<p>I figured it was time to start a thread for parents who don’t have a degree, and perhaps have never attend a 4 year university or community college.
One reason why I am enamored with CC, is because it gives me a place to learn what the parents of my kids classmates may already know.</p>
<p>When my oldest attended college, it was such a new experience that I felt overwhelmed trying to read the cues of what was expected & how I could support her.
Her private LAC, had its own support systems, but still she struggled at times & had to take a year off to come back home …& retake a needed class for her major.</p>
<p>Now she is earning a grad degree, and since I am socially challenged, I am trying to get a handle on what other parents do or what is expected. ( like hosting celebratory dinners, paying for her gown & hood, ?)</p>
<p>Youngest is at an instate university , but won’t be able to apply to her major till fall because she didn’t hit the ground running with pre-reqs. I had tried to advise her, but didnt insist & now it will take at least an additional year.</p>
<p>I may seem knowledgable re:college,but really it is still a new place to me so come out of the woodwork all you parents who are bemused by the different tams & colors at graduations, as well as perhaps embarrassed by the pause when your D’s roommates dad asks you where you earned your diploma & you say
" I didn’t actually graduate, I took my GED")
;)</p>
<p>Right down to my D being extremely stressed in her program (BA/BFA Fashion Design at Parsons). A month ago she applied (and was granted) a one year leave of absence, with the hope of regrouping, and finishing the last 18 months of the program when she goes back. This after spending a year at an LAC that didn’t do a thing for her, so she went through the transfer process. </p>
<p>I read everything I can get my hands on to help navigate this uncharted territory.</p>
<p>I did go to college out of HS, but never finished.</p>
<p>I’ll sign up too. My daughter is a sophomore at U-Penn and I don’t have a clue about any of it. Living with roommates, working for spending money, scheduling classes, figuring out the summer. It’s all new to me, even in the second year. When she has a question about something I have to tell her to talk to her advisor.</p>
<p>Add me too. When D1 went to college, we made so many mistakes. We didn’t learn until too late how important it was to really read and understand the catalog.</p>
<p>D2 will be going to graduate school after college. I am terrified.</p>
<p>One thing that is still very hard for me, is that older D attended a private school with a lot of support, relatively speaking anyway.
I didn’t have to teach D to be an advocate for herself, because she had mentors, both faculty & peers to lean on.
Now younger D is at an instate public university, much larger & yet she is still in need of support for various things. She also is of the personality that would rather tough it out, even if it means taking something that doesn’t fit her program, or that the prof won’t give her accommodations…
She also both is adverse to asking for advice from me, and thinks that I know everything about getting through college successfully because her sister made it.</p>
<p>I also may be hypersensitive because I don’t have a degree, and it could just be the expected " my parents are so dumb" that young adults feel, but I am really getting that from both of the kids, not very often I admit, but enough that I really miss when they were little & thought I knew everything!</p>
<p>emeraldkitty4–I think you do a really great job! I’m chiming in that many of us who did attend college feel the same as you. It’s overwhelming and challenging. Almost nothing (ok, maybe the drinking) is the same as it was 25-30 years ago…not housing, not registration, not technology, not professors. I didn’t drink or party either, so I didn’t teach him well at all about that stuff before he left for school.</p>
<p>Also, his (very young) advisor told him to “stick with” a difficult calc course and he “could drop it later.” This didn’t sound right to H or me. We should have been very well aware there are hard drop dates. However, he wanted to be very independent at that time and we were trying to let go. Not such a good idea, and we should have intervened and asked. The result is he has a F on his transcript and changed majors.</p>
<p>CC is such a valuable resource. I’d have been lost the entire admission process. I love it because I learn so much.</p>
<p>My D has said to me a few times “and where did you get your degree?” which really hurt me, but I still plug along! I understand that I’m less of an authority on this issue, but I’ve learned to present my concerns as questions for her to answer. That often works better.</p>
<p>I did attend community college & I was even a peer college transfer advisor for my work study job. When D was taking a class that was overwhelming to her& despite study groups, she just couldn’t do well on the tests, couldn’t figure out what the prof wanted. So I counseled her to go to him before it was too late and drop the class. ( she needed his signature)
He talked her out of dropping the class, but she’d wasn’t able to catch up, & he flunked her.</p>
<p>I was so mad. It was bad enough that she was eligible for learning support & accommodations ( but she was trying to do without), but for a student who has a really hard time recognizing when something is too much, to be talked out of trusting her own instincts really was frustrating.
It wasn’t as if this was an isolated case either, according to the student newspaper it had one of the highest failure ratios of any course in the school. ( not ochem)
The prof also made himself sound like a jerk in the newspaper article. When asked about the steep curve, he replied that"students were in college now & they better get used to it".
( she did much better in all of her other classes, not getting lower than a B, including lab sciences, I have impression he was just one of those profs whose classroom discussions & reading have little to do with what is being tested).</p>
<p>My parents didn’t go to college and are still confused as to some of the things I go through, but I am very grateful for all they have done and continue to do for me and my siblings. Even if you don’t answer every question correctly, your help and support is still very much appreciated by your children.</p>
<p>I am very grateful to have found CC. While I didn’t start posting until my freshman year, I found my college through the famous “What I’ve learned about full-ride scholarships” thread and have also gotten a lot of other great advice from posters on this board.</p>
<p>One thing I wish I learned about earlier was all of the early college programs such as Duke TIP and Johns Hopkins CTY. College-wise, many first generation students qualify for TRiO programs, which provide a lot of academic and administrative assistance for those students who need it. I don’t recall if ek4’s D2 is in TRiO or not, but it has proved to be very beneficial for those friends and family members who are in it.</p>
<p>I have heard good things about Trio & it is at some community college and the state LAC, but it isn’t at every school unfortunately.
My oldest was in CTY, but her middle school told us about it, I had never heard of it.</p>
<p>Add me to the list! S1 is a teacher and just got his Master’s, S2 is on his way to his Doctorate. I am in the middle of getting my CC Associates degree.<br>
I made it my mission to educate my children first and take care of me later without any undivided attention. While it is very tough sitting in a classroom with 18 year olds (with a sprinkling of other aged students) I am taking this very seriously. Many times I would call S2 and apologize for things said while he was in undergrad work…and now he tells me I need to be a real college student and celebrate my good test grade at the bar I tell him he can do that for me…</p>
I tell him he can do that for me…</p>