<p>Thanks all for your input, it helps to hear of other situations and ideas. S is CS major. Apparently the late nights are spent programming. S has made progress second semester, learning that sometimes you can get more done when you study by yourself than with a group of friends and that a desk often makes a good place to study. S comes home next week and grades the following week. We’ll be able to make a better assesment of the situation then. We may have to make changes to all of our expectations.</p>
<p>euclid. S2 I mentioned spent all night in the computer lab. Unfortunately it was not all programming. The group would get on the networks and game. The “study group” did everything but. He is heading back into CS now but with a different view of things. He still into gaming but is able to put it into a more balanced part of his life now. When your DS gets home, casually ask about his WOW game when you are talking about other things. Not when you are discussing his academic issues. It will tell you a lot about what he has actually been doing.</p>
<p>“We may have to make changes to all of our expectations.”</p>
<p>This would be the description of life–start to finish–imho.</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>Not sure about others here, but my S also did much better sophomore year when he was not living in the dorm. Sophomore year he lived with 3 other guys. Junior year he will live with only 1 guy. I’m betting by senior year he’ll live alone. He just is realizing that people can easily distract him from what he needs to do. As a parent, I think dorms are a mixed blessing. If they stay in the dorms for more than freshman year kids definitely need to find their own “get away from it all” spot to study. For many, the dorm room just isn’t going to cut it. On an aside, I’m so glad my boys are not “gamers.” I don’t know much about these games, we have them but they aren’t an all-consuming past-time from what I can tell and you sure don’t read much positive on these forums about them.</p>
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<p>This may be the most important thing you’ve said. Your expectations of the future are based on results in the past in a certain education milieu. He did well in high school, so we would expect him to do well in college.</p>
<p>You really didn’t have the facts about the difficulty of college courses and the quality of fellow honors students in order to tweak your expectations. Now you have a year’s worth of data that says he didn’t meet expectations. </p>
<p>Either he wasn’t working up to his potential or the expectations were too high (or a combination of both). If he really were doing his best and still did not meet expectations, then there is no shame in dialing down expectations.</p>
<p>My D. had a hard landing transitioning from HS to college level math and science classes euclid. She was used to getting A’s and she wasn’t prepared for the amount of sheer memorization and preparation required to get good grades in those subjects at the college level. </p>
<p>CS is a tough major, and it is to be expected there is a learning curve. As a sophomore D. has a better understanding of how many hours it takes in study to do well in a class that requires a lot of technical knowledge. </p>
<p>Smart kids who do well in high school often need to “learn how to learn” at the college level, and the competition is a lot keener–you are in a group where everybody is very smart and has good academic habits or they wouldn’t be in college in the first place.</p>
<p>It sounds like your son is figuring a few things out–I would encourage you to be supportive, but help him analyze what went well, what worked and what didn’t work so well.</p>
<p>
Both of my Ds are CS majors (one’s completed). They’ve both spent many long hours working on programs including into the wee hours of the morning and even some all-nighters where they didn’t sleep at all. This isn’t unusual, at least at some of the tougher schools. Also not unusual is getting lower grades than they’re used to in HS despite the extensive amount of work. </p>
<p>Time management is key. It can also be tough if he has roomies/friends who are non-engineering majors and who might have a lot of free time on their hands to goof around as opposed to him, who has a lot of HW to do. Your S will need to make sure he balances hanging out with friends and getting started on his HW earlier. Writing programs virtually always takes much longer to do than anyone thinks up front. They’re also often graded harshly. Much of the grading is objective - if the program doesn’t do all of the things it’s supposed to, that section will get a zero. It’s not like writing the typical college paper. For many CS majors it takes some real adjustment to get used to this and the first semester can be a harsh reality. It’s enough of a reality that a lot of students (maybe 35-40%) decide that CS isn’t for them because of the level and complexity of the work and they switch out to another non-engineering major. It takes a lot of work, time management, and dedication to succeed in CS. However, after this semester/year he should have a ‘come to terms’ with himself and decide whether he wants to stick with it, which might require a change in work/study habits, or bail and switch majors, which is fine and he should be happy with. ‘He’ needs to do this. </p>
<p>In addition to the above you need to make sure your level of expectations is appropriate. Don’t expect him to get almost all 'A’s like he probably did in HS. Obviously if his GPA is less than a 2.0 there’s an issue that needs to get taken care of immediately (or switch majors). But if his GPA is between a 2.0 and 3.0 then I say to back off, let him determine how to improve, and see how it goes this and next semester. If you’re expecting him to get above a 3.0 in everything then your level of expectations is part of the problem since over half the class probably has below a 3.0.</p>
<p>There may be another issue to think about,</p>
<p>“…near perfect SATs, numerous HS honors was accepted into Honors program at major university…”</p>
<p>Maybe for the first time, your S is surrounded by a group of equally smart, hard-working kids. Maybe for the first time, you S is “average”. High achievers go off to tough colleges and tougher programs and suddenly find that the amount and type of effort that worked in high school just doesn’t cut it at the next level. They have the brain power but actually lack the organizational and studying skills necessary to succeed.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t shock me if your S is struggling with this realization. Smart high schoolers aren’t always ready to deal with the setbacks that “average” students have been handling for years. For some, their entire identity is wrapped around being the “smart kid”; suddenly they are faced with the fact that they’re not that much different than a lot of other people. They’re used to being the one people come to for help, yet when they need it, they don’t know how to go about asking for the same help. Your S may not even feel comfortable admitting this “flaw” to you and your H. He may be wanting to ask you for help, but doesn’t know how.</p>
<p>While I wouldn’t ignore the possibility of drug/social issues, before you send him to rehab or sign him up for the local road work detail, you may want to explore a studying and organization class. He’s not stupider than when he left for college, but he may be dealing with the fact that he’s now just a member of the pack and no longer lead dog.</p>
<p>My D said “I used to be GOOD at things!”</p>
<p>I always go back to something that worked for me…I remember how easy it was to skip a class… I learned to not schedule a class before 10am…especially junior and senior year when I lived off campus…</p>
<p>I learned to take the costs of the semester, divide it by the # of credit hours to come up with a cost per class…$20K a semester, 5 classes= $4K per class…2X a week X 20 weeks = $100 per classroom session… that merits understanding if skipping a class every week…it adds up pretty quick…</p>
<p>Another thing that we discussed here in our home was that we would pay for A’s & B’s… we were not interested in paying big bucks for C’s… now, I realize this could be extremely harsh for some kids etc… only YOU know what your child is capable of… but perhaps once the first couple of weeks of classes are done, you can sit down with your son and discuss his own expectations for his grades for his classes… give him a chance to make it more real by having to project his own commitment and interest in the subject. </p>
<p>Sometimes kids don’t understand how much money we have to earn after taxes to pay these college bills…$50K after taxes can be as much as $100K in gross, and that is not easily achieved in today’s economy…</p>
<p>my friend’s son left his school after an abysmal freshman year… did a year at a local college and is now returning to original school, wiser and more determined to excel … he is lucky to have had the opp to learn… </p>
<p>and again, sometimes C’s are reasonable… but I am never a fan of a student who thinks all is well and semester end grades are a “shock”… always suspicious of that…</p>
<p>good luck…</p>
<p>maineparent</p>
<p>My son was totally shocked by one prof’s end of semester grade. He has been on the Dean’s List every other semester except when he had this guy–Eastern Religions, I think. If it’s a pattern, sure, but some profs…I was ticked, but of course I kept it quiet.</p>
<p>Bethie,
what you are describing is one professor…one grade for your son…
I was talking more about a child who says all is going well…and then brings home multiple C’s or whatever disappointing grades and parents had no clue…or more importantly, the student professed to have no clue… I discussed this with a girlfriend last evening… her first goes off to college in Sept… how will she know if her child is doing ok in school? I told her she might not know… her child might not know… if the course is based on 2 papers for the entire semester, the experience could be ugly if her child doesn’t do well on the first paper and only finds out a couple of weeks before 2nd paper is due… </p>
<p>I do know that my oldest could have taken more classes pass fail then he did… and I wished he had used that option more aggressively, ie taken harder classes or classes outside his comfort zone (in this case, math is strong suit, history, not so much… I wish he had taken more history in college, he remains very happy with his course selections.) </p>
<p>Sometimes it is a fine line… workload vs room to enjoy… I know I did mediocre at best my first year or two in college…so I had a lot to make up GPA wise my final two years. For me, my best semester GPA was when I took 7 classes… that was when I first realized I do well under PRESSURE!! LOL…</p>
<p>Sometimes it is just the nature of the kid… I have one who procrastinates and one who stays on their game… raised in the same house with same parents… very interesting contrast…</p>
<p>one just has to figure out how best to “quantify” the value of the college experience to one’s kid in order to maximize the return on the investment… if mediocre effort is their best, then perhaps they must pay some of the cost?? </p>
<p>I remember a while back someone on CC saying they had a contract with their kid, “if they ever drive after drinking, the parents would take them off of their insurance, period.” Everyone was on board up front on this choice… and I thought that was a very interesting bargain done without a specific situation having occurred … make the child understand they own their choices… as do the parents to pull the $$ from insurance if the agreement was broken. </p>
<p>Happy Sunday!!</p>
<p>sigh, I can relate somewhat to your son. My semester has not been TERRIBLE but I have disappointed with bad grades due my being too depressed and sleep-deprived (the two were somewhat related, at least for about the first two months) to get out of bed and attend my classes, even when attendance was part of the grade. My parents are disappointed but still very open and supportive of everything, which as other parents have said is really a good way to deal with it since it puts the situation in the control of the student to fix (and honestly makes you feel so guilty you’re sure to do better next year, lol, at least I’m hoping…).</p>
<p>Anyhow, I wish your son the best of luck with everything; the CS major in my college is actually quite difficult from what I hear from many CS major friends unless you have a natural talent for it, so I wouldn’t amount bad grades to pure laziness. Thank you to all the CC parents for those encouraging “go the distance” stories about their children; I’m really hoping to be one of them next year even though I will have an even heavier courseload and research to complete :/.</p>
<p>muzicgirl89, I hope you’ve seen a doctor and/or a therapist about your depression. It’s important to treat depression as a medical problem, not something due to laziness or lack of willpower. Depression can be due to physical illness as well as to other physiological problems and may require medication and/or therapy.</p>
<p>I feel like I’m over it at this point and thereby getting any kind of treatment would not be necessary. I may also have not been fair/honest in calling it depression, since I’m not entirely sure it was that so much as a pretty low point in my life when I was very lonely and heartbroken. In any case though, these aren’t really things I could ever discuss within my family environment, though you are right in that I should definitely utilize college resources more.</p>
<p>O, and I probably should add I know the cause was not physiological: I had my first ever relationship Fall semester and fell very seriously in love with someone, but I got broken up with right before school began again.</p>
<p>OK… grades are in except for one. A, B. C. and D (the A is in a one hour class) - same as last semester. This means that scholarship is lost. Do we pay for summer school - expensive, but will allow S to take required fall course. Or do we tough love and make take comm college from home (which won’t help GPA - only the credit transfers). I understand students need time to learn from their mistakes, but DH is paying for the education.</p>
<p>Tough decision. Our youngest (just finished his freshman year) is also attending college on a merit scholarship that it renewable based on gpa. We told him upfront that if he should lose his scholarship for any reason that he will have to transfer to one of our public instate universities. In other words, he knew and understood the consequences and I think this has helped to push him to maintain a respectable gpa. </p>
<p>If finances are an issue, perhaps a year at community college (and a part time job on his end) will help him to gain some maturity and organizational/time management skills.</p>
<p>Euclid- I think before you go the tough love route, your child needs to own some of the problem. Which means a meeting with the academic dean, department head, and probably the D course professor. No sense coming up with a solution before you know what the problem is, and given the ABCD distribution of grades, I suspect you don’t know what the problem is.</p>
<p>Kids who are capable of A’s and B’s in college may be suffering from nothing worse than being in the wrong major, or having been placed into the wrong sequence within the major. Not so terrible to learn that Freshman year. Or your kid attended class exactly 3 times and after pulling an all-nighter before the final managed to pull off a D (hey- not bad for one night’s effort) which suggests that a major attitude adjustment is what’s required. Or that your kid spent the semester in a drunken haze, but due to natural ability and two gut courses managed to pull off the A and B.</p>
<p>You just don’t know. But what you should know is that if you take on this problem as your own, your kid will never step up to the plate.</p>
<p>It is his problem, but our money is financing it…how much do we continue to pay and how long do we give him to deal with his problem. It’s just a tough situation…this is our oldest, so we’re on new ground.</p>
<p>“We told him upfront that if he should lose his scholarship for any reason that he will have to transfer to one of our public instate universities.”</p>
<p>By the time you get grades, it is too late to apply to state schools for the next year around here. I assume it’s true elsewhere as well. I HAVE suggested putting in a transfer app. for 10/11 “just in case”. Thinking of spelling out “in case of” what.</p>