<p>Help! My D is a freshman this fall. She signed up for the Tech Prep and has been there one week. She HATES it and GT. She was in love with the school and her major of BME before. She called and says she will not attend, and I need to pick her up NOW. I am 8 hours away! I don’t know what is wrong. Has anyone else had this happen?</p>
<p>My D was valedictorian from a school of 700 and extremely focused. She is getting an A in Tech Prep Calc!</p>
<p>We don’t know what to do!</p>
<p>It’s not like any part of summer well represents a school. I would encourage her to do a semester. I mean, I would judge it when the campus is full and bustling. Judging it based upon summer isn’t really fair IMHO especially after 1 week. Many people don’t enjoy the first week, that doesn’t mean give up altogether. Seriously, think about it like this. If your student liked Tech the first week of school, but then had a bad week later, would you allow/encourage her to withdraw based upon the sudden hate for the school? I view “hating” it the first week and having a bad week in the same light. She should at least have another week or two there before declaring her unadulterated hate for it (really, judging the school by a prep program that many students say isn’t that useful anyway?)</p>
<p>It’s an engineering school, and perhaps moreso than other types of schools/departmental entities there will be significant experimentation with the love-hate spectrum. You need to ask exactly what is wrong and ask her if she thinks it is fair to pass judgement on a school based upon a prep program done before classes even start and before campus is in full swing. Also, make sure it is actually GT and not college life in general.</p>
<p>Ohh, I am so sorry. I have anxiety over this happening. Has she been away from home before? Could this be homesickness? did something else happen with an interaction with a student/prof? I wonder if there is anyone at the school that could help with this for you- like her advisor, or RA?</p>
<p>This would probably happen wherever she was. What was she expecting versus what has she found? </p>
<p>The whole place is under construction, it seems, but most projects will wrap up soon. </p>
<p>The most talented, motivated, diverse, accomplished, and awesome freshman class GT has ever had is about to walk in the door in two weeks, new buildings are opening, many parts of campus are getting overhauled, etc. This is the best time ever to be at GT.</p>
<p>So I’m curious to hear how GT has changed for the worse in her eyes, or what she was expecting that hasn’t happened.</p>
<p>Might be the first time she’s tried anything really new, and hasn’t learned that EVERYTHING stinks at the begining…new job, new home, new school, new shoes…they all induce anxiety, discomfort, confusion, and disorientation. All generally get more tolerable very quickly. Tell her to hang in there and give the dust a chance to settle.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you’re going through this, but for her to come home now would be a knee-jerk decision that she will most assuredly regret later. I agree with bernie that this week has not been a fair representation of life at Tech. The campus is dead this time of year but will quickly come to life in another couple of weeks. She is doing well in her class so she should look to that for confidence that she will be able to handle the work. Before she makes a major decision like this she needs to experience fall at Tech with a campus full of wonderful students, weekend parties, exciting (and let’s hope victorious!) football games and all the other trappings of a college campus. And there’s no way to understand what that will be like until the semester starts.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>“new job, new home, new school, new shoes…they all induce anxiety, discomfort, confusion, and disorientation.” So true!</p>
<p>I would ask her to talk about her feelings and find out if something specific happened that is causing her to want to come home. </p>
<p>Hang in there!</p>
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<p>I don’t think you should have sent your D there with this warning (on one of your threads). Especially when she already has calc concepts under her belt with AP, taking pre-calc is 10 steps backwards. Of course she is getting an A.</p>
<p>I would urge her to wait until the school is in motion as others have said. Also since she is a BME major she has the opportunity of attending Emory classes while at Tech as well, a completely different environment. She can get the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>We hardly offer no courses to undergrads, unless she would like to take some of our upperlevel bio courses that are not offered at Tech (doubt this hardly ever happens) or maybe some of the humanities/social sciences not offered there (and since the bio offerings, last I checked are very similar, I don’t know if she’ll find it unless she wants a certain prof. like Frans de waal. I suppose special topics courses are okay as well. I’m guessing the anthro. dept. has cool courses) . She can, however, feel free to hang out over here sometimes. I go over there sometimes. </p>
<p>Seriously, when has an undergrad at Tech in a science program come over here to take a course except for maybe summer? I bet such instances are few, far, and in between.</p>
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<li>I guess the exception is someone interested in acquiring a neuroscience/behavioral biology background. Those classes are interesting and not too difficult. She could come here and rack up some As or at least a B+ and learn a lot as well.</li>
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<p>Oops, I got graduate and undergrad mixed up. She can still hang out at Emory whenever though if she doesn’t like the atmosphere of Tech.</p>
<p>I left after the first two weeks of my first semester here… I know how it feels to hate Tech so much that you just want out. After doing pretty much nothing for the rest of that semester, followed by a semester of core classes at a community college, I realized that Tech wasn’t quite as bad as I had thought. This summer, when I came back, I once again felt overwhelmed at times (as evidenced by a thread that I posted here about two months ago…). I stuck it out this time, though, and I’m glad that I did.</p>
<p>Try to talk her into staying at least through the fall semester. The people who are posting here know what they are talking about. It’s hard to judge what school will be like from just a week or two (especially during the summer). If she does decide to leave, it’s not the end of the world. She can regroup and go somewhere else. A lost semester isn’t really that big of a deal. Even though my first semester of college ended up being a complete loss, I’m only one credit hour behind right now because I worked my butt off this summer. Your daughter is obviously very smart and CAN succeed at Tech if she gives it a chance.</p>
<p>Based on the description provided by GTsweetie, it’s possible that your daughter may be extremely bored in the class. Alternatively, it’s also possible that she’s homesick. Looking back, I was homesick during my first week at Tech; I had this “empty” feeling in my stomach, like something was missing. Well, of course–my parents were missing! It went away after the first week and never came back.</p>
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<p>It happens all the time - she’s home sick.</p>
<p>Tell her to visit the GT counseling center. The professionals there deal with this type of problem a good bit. </p>
<p>[Georgia</a> Institute of Technology :: Counseling Center](<a href=“http://www.counseling.gatech.edu/]Georgia”>http://www.counseling.gatech.edu/)</p>
<p>Thanks for all the comments! We got her moved into her dorm and she seems to be doing better! She met with the Dean and also several PL. They all reassured her, and I think we have her convinced to stay the year and put her heart in it! Only time will tell!</p>
<p>Awesome, good luck to the both of you! I have a good feeling it’ll take off in the direction you want.</p>