D has her first on-going professional (i.e. paid) dance job! She auditioned and has been hired by a local circus. Gigs will be sporadic, but her first performance is in January and I can’t wait to go.
@LeftyLou, wow programming Broadway conventions sounds awesome! (Not to mention challenging as heck). Congrats to your D.
I also have a HS senior (and a junior). It’s going more smoothly this time, learning from previous mistakes and learning so much from CC. Still plenty of challenges though.
Shared returned from 3 months in SE Asia and had just started looking for a job as a nurse practitioner. In the meantime, she is in North Carolina volunteering in the post-Matthew disaster relief. She is starting to decide which cities she would like to live in and had a few interviews set up.
Apple’s auto-mangling device was working well last night. The previous post should have started “ShawD returned …”
Hi folks. I’m back on CC beginning the process for my youngest, a HS sophomore. Similar interests to my older two, but I was sad to learn that many of the full tuition NMF scholarships my older two qualified for are no longer being offered. :-/ This means we will likely have to look farther afield for good options for S3, at least for financial safeties.
My 11/15 son has been working at IXL in silicon valley for a year and half now, and he’s quite happy there. He has a nice group of friends at work, and a good chunk of his core friend group from school ended up out there as well.
ShawD has just returned from rural North Carolina where she was helping in disaster relief. She said the work in a shelter for the still homeless was deeply gratifying but dealing with the American Red Cross bureaucracy was stultifying.
She also got a sense of what life in a poor Southern area was like. She said she saw some of the worst parenting she’d ever seen (she’d been pretty exposed to bad parenting in some of her work). She said some parents only interaction with their kids was to yell at them. Kids who needed treatment would have to go back to their parents for permission to be treated by a doctor. The parents would just yell at the kids and not give permission. So, kids who needed treatment would rather avoid treatment than get yelled at. ShawD would talk to the kid, figure out what was wrong, collect all of the needed supplies and walk over to the parents with the kid and say, “Your daughter seems to be suffering from the following. I would recommend the following. Do I have your permission to do it?” The parents would then say yes.
Separate from this, she said there was a significant contingent in the shelter of a Native American tribe. The rule was that you couldn’t tell tribe members to do anything or even ask. So, there was an outbreak of a GI infection when she was there that began among the tribe. The obvious thing to do would be to isolate the infected folks so they didn’t infect others, but apparently they weren’t a) allowed to order this; or b) even allowed to ask if the tribe members would be willing to be separated. She said she never understood it but it was clear that one didn’t question this rule.
I can imagine returning from this experience frustrated and confused. She came back a little frustrated but her feelings were much more weighted to the satisfaction she received from having been able to help people in real need. She also loved the kids and and said she’d have loved to have taken some of them back.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
My daughter will be switching jobs next month. There is another Special Ed teacher who seems to pick other teachers they don’t like to bully and undermine and this time it was my DD’s turn. Things like giving the students the answers to test questions and making up lies about students and calling their parents. My DD didn’t feel like the Principal had her back so when a job opportunity came in email, she jumped on it. Her principal was reasonable enough to release her. She is excited to be able to teach more advanced math.
Happy Thanksgiving.
My D is just about to accept a job. I’m helping her negotiate the final terms. It was her first interview. The scope of work (primary care) is perfect. The practice’s mentoring approach is just what she wants. But, it isn’t in Boston, where she’d like to be and has a new-found BF. Boston practices have enough applicants that they ask for X years of experience. She does have another interview with an specialty practice in an academic medical center. They would train her and she would, at age 23, have a faculty appointment at an academic medical center and would have the opportunity to do research. However, she really thinks she wants to start in primary care and perhaps later move to a specialty. I suggested that she see what the second place has to say as they have been wooing her, which is nice, before accepting the other position.
And so it begins…
D has submitted first application for doctorate program.
^yep, my son, too. Submitted 8 in the last few weeks and 3 grants. Fingers crossed.
@Sally22 and @RenaissanceMom - best wishes for success with your D’s and S’s grad school doctorate and grant apps!
Good luck! Long road ahead for these kids, but it is so good to see them excited about new opportunities! D has been enjoying her first few months of medical school so far. A lot of studying - that’s pretty much all they do. Since she’s close by, we see her at least once a month which is super nice!
Its’s grad school admission result season. Anyone else going through the ups and downs?
D has a couple of offers she is very happy with- but still waiting on a few more before she decides.
Yes, my son applied to 8 schools for a phd in neuroscience. Didn’t get an interview at 3, which initially disappointed him. So far, he has been accepted to all four schools where he did interview (Mt. Sinai, NYU, UCSF and Yale). He leaves tomorrow for his 5th and last interview, which is at JHU. Once he hears from them, it will be decision time.
^^^
Wow! Great choices to have! Wishing him all the best today and with the decisions he has ahead.
Sounds fantastic @RenaissanceMom.
No new grad school applications here. ShawD finished grad school in May, Took 3 months to travel and then a month to do disaster relief in North Carolina and one month to look for a job and accepted a job. She accepted a job and it took a couple of months before she could start working as the state forgot to send her her Nurse Practitioner certification and then the DEA took a while to send her its certification. She got an apartment in Western Massachusetts (1.5 hours from home) and really loves her work. She works hours from Monday-Thursday. While she was staying in Boston after returning from North Carolina, she met a guy who has now become a boyfriend and is driving back each weekend on Thursday nights and returning Sunday night or Monday AM. Not great for making new friends and she is living in a great town (lots of music and restaurants, young person’s culture, etc.). Cheap rent compared to Boston (30% to 50% of Boston rent).
She is getting paid very well for a 23 yo and is planning to save quite a bit. I had her talk with my financial advisor about savings and how to handle money (e.g., put aside 3 months rent, figure out what your monthly expenses are, then figure out your tax deductions to figure out your tax bracket, then allocate to 401k (not matched), Roth IRA and post-tax savings (which all should be automated)).
No grad school here but S just switched jobs from big company in Boston area to a start-up. Very happy. Loves living in Boston.
Waiting to hear from MSN programs. Yes, she’s late in the cycle.
Great news, everyone! @emilybee, my younger son is contemplating an internship in Boston this summer. He has an offer from a firm there and another in DC, and is in the midst of deciding which to take. He attends Tufts and really enjoys Boston. He grew up in a NYC suburb but thinks he may want to end up in Boston because he prefers it. We shall see.
@shawbridge, good luck to your daughter in her new position! She’s lucky to have your advice regarding how to manage her spending and savings.
@Sally22, best of luck to your daughter. I bet she has wonderful options, too!
@ordinarylives, best of luck to your daughter, too! The wait to hear is definitely nerve wracking for them.
^^^ Good news from many fronts for our 2011/2015 kids. Congrats to everyone on their jobs, grad school programs and general successes.
DS will be working as a summer law associate in the Silicon Valley area this summer. He wants to take his car so it looks like he and I will make a mid-May, week long road trip out of it with several stops along the way for sight seeing, steakhouses, baseball games and of course a stop in Vegas. He is finished at the end of July and we will likely meet him in the Napa region for a few days to celebrate AvonMom’s birthday before he has to return to law school for his last year.