Sounds like a great road trip, @AvonHSDad. If my son ends up in SF, we’ll have to figure out what’s the best way of getting his stuff out there…a road trip w a rental, or shipping.
Good luck to your S!
We love Boston, too. We are equal distance to there and NYC (approx 2 1/2 hours) but we rarely went to Boston before S moved there.
@ordinarylives and @Sally22, best of luck to your daughters.
We love Boston too @emilybee – we live there 8-9 months a year – as do our kids. ShawD wanted to stay but just didn’t find the best jobs there. ShawSon says it is his number 2 choice after Silicon Valley, but realistically, he’ll be in California (where we are in the winter). I grew up in a NY suburb and went to college in NJ. I much prefer Boston. I’d highly recommend it @RenaissanceMom.
I think Boston has the highest percentage of interesting people per capita of any city I know (folks in the arts would not agree with me on this, however, but Harvard, MIT, Tufts, … plus biotech, high tech, policy folks, financial folks make for a very interesting group if you can connect to it. The Bay area is also very good, but folks are narrower here (the tech buzz is just so exciting). There is an entrepreneurial spirit out in the Bay Area that is really infectious. New York has a lot of interesting folks, but seems so competitive that people seemed (when I lived there) to get narrow whereas I find more folks who are broader in scope in Boston. Plus, you can live in the Boston area in a suburb that is really in the country and you can get to the country outside of Boston quite quickly while in NY you have to go for a lot longer. But a) this is all about tastes and yours may be different from mine; and b) some jobs are just in NY or in some cities. ShawD found that Boston was so competitive for NP jobs that the big teaching hospitals require 3 years of experience for jobs that she found elsewhere with better mentoring and comparable salaries (despite cost of living being a lot lower). So, you can’t always get what you want … at least not for the first job.
On getting stuff to SF, we found the easiest thing was to figure out which airlines didn’t charge much to have extra bags. One was $25/bag at the time after the first couple. We packed boxes. Much cheaper, IIRC, than UPS or Fedex Ground. We took ShawSon’s bike out for $50 on the plane, I believe (you have to get a bike box, disassemble, pack properly, etc.). Also, if you have an Amex Platinum card or a Chase Sapphire Reserve or equivalent, they will pay up to $200 or $300 for travel-related expenses including luggage charges, so you can get that covered. (The fees for these cards are $450 annually, but pay for themselves is you are, as I am, a frequent traveler and would have paid for themselves even if I wasn’t, I believe).
Thanks for all the helpful info, @shawbridge! I may PM. Younger son is trying to decide between two summer internships, one in Boston and another in DC. It would be good to hear your thoughts.
Feel free. Happy to help if I can.
DS’ summer employer will pay for his transportation to and from NoCal (airline flight or mileage up to airline ticket cost) plus a hotel for each night on the road based on a mileage formula. This summer will be easy as he only has to take clothes and a few personal items including golf clubs. He and two classmates found a corporate housing unit with three bedrooms and two baths that is fully furnished and outfitted with all items including linens and dishes, Next summer will be interesting assuming he gets an offer to join the firm following his graduation. In that case, however, I believe the firm pays for moving his furniture and other personal items. It will still entail a cross country move and another road trip. Good luck to your son.
Popping in to share my d was awarded NSF graduateship. She is thrilled.
@Sally22 - Congrats to your D!
DS finished his 2L year in law school last week and has been home for a few days. He flies back to school tomorrow and will be packing up his apartment and preparing to drive from NC to California, departing this Friday as his summer associate position is in the Silicon Valley area very near the Stanford campus. I am flying to OKC where he will meet me on Sunday and we will then road trip for the next week, arriving in CA on Friday or Saturday. He starts his summer position the following Monday. We won’t see him again until we make the reverse trip in early August.
I’m so glad other '11 parents are still updating! Congrats on the various jobs and internships and such.
Well, my D11 finished school in sloth-like fashion and now has her BS in Dance! Various majors and plans were left on the cutting room floor, but she’s in a good place now. She is continuing as a circus dancer and their last show sold out! I’m bummed I won’t get to see her next performance as it is private for some kind of “event planning” convention. (I believe one of the kids here is in that field – I know a great circus you should check out!) All I know is that the dance involves a move with rolling on the floor while balancing one sword on her head and another on one of her feet. You know, the stuff kids go to college to learn! And to earn actual living money, she has a job at a costume shop. Hopefully, teaching dance will eventually edge that job out or at least to pretty minimal hours.
In other somewhat big news, she’s marrying her HS sweetheart later this month. He is working on his PhD in physics and thank goodness is not doing the “sloth plan!” If anyone else has upcoming wedding plans, check out the wedding parents thread in CC parent cafe!
My DD11 will be on her third HS Math teaching position as of the fall…She started at a not so great public school in NYC, then the next year was at a top 10 public school, and next year is working at a Top 10 Private school in NYC.
@snoozn - your D’s job/career sounds cool. Congratulations on her wedding!! Is that the first one on this thread?
D has finished her first year at med school. Enjoying herself a lot so far. This is the only summer they actually get time off - she has a research internship at one of the labs for the summer, but she is trying to keep all weekends free so she can enjoy herself a bit. We’ve managed to get in a couple of short but really great family vacations, given everyone’s schedules.
S has had a very busy and successful summer. He just finished his ten week Silicon Valley law firm summer associate program and I am currently road tripping back east to home with him. He received a call from the firm yesterday and was offered a full time associate position next year after he graduates and sits for the bar. In addition to the job offer, he has a new girlfriend who is super and the two of them are so alike it’s amazing.
Congrats @AvonHSDad
Fall semester is done and S has one to go and then the bar prep and exam. He got word this week that he has passed the MPRE exam. It’s the multi-state professional responsibility exam that the students have to pass as part of their bar application requirements. One more thing out of the way!. He also announced that he and his GF have plans to travel for 11 weeks on their “barcation” following the bar exam in late July and before they have to report to their firm to start working and discover what the “real” world is all about!
^^^^ congrats!
D finished her first semester of her doctorate program and was very happy with her final exam results. Wedding planning will be the focus when she comes home for christmas : )
Visited DS for his birthday in NC this past weekend, It was very strange to look out off the balcony behind his apartment and see a beautiful blue pool with nearly a foot of snow on the pool deck on the shady side with residents sitting and sunbathing and grilling out on the sunny side where all of the snow had melted. It reached into the 60’s both days of our weekend visit.
ShawD left her first job (which was 1 3/4 hrs from Boston) after a year and has taken a new job in the Boston area. The job market in Boston is much more competitive for nurse practitioners, so the job itself is not as good, but her compensation package is up about 20%. She moved to try out living in close quarters with her BF as they hope, in 1.5 years, to volunteer for six months in someplace like Laos or Rwanda. She would work as an NP and help provide care or supervise. He is a start programmer at a tech company. Not clear what he’d do there. After the volunteer stint, they would move to the Bay Area as he thinks this will be better for him. She’s game as her brother is there (an a bunch of friends who work at places like Facebook and Google), and we’re there a few months a year as well.
@shawbridge - best of luck to your D in her new job. I’m sure there will be some kind of tech/IT work that D’s BF will be able to perform as a volunteer when they go overseas.
Popping in to say that D announced her engagement last week! She will be marrying a young man she met at Tulane and has dated for the past 5-6 years. She is finishing up her 2nd year of medical school and started her rotations in January. He plans to start an MPH program this fall at the same school, so they will graduate at the same time in the spring of 2020. She will apply for residency programs in the fall of 2019 for the summer of 2020, specializing in pediatrics though probably adding additional specialties to that, possibly pediatric pulmonology
Congratulations, @bajamm.