has one in-person class and it had its first meeting today. He said there were only 6 students in the room and it was great! I was a little concerned because the professor is Chinese with a pretty strong accent. I was worried that wearing masks (required in the building) would make it harder to understand him. However, DS said it was easier to understand him in person than over video -- and that he went through examples, and asked the students to do examples and helped them when they got stuck... so much better than an online lecture. I wish more of his classes were like this, but I'm glad he's at least got this one.

That's hard. I would have been considering the 5 hour road trip in your position, but rain sure seems to seal the deal. It really will be nice to get to see her on her birthday. I know our years of doing so could be limited so I cherish each opportunity at this age.

Teachers with accents wearing masks really is a challenge. So glad he at least has that class in person! I hope he settles into his new routine easily.

 

[Colleen27]

Oh wow. I almost forgot about the pumpkins! Not sure if I even have any new ideas this year. I don't even have her address yet! LOL.

I'm sending cider and donuts this year. Much less creative, but I know it'll be appreciated.

DD called me on Saturday to confess to a crime. She went to the farmer's market and bought a bottle of cider from a local orchard, because fresh cider and donuts are what she misses most about home at this time of year. But she got a surprise when she went to drink it - it was hard cider! She said it was in a weird bottle, like wine or the sparkling cider we buy for DD12 on NYE, but she didn't think much of it because around us hard cider comes in cans or beer-type bottles and because plastic packaging is so much less ubiquitous in California. Most kids her age would probably be thrilled to have gotten away with buying alcohol without even a second look, and I doubt she poured it out or anything like that, but she was actually rather disappointed. She was so excited to have found a place to get real, fresh cider, which I guess isn't common in groceries out there like it is here, and then it wasn't! So that's what I'm sending: a gallon of cider along with a half-dozen apple cider donuts, from a local cider mill that overnights anywhere in the continental US.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I get to see DS today!!!

Maine has finally put Mass on their quarantine exception list (at least for the moment) so we're making a quick run up. He's been having a rough time emotionally lately, with so much of the social aspect missing this semester, plus I was just getting ready to send a big package (a large forgotten item and some goodies) that would have been awkward and expensive, so we decided it would would be a pretty fall day for a 2 1/2 hour drive instead.

We’re just picking up some lunch and going to a park. It has trails, so we'll go for a walk after, then he's got to get back to homework. But I’m looking forward to it.

 

[Eureka]

I had lunch with my five-person work team last week (outside our building, so nice to see everyone in person after six months!) and went to Trader Joe’s before I headed home, so picked up some stuff for DS and dropped it off. (I had texted ahead to see if he wanted me to.) - his house and campus is halfway between my office and our house. We only chatted for five minutes or so and I used his bathroom but it was nice to see him in his place. Bathroom looked better than I expected with five of them living there for a month, and the kitchen and living room were pretty tidy too. Then later that night he texted us a photo of the dinner he’d made with some of what I brought him. We just talked to him and he said the housemates have started watching Schitts Creek together at night. Makes me confident this was the right choice for him, at least he’s having some fun even without being on campus or going out.

 

[bjscheel]

DD just finished a master's level class that was compressed into a half semester so it was a lot of work. She was happy to get 100% on final project and 97% overall- at the beginning she considered dropping it because she was having a rough time!

For some reason yesterday I wandered into the new academic catalog and looked at her major. I found they'd made a change in structure. Previously it was divided into three settings, and her setting had 5 tracks. Now her setting doesn't have you choose a track, but rather after your core classes you just pick what you want from a list of electives. I think this is great news because she had wanted classes from 2-3 of the tracks. (Hopefully she's not bound to the way it was her freshman year.)

Since she hasn't gotten a job yet we decided at this point she should stop trying for any in the college town. It would mean being stuck there for the 7 weeks of winter break when most of her friends are going home. Turns out DD22's shop will have a maternity leave to cover during that time, so we are 95% sure the plan is for DD19 to live and work with her sister. That will be a nice diversion for her instead of sitting home for all that time away from her friends. And hopefully she'll make a couple month's rent.

 

[LouChris]

DD was just accepted into her RN program at her community college (she is already a CNA and working as a CNA), RN, BSN and the NP license. I'm proud of her she made the Presidents list the first two semesters with a 4.0 and got into the RN program on the first try. Despite it being a community college many applicants have to apply 2 and 3 times to get in as it is a competitive program. She has already gotten her first two Anatomy course's out of the way and her skeleton "Kathy" is currently standing in her room currently dressed in a build-a-bear Halloween outfit .

I'm proud of her as most of her friends are away at school but she decided that it wasn't quite right for her to go away at this time. Luckily our house (bi-level) is set up so she has the upstairs and we have the downstairs so she has some independence. We never planned it that way but it's nice having two living area's. Next semester she will have to go in for nursing courses so I pray that Covid which is on the rise in our area will not be horrible as she has been home since March.

 

[Colleen27]

DD just finished a master's level class that was compressed into a half semester so it was a lot of work. She was happy to get 100% on final project and 97% overall- at the beginning she considered dropping it because she was having a rough time!

Wow, congrats to her on the grade. That's impressive, especially for an accelerated master's level class!

DD was just accepted into her RN program at her community college (she is already a CNA and working as a CNA), RN, BSN and the NP license. I'm proud of her she made the Presidents list the first two semesters with a 4.0 and got into the RN program on the first try. Despite it being a community college many applicants have to apply 2 and 3 times to get in as it is a competitive program. She has already gotten her first two Anatomy course's out of the way and her skeleton "Kathy" is currently standing in her room currently dressed in a build-a-bear Halloween outfit .

I'm proud of her as most of her friends are away at school but she decided that it wasn't quite right for her to go away at this time. Luckily our house (bi-level) is set up so she has the upstairs and we have the downstairs so she has some independence. We never planned it that way but it's nice having two living area's. Next semester she will have to go in for nursing courses so I pray that Covid which is on the rise in our area will not be horrible as she has been home since March.

It sounds like she's found the perfect path for her! Our community college RN program is super-competitive too, and it is a real accomplishment to get in on the first try. Good luck to her, and I hope she's able to stay safe through the covid situation.

 

[Colleen27]

I'm going to visit DD! DD's university just announced last week that intersession, spring and summer will be full remote, and the email sort of obliquely suggested that fall will be contingent on a vaccine, so she was pretty down when she called. Then younger daughter found out last week that she's going to have a four-day weekend this week because of some teacher training related to the pandemic/remote instruction, so we started joking around about going to California for a few days to cheer her sister up. A really good Frontier Air sale - $170 r/t, about what we usually pay one way! - and a bit of Hotwire searching later, and we're booked to fly out Friday and come home on Monday. And while DD knows DD12 and I are coming so she could plan her work shifts accordingly, she doesn't know that her Nana is coming too. So hopefully that will brighten her mood a bit.

She decided that she's going to stay at home through intersession, when she only has one (highly accelerated) class, and for the first month of the spring term. That way she can chaperone winter camp at DD12's middle school, which she had planned to do next year for DD12's 8th grade camp but figures will be easier to do now when it doesn't involve missing in-person classes or booking an extra trip home. So she'll be home from mid-Dec. to mid-Feb and then go back to the same building she's in now, and probably the same apartment - they're at about half occupancy right now with none of the campuses open or the tech companies hiring interns, so the building manager said it shouldn't be a problem - for the remainder of the term. And right now I'm trying to encourage her to just take one day at a time, but she's starting to talk about researching transfer options for next year if it looks like they still aren't going to be open. Dealing with 1.5 years of remote learning is hard enough in a STEM field, and she's feeling like it will just take too much away from the value of her degree if that ends up being 2 or 2.5 years, especially with no field internship options this past summer and no idea whether there will be any next summer either. I think a lot of that is frustration because most of her high school friends attend schools in the Midwest or Southeast and they're all on campus with at least some limited in-person contact, so she feels like she's missing more than most students and worrying about eventually competing for internships and jobs with people who experienced much less educational disruption. But I keep pointing out to her that her immediate competition for a lot of those positions and for grad school will come largely from the West Coast, where everyone is in more or less the same boat with the more cautious reopening plans.

 

[mjkacmom]

I'm going to visit DD! DD's university just announced last week that intersession, spring and summer will be full remote, and the email sort of obliquely suggested that fall will be contingent on a vaccine, so she was pretty down when she called. Then younger daughter found out last week that she's going to have a four-day weekend this week because of some teacher training related to the pandemic/remote instruction, so we started joking around about going to California for a few days to cheer her sister up. A really good Frontier Air sale - $170 r/t, about what we usually pay one way! - and a bit of Hotwire searching later, and we're booked to fly out Friday and come home on Monday. And while DD knows DD12 and I are coming so she could plan her work shifts accordingly, she doesn't know that her Nana is coming too. So hopefully that will brighten her mood a bit.

She decided that she's going to stay at home through intersession, when she only has one (highly accelerated) class, and for the first month of the spring term. That way she can chaperone winter camp at DD12's middle school, which she had planned to do next year for DD12's 8th grade camp but figures will be easier to do now when it doesn't involve missing in-person classes or booking an extra trip home. So she'll be home from mid-Dec. to mid-Feb and then go back to the same building she's in now, and probably the same apartment - they're at about half occupancy right now with none of the campuses open or the tech companies hiring interns, so the building manager said it shouldn't be a problem - for the remainder of the term. And right now I'm trying to encourage her to just take one day at a time, but she's starting to talk about researching transfer options for next year if it looks like they still aren't going to be open. Dealing with 1.5 years of remote learning is hard enough in a STEM field, and she's feeling like it will just take too much away from the value of her degree if that ends up being 2 or 2.5 years, especially with no field internship options this past summer and no idea whether there will be any next summer either. I think a lot of that is frustration because most of her high school friends attend schools in the Midwest or Southeast and they're all on campus with at least some limited in-person contact, so she feels like she's missing more than most students and worrying about eventually competing for internships and jobs with people who experienced much less educational disruption. But I keep pointing out to her that her immediate competition for a lot of those positions and for grad school will come largely from the West Coast, where everyone is in more or less the same boat with the more cautious reopening plans.

Let her know that the majority of the northeast colleges are almost all virtual too. I don’t think many colleges are being very transparent about what is actually happening on campus.

 

[Colleen27]

Let her know that the majority of the northeast colleges are almost all virtual too. I don’t think many colleges are being very transparent about what is actually happening on campus.

Oh, I told her, because literally all of the other schools she had considered were in New England (except Loyola Chicago, which is also the only one she applied to that is semi-open and the only school she applied that HS friends are attending). No matter what choice she'd made, the outcome would have been the same... and most of the friends who are attending schools that have resumed in-person are at schools that don't offer one or both of her majors, so it isn't as though their classmates are going to be her competition in the near term. I think her better judgment will prevail once she's over the shock/disappointment of the university email - she said she's actually been enjoying the virtual mentorship she has going with some of the students in the freshman LLC that she was supposed to be an RA for, she really likes her roommate who is a grad student in the UC system, and even with most things closed she says she still loves SF so I hope she's not too serious about leaving.

 

[mom2rtk]

Did anyone else send a pumpkin yet? I mailed mine 8 days ago and it's finally been delivered (waiting on her to realize it's there). 8 days to travel 120 miles. I probably could have walked it there faster. OK, maybe not, but it's ridiculous. Took 5 days just to get through the big distribution center in town.

On another note, I had trouble finding a plain orange pumpkin, then gave up, only to find she had kept the one from last year in her room at home. So I snagged it and sent it back!