struggle as a freshman...

[Jump This]

I just got off the phone with my son. A freshman at UCSD (Uni. Cal San Diego.) To make it short, he is struggling. Big time.
I'm trying to be the 'DAD' and hold him accountable for working as hard as he can. He graduated Valedictorian at the local High School....
For the first time in his life he 'doesn't get it' , the classes appear to be over his head and now hes depressed and wants out....
So, how many of you remember your freshman year in college?
He's an engineering student.
What can I say...the school doesn't realy want to talk to parents, they want the students to step up and seek the help they need...
I feel bad for the kid, but I want him to stick it out.
What can I do....

:dunno:

Rick

 

[motorcityxj]

yikes Valedictorian having problems? Well as long as he doesnt fail every single class he is ok. Is he taking honors classes or something or why the rude awakening for a valedictorian, he didnt get valedictorian by not studyiung i figure :confused1

Plan of action bust ass like hell this semester.

Tommarrow go to academic counseling center or what ever his school calls it. Find list of all his classes and subjects that have tuturs, find out if any of his classes have student study groups and GO TO OFFICE HOURS OF PROFESSORS for extra help. The know you are busting your ass if you go to office hours and really give you a benefit of doubt in allot of situations, than assume you are a slacker.

tell him its no shame on the family if college is not for him but frankly i dont see how you can suceed so much in highschool and not in college. VERY ODD.

I would be frank with him ask if its girl trouble, drug problem, gambling problem or unfixable roomate issue. Freshmen year is really screwy time in a mans life i am 5 years out of college and i remeber the literature about the suicide rates are off the chart for young white males, and asian males. No one else really kills them selves over school, so make sure he knows he can come home IF HE ABSOLUTELY HAS TO. But i knew kids that were on accdemic probation for years and they still graduated, and they were never academic allstarts in highschool and far from valedictorian.

edit. Maybe he bit off more than he could chew .. used to being the big fish in small pond in HS, he is a little fish in big pond know at a college and there is hundreds of valendictorians and acedemica all american athletes, scholarship recipiants, and foreign kids whose literally entire village is counting on him to make it in america. Not easy. Tell him to jsut get through this semester and next semester take core classes like 1-2 classes, then take some electives and not enginering stuff. Lastly you can take a class 3 times usually before the dean has to approve it. So unless he is gonna lose a scholarship over this its not the end of the world.

 

[Fergie]

Tell him to try Construction Management...it is where all the engineering drop-outs go.

 

[98stocker]

Tell him he is an adult now, and he can make his own decisions. Nothing like a bit of manual labor to encourage him to go back to school and focus a bit more. Cut the cord...

 

[BSD]

Rick,
I feel for you, both as a parent and a prof. I usually have a couple of sections of Freshman heavy classes and witness the attrition. I try to set up my classes - especially for Freshmen - to encourage retention through that first year. If you can get them through the first year, they have a very high chance of completing.
That said, very, very rarely is a person's inability to complete college due to a lack of academic ability. While not knowing the situation, I would think that the very change (physical, cultural, temporal....) might be the most significant factor. I know of two really good retention strategies that might work. The most effective is to find a faculty member that would be willing to reach out, encourage and hol dhim accountable. I would think of doing this several ways. First, see if there is a receptive ear in the department your son is majoring in. If you want to point to one item that encourages retention, it would be creating a bond between a faculty member and a student. In my case, I oversee a Secondary Ed. SOcial Studies Program. I make it a point of cultivating a supportive relationship with my incoming Freshman both for the sake of retention and to encourage academic excellence. To do this, call the department chair or the like. If it comes down to it, be agressive...it is your money and your son after all. Second, check with the office of admissions / student affairs. Most have a program in place to help with such cases. Third, if your son/family are members of a particular religous tradition, you can make use of campus groups for the sake of support and accountability. Fourth, see if you can encourage the development of some type of accountability relationship with another student.
Of course, I can readily empathize with your plight. As with my boys, you can encourage particular behaviors. However, at the end of the day, they must make their own way.
Good Luck
BSD

 

[yardape]

yikes Valedictorian having problems? Well as long as he doesnt fail every single class he is ok. Is he taking honors classes or something or why the rude awakening for a valedictorian, he didnt get valedictorian by not studyiung i figure :confused1

Plan of action bust ass like hell this semester.

Tommarrow go to academic counseling center or what ever his school calls it. Find list of all his classes and subjects that have tuturs, find out if any of his classes have student study groups and GO TO OFFICE HOURS OF PROFESSORS for extra help. The know you are busting your ass if you go to office hours and really give you a benefit of doubt in allot of situations, than assume you are a slacker.

tell him its no shame on the family if college is not for him but frankly i dont see how you can suceed so much in highschool and not in college. VERY ODD.

I would be frank with him ask if its girl trouble, drug problem, gambling problem or unfixable roomate issue. Freshmen year is really screwy time in a mans life i am 5 years out of college and i remeber the literature about the suicide rates are off the chart for young white males, and asian males. No one else really kills them selves over school, so make sure he knows he can come home IF HE ABSOLUTELY HAS TO. But i knew kids that were on accdemic probation for years and they still graduated, and they were never academic allstarts in highschool and far from valedictorian.

edit. Maybe he bit off more than he could chew .. used to being the big fish in small pond in HS, he is a little fish in big pond know at a college and there is hundreds of valendictorians and acedemica all american athletes, scholarship recipiants, and foreign kids whose literally entire village is counting on him to make it in america. Not easy. Tell him to jsut get through this semester and next semester take core classes like 1-2 classes, then take some electives and not enginering stuff. Lastly you can take a class 3 times usually before the dean has to approve it. So unless he is gonna lose a scholarship over this its not the end of the world.

Couldn't agree more. The above is a very thoughtful response . How are the lines of communication between you and he? If they are good, seek him out and find out what the problem REALLY is if there is one. Ask a thousand questions without pressuring him. OR he may need to talk to someone other than you because he has clearly lost his compass and may need some adult advice or guidance to get back on track.

As stated above, I remember having an awful dorm roommate my freshman year. He was a football jock who came home drunk every single night after they closed the bars down and snore so loud he not only woke me up but the guys in all of the neighboring rooms.

He needs to understand that whatever problem/s he is having that there is ALWAYS a solution and you'll stand by him to help him make it happen. If your relationship is not all that good, only you and he know the answer to that one, someone else might be better to intervene and help him. Whatever you do good luck. Its very hard to see your own kid struggling

 

[FarmerMatt]

Don't they award the entire class valedictorian status as not to hurt anyones feelings?...

My only advice would be to pull him back into a JC. It's more of a High School feeling & will help in the transition (cheaper too!!). I was just the opposite of your son. I went from a C minus student in HS to ending up with a 3.7 GPA throught out my BS degree.

 

[XJensen]

The work was never fun but the key is study groups and office hours! It's amazing what they will help you with in there. He should try to balance the bone head Gen. Ed stuff with the harder classes. Too many demanding classes can kill just about anyone.

 

[XJEEPER]

I didn't hit college until 27 and signed up for a 20 credit hr/qtr for 2yrs straight EET program to get my degree and make myself marketable as soon as possible, because I'd had it with the manual labor/construction work. My first qtr. was rough, lots of algebra and stuff I didn't see in HS. I managed to graduate with a 3.7 GPA, my HS GPA was more like 2.9.
1/3 of my college class made it to graduation.

"People often fall short of success in life because it disguised as hard work" -Some famous dude

 

[Jump This]

To be fair, he had a graduating class of less than 100 students.
But he did score well on the SAT (or whatever they call them now.)
Hes not into drugs, gambling or even much drinking, I know that might be a bit nieve but we have great communication between us, and we have talked about these things on a regular basis. He knows I am proud of him, but I exspect him to work this out.
Now I am depressed, I don't like to see him stuggle like this, but I want him to work harder.
I hope he pulls this one out.
Thanks for the help.
I'll listen to more of it if anyone wants to add.....
Rick

 

[yardape]

but I want him to work harder.

I bet he already knows this. Pressure from you will not help him. Maybe he needs to to join some study groups and visit the professors for help. Pulling more people into his network can only help him.

 

[klennop]

I wasn't the best kid in high school basically because I had a problem of making it to class. I know I would have done a lt better in my classes but I did enough to get by.

I ended up getting into a 4 year college right out of H.S. but I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. I was kind of pressured because my sister went to a 4 year so I was supposed to. So I had a hard time with the classes especially because more than half of them didn't even apply to what I wanted to do.

I took a year off made some money and then decided what I really wanted to do instead of wasting my money on something I wasn't 100% sure about. I enrolled in a 2 year technical college for printing and publishing, that 2 years costed less than 1 year at the 4 year college. I graduated in the top of my class and got a job where I wanted to after touring a couple of the different places.

I now work along side people with 4 year art and other degrees. They make the same if not less money than me, I have 2-3 years experience on them which is huge in my field, and I like going to work 75% of the time. The 25% is when shit is hitting the fan but I can deal with it. My work also has chosen me to attend the technical college yearly job fair/tour of the facility for the last 5 years, which to me means a lot.

So make sure that he is happy with the path he is choosing, maybe take a semester off and really think about the future. Don't shove him to hard like my parents did but it is ok to push a bit. Most of all be proud of him no matter what and support his decisions.

Best of Luck!

Keith

 

[FarmerMatt]

UCSD probably isn't the best place for hard work & study anyhow. Something tells me there are plenty of distractions. Send the boy to Riverside or, better yet, Fresno

 

[BBeach]

I bet he already knows this. Pressure from you will not help him. Maybe he needs to to join some study groups and visit the professors for help. Pulling more people into his network can only help him.

I agree, im a freshmen right now, pretty close to the same situation as him. I was one of the top kids in high school and i got to school all gung ho taking some tougher courses i prolly shouldn't have. I didnt do bad by any means but it sure was a wake up call from high school. But what i believe with a lot of engineering schools is they'll hand out a C or two to weed out those not tough enough for it. I know of a couple kids who arent coming back (today was first day back). The best thing to do is to get some work done on the side and come back with a new attitude. Good luck. atriot:

 

[UNCC_99XJ]

As a current Freshman in Engineering at UNC Charlotte (yeah i know, complete opposite side of the country), I can understand where he's coming from.

I was most certainly NOT the top of my class in my HS....but I still did well for myself....graduated with a 3.75

Now that i'm in college, and just started my 2nd semester this week, I understand what he's going through. I often thought about just sayin "man, to hell with this!" and throwin in the towel. I'm glad I didn't. Even though I didn't do as good on my finals as I had hoped, I still managed to get a 3.0 GPA my first semester....which for an Engineering student, is a pretty damn good start.

My best advice to him, stay out of the booze (yeah I know it sounds crazy comin from a teenager, but I never saw the point of getting wasted every night...but thats a different topic), and take FULL ADVANTAGE of tutors, mentors, advisors, and EVERYBODY there to help you. All he has to do is go to any of them and they'll be more than likely thrilled to help. They're not there to watch him fail, they are they're there to help him succeed....if he coulda done it on his own from the get go, he wouldn't have needed to go to college. Believe me, Engineering can drive anybody to drinking, and I can see why. But those who I go to school with who are in to the beer and liqour every night, are the same ones on academic probation, and flirting with getting kicked out of the school right now.

If it wasn't for my Advisor and most importantly, my mentor, I would have sucked ass big time at this college thing. They really helped me (especially since my mentor is in her senior year of Engineering, in the same field i'm in....so she's done all this crap before and knows what it's supposed to look like).

Another thing that helped me alot was to get myself known with my professors. Going up and introducing myself to them at the end of the first session of each class really helped. It showed them that I wasn't just there cause my parents "told me to or else", it showed them that I was actually there to learn something.

Other factors that could be bumming him out are personal issues...whether they be at home, or right there in his dorm. I know that in all 4 years of my HS, I had NOTHING happen in my life.....I had a very boring life....no drama (not that I wanted it). In my first semester of college alone, I had to (and still do) deal with the sudden death of my nextdoor neighbor, who was somebody I was very close to, as well as my mom getting re-married (which i'm all for). Along with this they, or we...however you wanna say it, are building a new house out in the country, and i've grown up in the "city" per say all my life. Close to my friends, and everything I know. Now every time I want to go hang out with my friends, it's a 40 mile, 45 minute trip ONE WAY. We had to put both our house and my soon to be step dads house up for sale. Ours sold right after Thanksgiving, and we had to move out BEFORE Christmas. The other just sold this week, and we have to be out by the 29th of this month...and our new house isn't going to be finished untill Mid-Feb...at the EARLIEST. All that with the already stressful freshman 1st semester, made for alot of moments where I said "how the hell am I going to get through this??"

Does he have access to come home when ever he wants? By that I mean does he have a vehicle to drive at school? One thing I love about my school is that they're one of the few that allow freshman to drive on campus. I've been home every weekend since the beginning of school. I've found that going home on the weekends has helped me get away from the work load, and forced me to take a break and forget about things, even if it only is for a couple of days. Plus, you can't beat spending quality time with the friends and family you love.

Take some of that into consideration and see if it doesn't help.

 

[Weasel]

Whats class is he taking and which is he having problems with?

I went in with not enough math and struggled in calc1-3. I should have went and taken college algebra and it would have helped a ton.

Is he talking to his professors?

Is he studying and doing homework in groups? This also helps alot. Helps you keep focused and do each assignment if your working with a group.

Also do they have a SAE mini baja, formula one teams? Get invovled that really helps motivate you.

 

[swbooking]

Just encourage him to stick it out. Im a 2nd year at UCR. EE major. and yeah its hard sometimes but he just needs to keep on keepin on. I know the UC systems have plenty of SI (supplimentary instruction) places to go. I have a friend that goes to UCSD and to the contrary, its not that bad of a party school like was stated earlier. College is what people make of it. If you wanna study you will, and if you wanna party then youll do that too. IMO have him stick it out. Theres nothing more important then completing college especially from a good school.

 

[Jump This]

One of his problems is that he never worked in a study group in HS. The teachers always looked at hm as being better than the rest of the class and it seemed as though they catered to him.
Its not like I didn't spend lots of time warning him about how hard it was going to be. We made a deal, he hadto make it thru his freshman year as an engineering student. It it wasn't going to work out for him, I couldn't care less if he got a degree in underwater basket weaving. Just get a degree.
He lives within two hours of home. He comes home as much as he can. He had a car on campus but decided to go back for his second sememster without it.
He took calculus and chemistry, I couldn't tell you at what level and passed both classes. I should add he is a math wiz...or at least was in HS and that is why he is going the engineering route, not that he has any idea what he realy wants to do.....The class he didn't pass was some basic writing skills course that he might not have taken as serious as he shoud have...
His mom was near campus this afternoon and is now taking him out to dinner and to talk with him. I know he is a mama's boy and I am okay with that. Heck I'm a mama's husband!!
There has been some great infor so far here. I beleived that the school wanted the students to solve thier problems...but now I'm thinkin there are avenues that the parents can take that might help.
He has an appointment with a couseler tomarrow morning. I'm thinking this might just be the turning point for him. Either he will find out how to make it work or find out that it just might not. How profound of me...
Thanks for the help.
Rick

 

[old_man]

Many classes have what I have coined as a high "ah ha factor". You sit there and beat your head against the wall for weeks, then suddenly you say ah ha and it all starts to fit together and make sense.

1. Cliff Notes rule. They aren't everything but they read them first, then you know what to expect and what to look for.

2. A tutor every once in a while is well worth it. A sixer of beer can get a senior student to explain things in terms you can understand many times. Remember the beer comes after the help, just like working on the jeep.

3. A speed reading class makes the next 50 years a lot easier.

Tom Houston EE/CS/ME

 

[swbooking]

Heck yeah Moms FTW! haha but thats good that he has an appointment with his advisor. Theyved helped me out LOTS of times. and yeah I never went to any "out of class" help either. and still havent but im sure there will be a time when i need to and sometimes you just have to suck it up and ask for help. I know im gonna have to. Best of luck to your son. and Good job bein a Dad.