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WestrnMom
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Posted: Wed Oct 17th, 2007 11:02 pm |
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A friend called, quite upset that her freshman child is not fitting in well at college. This student insisted on going 2,000 miles away to a new environment, with a completely different type of student than at the public high school back home. In fact, they visited the campus twice before making the decision and the whole family loved the school (large, well-known elite public university) The mom is trying to be supportive, but they are paying a lot of money for her child to be unhappy. The school is very competitive, much more difficult than high school, her child may not get into the major of choice as that is also very competitive, tried out for a Greek house and didn't get in, was unable to make the sports team, isn't making many friends, and is just miserable. Any suggestions I can pass along? It's hard because mine seems quite content so I'm not able to relate as closely as I'd like to her dilemma. Her child can't come home until the Winter Break, either, as Thanksgiving conflicts with another committment.
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binx
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Posted: Thu Oct 18th, 2007 12:17 am |
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Westrnmom, (carrying over from another thread....) my D is not generally unhappy - she has made a lot of friends, and likes the program and the school. She's just had a few bumps. Those are hard enough to handle. I don't know what I would do if she were like your friend's S. It is so hard to watch them suffer setbacks, and worse, after being so high achieving in HS. (It was agony watching my oldest get rejected from job after job his summer following freshman year. His shoulders got lower and lower, and his confidence just got sucked out of him.)
We discouraged the Greek stuff for my D -- for the exact reason you mention - I think D doesn't have a thick enough skin to handle rejection by a group of people she hoped to be part of! The whole concept makes me queasy. Fortunately, D agreed.
So what to do... random ideas:
1. Encourage him to pick himself up, dust himself off, and look for a club that wants him. Join the newspaper staff, or work back-stage at the theater, or Ultimate Frisbee. Find something he enjoys, and he will make friends who enjoy the same thing.
2. Send care packages. Postcards. Surprises.
3. Encourage him to stick out the first year. If necessary, allow him to apply to transfer in the meantime. By the time the transfer notices come in, he may have changed his mind and settled down.
4. He went in starry eyed and excited. The fact that there is some let-down is unavoidable, because I'm guessing that no college could have lived up to the ideal he'd created in his mind.
5. Make sure he knows that his performance does not determine his parents' support, love, or approval. That might seem obvious, but when kids have been historically over-achievers, it is bound to happen that some of their self-worth gets wrapped up in what they do, and they may expect rejection if they fail.
6. Send him an e-card. Or a movie. http://www.jibjab.com/
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Thu Oct 18th, 2007 01:05 am |
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Binx gave some great suggestions. I'd add that much depends on how deep the "blues" are. If it's typical freshman adjustment, then time, and winter break, can work wonders. If it's a deeper problem, I'd encourage my student to seek out some campus counseling and perhaps discuss maybe coming home at the end of the semester and finishing out the year at a college close to home while considering other options. In my opinion, no child should be forced to stay some place where they are deeply unhappy and sometimes a fresh start is better than suffering through.
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binx
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Posted: Thu Oct 18th, 2007 05:48 pm |
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Carolyn, I have to agree with you that I could not let my kids stay where they are miserable.
In this situation, maybe just having the parents offer the option of quitting might lessen the anxiety enough to "fix" it. I don't think I would let the S re-enroll anywhere else, though, until he figured out exactly what went wrong, and how he can avoid making the same mistake in the future. Somehow, I would want him to take ownership of the problem and solution.
But I'd still want to look long and hard at the situation, to determine if "this too shall pass." Not fix it too soon, without giving the kid the chance to rebound on his own. My D uses me to vent; she considers herself a survivor, but sometimes she just needs to complain. (And I come here to do the same!) So I probably hear more of the bad from her than anyone else. I think a guy might have an even harder time talking about things to others.
I really like your idea of the school counseling office. Someone neutral, onsite, who can figure out how serious this is.
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limner
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Posted: Fri Oct 19th, 2007 02:02 pm |
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| WstrnMom, both Carolyn and binx have given excellent advice. I think telling the kid that he needs to give it time BUT also saying that he can look into transferring can help him not feel boxed in or trapped. Many of us (especially these kids who've had the guts and fortitude to get into their top choices) will choose to work at being happy where they are. But knowing that they have a choice will help psychologically.
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Fri Oct 19th, 2007 06:27 pm |
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All very good suggestions. Thank you.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Fri Oct 19th, 2007 07:53 pm |
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Just want to add one more thought: if this is a kid from Southern California attending college in a more northern place, don't underestimate how the change in weather and less daylight time can factor in. It was a shock to my daughter last year when it started getting dark at 4 pm, and an even bigger shock when autumn bought lots of rain and cloudy days (and a still bigger shock when she realized it was too cold to spend much time outdoors). SADD (seasonal affective disorder something or other) is very real and when you've never experienced it, you can easily blame other factors for your unhappiness. For a kid from Southern California, used to sunny skies and tee-shirt weather year round, SADD can be tough. My daughter's college actually has a room set aside with special SADD lamps, beach chairs, and murals on the wall. She visited a few times before she adjusted but this year, she knew what to expect, and hasn't had the same down feeling.  Last edited on Fri Oct 19th, 2007 07:54 pm by CarolynLawrence
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Fri Oct 19th, 2007 10:56 pm |
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Carolyn, I didn't think about that! Thank you. This is also a situation where a student did everything in high school. Was a top student, top athlete, extremely well-liked, very accomplished. Going to a huge, elite school full of similar students means they aren't going to have the same type of success or attention they did in high school. If they have high expectations going in, it can be a disappointment especially at a very large, public school.
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Pye
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Posted: Sat Oct 20th, 2007 10:33 pm |
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I agree the student should seek counseling--if he has any religious affiliation, a chaplain could also be a good sounding board. Also perhaps worth seeking out one or two profs in his desired major to discuss one-to-one how his chances are and what alternatives might be.
He should be reassured that it's OK to just be one of the crowd at a competitive school-- even if he tended to be on top in high school. With elections coming up--one way to make some friends might be to join a support group for a candidate of his choice. Or get involved in some social service activity--maybe write for the campus newspaper?
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Lderochi
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Posted: Sun Oct 21st, 2007 01:49 am |
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I agree with everything said so far. My son likes his school a lot, but even he is suffering through some "freshman blues" and has mentioned the possibility of transfer to get closer to home. Despite everything I've heard and read that this is not unusual after the first month or so, I was still very surprised. I think I surprised HIM by not freaking out. We talked a bit, and by the end of the conversation he was still "thinking" about transferring but said he wouldn't do anything until after the first full year at Elon.
I'm just going to assume that by next May he will be fully entrenched and this idea will be a thing of the past. BUT, if he sounded truly unhappy (rather than homesick) I would recommend he see a counselor in a heartbeat.
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Sun Oct 21st, 2007 02:17 am |
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After talking to the mom, her child is more disappointed and homesick than depressed. It didn't turn out to be anything like expected. But I keep thinking it's only been 1-2 months for these students. What I don't understand is why the public schools make it so difficult to get into the majors that the students went there for in the first place. If more students want to major in a subject, why can't they open more classes? It seems horribly unfair to pay that much money for an education, only to be told you can't study what you want. Another friend's son got into a very large, very competitive in-state public school to study music. The music department dropped him at the end of junior year and said he needed to find another major. He ended up severely depressed, which isn't surprising at all. Because he had taken mostly music classes, he had to quickly scrounge around for another major and I think ended up in history, but it's not what he planned to study or the career he intended to have, either.
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Lderochi
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 02:22 pm |
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Just picking up the old thread. Wstrnmom, I'd be interested to hear how your friend's child is doing now.
S is still considering transferring, but what's frustrating is that he actually likes his current school a lot, and seems genuinely torn. It's a homesickness thing, compounded by the fact that nobody in the crowd he hung out with in HS actually left. They are all still here carrying on without him (jobs, community college, the local college). I think it would be far different if his friends were scattered to the wind at their own distant colleges. While he has several friends at college, they are still in the "getting to know you" phase, while here he has a fairly small but extremely tight group that he really misses.
Also, he deeply misses his volunteer activity and while it is available at Elon, he can't participate until his 90 day probation period is up. Maybe things will improve then. He's also one of three student trying to form an EMS unit at Elon -- currently at that wonderful phase where you have to get buy-in from what seems like every dean and/or bureaucrat at the University and the town. Once that gets past the approval stage and into start up made maybe it will really engage him.
The bottom line is that the only thing wrong with Elon is that it's not where he wants to be geographically. My concern is that transferring will fix one thing at the expense of the other. The only college around here, and the one he is considering transferring to, is far less challenging academically. So a transfer might make him happy with his social/volunteer life, but bored academically. His life, I know, and we would never consider not supporting his decision as long as it it carefully thought out. But it is frustrating to see him consider transferring from a situation that he really enjoys when he's too busy to be homesick.
As noted earlier, he will definitely stay at Elon for the year, but will submit his transfer application for next year. With luck, things will continue to improve and he'll reconsider.
Sorry to ramble, just venting. Aargh.
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jocelynDAD
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 03:35 pm |
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Lderochi/WestrnMom:
The initial months at college are such an eyeopener for most 18 year olds.
Especially this generation (IMO) because of the rather organized world they have been living in since pre-school.
Since we have D's now in college and a senior in HS, yet had children who attended college starting in 1980 and continuing thru the 1990's. it has been 27 years of close encounters with college and its trials and tribulations for us.
My older children were in organized sports since grade school, but still had some self generated activities. Now it seems that every activity requires parental involvement at the outset. My W's sister has twin girls now 12. They are into a swim club, a horse riding outlet, one goes to ice skating lessons while the other is into cheer leading classes, also dance classes. All of these activities are scheduled and require my S-I-L to drive here, there and at weird times and days, all surrounding the private school where she delivers and picks up them each day.
As far as I can determine, my nieces only spontaneous activity is to go into the backyard on the few times they are not scheduled somewhere!
Unfortunately, this is has become fairly standard for them and for this generation. So when left to themselves at college to schedule and get involved they are still looking for a structure that in their past was set up for them. It can be a completely new idea that they must be proactive on their own (Lderochi - your S seems clearly to be able to do this and therefore I believe he will discover like our S3 that his future is in his college - see below).
There does seems to be a 'lack of adventure' of initiative and 'risk taking' among this current generation.
My third son went to Wash U in St Louis, halfway across the country from New Jersey, had a lousy roommate (which he changed in six weeks) came home for Thanksgiving (we lived then in a small town and the T'giving football game was a major event), and by Friday was bored to the gills and was anxious to get back to his college. High School seems so different (and this son was still only 17, B'day after Xmas) and he did not feel that he 'belongs at the HS", he was now at college and his present and future was there).
Now S3 was popular, his sister was still at the High School (a Junior), his brothers went to college in eastern Pa and all were home for T'giving - still he had mentally graduated and was looking ahead to college etc.
I would not be surprised that during the T'giving break, these youngsters find that the high school crowd was a 'then' and not a 'now'.aspect of their life. 
Last edited on Mon Nov 12th, 2007 03:39 pm by jocelynDAD
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Lderochi
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 04:14 pm |
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jocelynDad, some very good points, and thank you. Your S3 scenario is exactly how it worked out for me when I was his age, but I get the feeling that this one may play out differently.
Thanksgiving won't necessarily be an eye-opener since we're traveling to my parents and he will only be here for a day. Christmas break might do it, but who knows. I keep hoping he'll meet the love of his life -- THAT'LL do it No luck there so far.
Hard to say how this will play out over the next several months. I think it's best if I stay out of it and observe from afar -- offering further opinions only when asked. I'll just vent at this board when needed. . . .
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 06:24 pm |
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Lderochi,
I'm sorry to hear about your son's adjustment at Elon.
If it helps any, my daughter expressed similar feelings around this time last year.
In high school, she had a very tight knit group of about 10-12 kids. It was a really wonderful group of kids who saw each other through some particularly tough times. Of the group, all but four, including my daughter, stayed either local or within a two hour drive of home. During her first semester away, she mentioned several times how jealous she was that "everyone" was still getting together on the weekends to do things together.
By the spring semester, however, even the kids who had stayed close to home were starting to form other friendships and not doing as much together. Over last summer, the whole group, including the out of staters, got together once at the beginning of the summer, but then didn't really hang out as a group again. Instead, my daughter found that the people she had the most in common with were now the ones she was seeing most over the summer. And, interestingly, the people she now felt she had the most in common with were NOT the same people she felt closest to in high school. She realized that, while she loves everyone in her high school group, they're all going in different directions at this point, including herself, and they have all changed and grown - even those who stayed close by have moved on to new friendships and relationships. When it came time to return to college for sophomore year, my daughter admitted that she was looking forward to seeing her college friends again more than she was sad about saying goodbye to her friends from home.
This is kind of a long winded way of saying that you might remind your son that college is a time of a lot of change for everyone, whether they stay close to home or go farther afield. While his friends from high school may sound like they're all tight as can be still at this point, by next spring/summer, it's likely that the local group will have moved on in their own directions somewhat. So, before he decides to transfer, he might think about how happy he'd be at the local college if he didn't have the local group of friends to hang out with, because, that is likely to be what will happen at some point.
Last edited on Mon Nov 12th, 2007 06:27 pm by CarolynLawrence
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Lderochi
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 08:17 pm |
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So, before he decides to transfer, he might think about how happy he'd be at the local college if he didn't have the local group of friends to hang out with, because, that is likely to be what will happen at some point.
Carolyn, as always you make a wonderful point. I will hold that comment in my back pocket for now and see how this proceeds. You and jocelynDAD may well be right that this will play out just fine. I thought the angst was over after I shipped him off!
As with your D, the fact that he is generally quite happy at Elon is something that I take as a good sign. He does make the occasional comment that the drinking culture is more extreme than he anticipated (and he anticipated quite a bit), but that's about the only negative I've heard.
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 09:01 pm |
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Lderochi, encourage him to stick it out. S told me he has met kids from out of state who are talking about transferring because they just want to be in familiar territory. Our former HS principal said every year, students go OOS and then want to return because the weather isn't right or they are too far from home. College is a temporary situation, even though it seems like forever when they are there. If he can make it work there, then he can accomplish anything. I think there is a sense of failure if they come home only due to homesickness, rather than for reasons like money or a major they can only get at the local university. I haven't talked to my friend recently but the last thing she told me was that her child has decided to stay even if things aren't perfect.
My children have found that their friends at home will still be there for them when they return. The ones who don't go away are sad that they aren't having the same type of college experience those who are out of town are having. In fact, I talked to another mom whose son took a gap year, who said he and all of his friends who stayed local to go to the CC are talking about getting out of the area as soon as they can transfer or enroll in a 4 year college. The grass always looks greener elsewhere...
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WestrnMom
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 09:06 pm |
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JocelynDad, as usual you have so much wisdom to share! Thank you (mine isn't homesick but I still benefit from your words). You have hit on something that is bothering me, too. Why can't this current generation of college students entertain themselves? I haven't talked to one student, either friends of my children or my adult friends' children, who hasn't said (double negative) that there is way too much drinking on college campuses. It's very hard on the students who choose not to drink until they turn 21. Every college from the State U to the elites seems to favor weekend drinking and partying. Are these otherwise bright students so dull or ill-equipped that they can't entertain themselves without drinking? What does that say for an entire generation of our population?
Last edited on Mon Nov 12th, 2007 09:07 pm by WestrnMom
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 10:54 pm |
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Honestly, I don't think there is any more drinking (or for that matter, drugs) on college campuses today than there was back in 1974 when I was a college freshman. If you asked me then about drinking on my campus (and later, on the campus that I transferred to), I would have had PLENTY of stories to tell about the drinking, drugs, and parties at both schools. And, I visited many friends at other colleges during those years, so I feel confident in saying that the campuses where I went to college were pretty much the norm. And, remember, back in those days the LEGAL drinking age in all states was 18.
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limner
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Posted: Mon Nov 12th, 2007 11:06 pm |
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When Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again, he was talking about just the sort of situation Carolyn described. Of course, one can go home again and the home itself may be the same, but the people will have moved forward and on, emotionally if not physically.
Lderochi, my guess is that your S will come to realize this, as jDAD pointed out, over vacation. (27 years of kids in college--egads, man, how do you do it?) 
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