<p>Hope she receives good news, cama. My S wants to audition for an a cappella group next year. He didn’t audition at the beginning of the year (I don’t think his school has mid-year auditions?) before he knew if he could handle the time commitment. </p>
<p>He flew back on Saturday and classes start today. Second semester, here we come!</p>
<p>Wishing a congrats and good luck to all the women going through recruitment right now, or just finishing. When i was in college, we also had recruitment (rush) in the spring. My DD had it the first couple weeks of classes, and it was very stressful! But ultimately she and her best friend ended up in the same place. This shocked all of her high school friends who thought she was the LEAST likely to go through recruitment. She said over Christmas that it was a great decision, she loves the girls and the philantrophy and it has given her a group that she probably would have never found otherwise. </p>
<p>Working for a large corporation, I explained to her that what i think sororities give you is a plan and background for much of what goes on in corporate life. From Rules of order, navigating politics, dealing with tough situations, to learning to live and work with people you would not have personally chosen. All good life lessons…</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone as they start the next semester. Can you beleive a year will be over before we know it!?</p>
<p>Best of luck to DD or Cama - fingers crossed!</p>
<p>Cama … good luck to your D. My D was in an a capella group and in a lot of ways it was like a co-ed sorority/fraternity. They did community service, socialized together, and worked with other groups to coordinate concerts. Even though my D transferred schools (to music school), she still keeps in touch with her a capella friends and has arranged some songs for them.</p>
<p>(does a capella have one “p” or two?, my spellcheck says one but it looks better with two. )</p>
<p>Thanks for the good wishes for DD. Snowflake, when I initially wrote post with one “p” spell check identified it as incorrect. When I googled it came up with two Ps, so who knows… DD took years of classical voice but at this point she does not want to major in it. She is thinking about it as a possible minor. If gets into the a cappella group it would help her with her love of performing.</p>
<p>College-Query You are right. I do not think auditioning first semester would have worked for my DD. There was to much to get used to. She is now settled in and really loving her school. </p>
<p>We will see if she even gets in. I heard it is pretty competitive and sometimes you can have a great voice but not one that is needed at a particular time.</p>
<p>After reading the Cornell rush posts, I am convinced that my D1 made the right choice in not going there. She would’ve hated all that drama, and it sounds like it intrudes even on the kids that decide not to rush.</p>
<p>I dropped her off at Berkeley yesterday around lunchtime. As we were unloading the car, she was hailed by two girls, one of whom was wearing very cool astronomical-patterned tights. They invited her to an “open-ended soldering party” so that’s what most likely what she is doing for her first day back. Classes start Tuesday.</p>
<p>She got invited to be a reader or TA or “project developer” for the Intro CS course she took last term. She considering dropping down to 3~4 classes (plus respective labs) to free up more time for that. I don’t know whether it’s a good trade-off or not. She is a little ahead, curriculum-wise, because of AP credits, but it might be better to save the slack for later.</p>
<p>I haven’t posted here in a very long time, but the “a cappella” discussion intrigued me as I had seen it spelled many different ways. So after a little research I found both “a cappella” and “a capella” are correct where the spelling with two "p"s is of Italian origin (and more commonly used) and one “p” is of Latin origin. There are also other spellings, some of which are accepted as correct and others not.</p>
<p>After DS goes back to school tomorrow, I hope to have more time to catch up on all that is going on!!</p>
<p>Cornell’s rush is rather low key relative to other schools. Kids who want to participate come back to school one week early. By the time everyone is back on campus, it is all over and people are back to their normal routine. Kids who do not rush probably are not going to fraternity parties anyway, so they wouldn’t miss the parties in spring. Cornell has a lot of clubs outside of Greek life. Those clubs have their own social events, and some of those events also do include alcohol whether we like it or not. It may seem to be a big deal at Cornell, but only because I posted and D2 is my child. It hit closer to home (for me). There is a huge percentage of students who do not get involved in Greek life at Cornell and they still have very busy/fulfilling social life.</p>
<p>Berkeley has a very formal recruitment process which happens in the first week of fall semester. Just browsing through their website, I think it is also fairly active on campus. But if it is not something a student is interested in then it become irrelevant for that student.</p>
<p>I will confess I am REALLY enjoying being off work today for MLK Jr day. Bonus that I can watch inauguration festivities on television! H doesn’t have the day off. D is still home until Saturday but just left for her internship. Dogs are asleep, so it’s just me! </p>
<p>I got so used to my empty nest; having a very full nest for the past month has worn me out! I enjoy their company, but they expect to be fed and/or at least have food in the house. </p>
<p>Been too busy to chime in on the “how I picked my major” discussion. I am showing my age, but to be perfectly honest, when I went to college, I fully expected that I would get married and be a SAHM and wouldn’t have to work for a living. That was the world I lived in. So I picked a major that just interested me, Religious Studies. I initially thought I would attend either graduate school or seminary afterwards, but life has gotten in the way. I have started both graduate school and seminary, but due to family commitments have not completed either. And for almost a decade I was the sole breadwinner for the family. I have worked in IT for the past 11 years. I did take a computer science class my last year of college because my father suggested it might be practical, but that was back when computers took up an entire room.</p>
<p>@ Oldfort-Congrats for your D! Starting the semester on a high note bodes well for all! @SteveC-yes, the name was given as a nickname by teammates on my HS basketball team, so it’s easy to remember as an anonymous user name.
I’ll share my major selection: In HS, I had a latin teacher who was my mentor (young and in touch with the kids) and after listening to my interests (biology, sports, NOT math intensive) she recommended physical therapy. So-at 15, I was certain that’s what I wanted to do. After my sophomore year in college I worked as a PT aide in a rehabilitation center-loved it at first, and then was bored with the repetition. My major was in public health and parents weren’t going to pay for me to stay longer, so I graduated and worked first in drug and alcohol education, then became a nursing home administrator for non-profits. After 3-1/2 years, went to law school with the intention of becoming a lobbyist for non-profit healthcare organizations-but was chosen for an international law internship in Germany. While traveling and studying abroad, met my husband (from Spain) and so focused on international law. Practiced for about 10 years-couldn’t be a mom and an attorney the way I wanted, so stopped practicing and started investing in real estate. LOVE what I do now-I’ve been doing this for 15 years and there are so many facets to it that I feel I can keep learning for the rest of my days! If you would have threatened me with this as a college kid-I would have bolted straight for the nearest exit! Funny how things evolve—we’ve tried to share this with our kids–that really, no matter what you choose, you’ll find the right path eventually.</p>
<p>For the Welcome Back fans - we just got off a cruise to celebrate our 25th anniversary (coming up in May) and one of our favorite activities was going to trivia competitions. Some day these will be updated and ask questions about current shows (which we don’t watch) but for now we’re experts on shows from the 70’s and 80’s! One question, which we incidentally got wrong, was what subject Mr. Kotter taught on the show? (Without Googling!). Answer below:
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Social Studies. History was not acceptable as an answer. Oops!</p>
<p>When you attempted to answer the question, did you raise your hand and shout, “Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!”? :)</p>
<p>LOL, SteveC!</p>
<p>Trivia fun fact - growing up on the Jersey Shore I worked high school summers at a casual restaurant on the water. Both Horshack and Epstein came to the restaurant at different times and I waited on them. If I remember Horshack was REALLY shy, Epstein was pretty friendly.</p>
<p>Did they flirt with you?</p>
<p>First I have to comment on how many engineering major moms we have on this thread. Maybe you are all younger than me, but the year I graduated as an EE only 2% were female. We seem to have more than our share.</p>
<p>In terms of a cappella…my D2 is nutty about it. She started a group in middle school, led the girls group in her HS, and joined a coed group in college. At her school it is hugely competitive, and she counts herself lucky to be an a cappella baby as a freshman. She spends a huge amount of time with the group, rehearsals several nights a week, performances on many if not most weekends, and they socialize together in their free time. They spent the last week of spring break “on tour” in warm weather doing gigs at malls, hotels, schools and nursing homes and living together in a friend’s beach house. It absolutely is like a fraternity or sorority, and they have lots of ties to the other groups on campus and at other college campuses.</p>
<p>Good luck to cama and collegeq DCs, and congrats to oldfort on D1 and D2 being double sisters now.</p>
<p>Another engineering major mom here, although I’ve certainly never used the major in real life! </p>
<p>SteveC and eyemamom - love the responses but can’t “rep” you since I evidently did too many (I swear I don’t remember this!). It’ll have to wait until tomorrow! </p>
<p>(And yes, I think my husband did in fact do that, much to my embarrassment!).</p>
<p>OldFort–did you see this today? One woman’s reflection on rush.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cornellsun.com/section/opinion/content/2013/01/21/bhowmick-it-was-all-greek-me[/url]”>http://www.cornellsun.com/section/opinion/content/2013/01/21/bhowmick-it-was-all-greek-me</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the link. It is a good opportunity to meet a lot of new people, but there is a lot of anxiety associated with the whole process. D1 has said that rush made job interviews seem easy. She said her one week on campus IB interviews were very similar to rush. A simple question of “tell us something about you” can be told in so many different ways, depending on who you are talking to.</p>
<p>another engineering mom!</p>
<p>I will read the Cornell Sun article. Question for oldfort or others, is the paper still printed or is it all electronic these days? Had a paper subscription my whole time there.</p>
<p>D has said she is enjoying meeting people during rush. She is seeing all the benefits to the process.</p>