<p>@Beaudreau, I second that! I marvel at how difficult the program has been for my son at times! Like your son, and like <em>so many</em> others’ kids, my son is a bit of a natural smarty pants. It seems that he will always get the grades and standardized test scores that he wants, but there is no question that he still has to work very, very hard at times! That really wasn’t true until he got into engineering.</p>
<p>He was quite stressed these past 7 days as his senior design project came to a close, along with a small handful of other class projects, all of which took up nearly every ounce of his time over this past week. Just 2 final exams left before he can take a long breather! :)</p>
<p>I fully understand that many people here can say the same thing – “this is a kid who really excels at academics and who is quite naturally inclined to do very well” – and yet, at times, tamu’s engineering program practically takes it all out of him in order to satisfy his own high standards. It is really a wonder to me that it can be that hard sometimes! </p>
<p>I, for one, am glad for it! Until college, it strikes me that a lot of these kids have never been tested this way before. Things have come easy for them. And so, I am impressed that tamu’s engineering program can challenge them to this degree! I think it’s a really good thing that will serve these kids well in the future. When it’s all over, they can be super proud of all they went through to earn their degrees.</p>
<p>And isn’t it great that they’re surrounded by so many peers with much the same drive and many of the same talents? </p>
<p>(For any future aggies out there who might be worried about the kind of workload we’ve described, these are just temporary pressures for a lot of students. My son typically has enough time to play, exercise, hang out, and do his extracurricular stuff, on top of all his school work. The really hard stuff is not 24/7. But it’s still a wonder that both the content of the material at times, and the time constraints at times, can be so extraordinarily difficult as to cause all this stress on all these smart kids! I’m in awe.)</p>
<p>Anyway, happy finals week to all! It will be so nice to have our kiddos back home for the holidays! :)</p>