My D texted me today to tell me she feels like she dodged a bullet. She went back and forth a lot before canceling her NYE trip to Venice- it was totally non-refundable, but not terribly expensive- but today the people who decided to still go tested positive for covid and are unable to leave Italy; they’re having to pay to quarantine there. She is so relieved she stayed home, and that she convinced her two dear friends to stay home as well. She has gotten two tattoos over break, and is planning a third next week. She’s really enjoying the (comparatively to here) cheap tattoos over there- all three combined will end up less than the cost of one here at home.
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Internship acquired!! What a relief. After she completes that this summer she will be done with college. She has been really nervous about finding one, and she wanted to be able to live near her sister. The one she got is totally what she wanted! Just 7 miles from her sister. Her best friend from college got one in the vicinity too so they are planning to live together in other DD’s neighborhood. That will be the next step- finding a short term lease.
I feel like there’s a good chance the job could continue beyond the internship which would be awesome too- assuming she likes it once she gets there.
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Wonderful news about the internship—congrats to your daughter!
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Congrats, @bjscheel! My D19 also just secured an internship, with an art adviser who’s coordinating a new installation for the nonprofit my wife works for. Between this and her previous internship, with a design consultancy, D19 is building a nice base of experience for seeking work on the business/logistics side of the art world after she graduates in December (a semester early).
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Congrats on the new internships everyone! @Vineyarder, did you D always plan on graduating early or is this a result of Covid? Our S19 will also be a Dec grad (but 2023) and I do wonder if that’s an advantage or disadvantage when looking to secure a job after school. Or maybe it depends on the industry.
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Thanks for the congrats, @homerdog! It was pretty much always the plan. She had enough credits coming in thanks to her success on the IB that she was targeting this early graduation well before Covid. Good question about the effect on job-seeking. Maybe it’ll help, not competing directly against the full graduating cohort? We’ll see.
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It seems like in the past week my daughter has known more people to end up covid positive than the whole first term combined. She’s stayed negative so far, but she’s been rowing double masked and stopped going to clubs/bars altogether. If Oxford were in the US they’d probably be going remote about now, but it’s just business as usual over there.
Interesting and England is set to drop all their COVID restrictions next week. They’ve definitely come full circle. When my D was in the UK at beginning of COVID they were very slow to enact any measures in response to COVID.
Happy to see all the positive news. Of course, my D19 will if anything be graduating late rather than early (she’s potentially doing summer term to mitigate some of that - but not under any pressure from me). So she’s been back at school a little over a week now and so far so good. She really likes her roommates (who seem to be on her wavelength), her friends are all back, enjoying her courses a lot, and is on meds for the anxiety. So crossing fingers the stars stay aligned. Meanwhile, we are about to get on the high school bandwagon for D26 - course choice for freshman year gets submitted this week!
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Last night I made a hotel reservation for graduation weekend this May! We don’t know yet if we’ll use it. It’s not that it’s far away (a little under 2 hours), but that we’ll be moving her out of her apartment as well. Actually we’ll probably move almost everything out say Wednesday of that week, and just pick up the leftovers on the weekend. Then take everything to the internship apartment and maybe help her summer roommate get his stuff up there too! Then get her back down to the airport for short term study abroad. Will be a crazy week but I’m so excited for her next steps.
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Can’t believe you are planning for graduation already! Congrats (a bit early) to your D.
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we are also graduating in 3 years as well! it is surreal.
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hahahahahah I’m already trying to make reservations for graduation in May 2023 because Bowdoin will be overrun by parents that weekend and we’d like to stay close! Some of the hotels are already booked and the Airbnbs say they’ll only book out a year but expect a lot of activity this May with parents trying to get houses. And, at Colgate where our D21 is, the Colgate Inn already has a waitlist for her graduation in 2025!
S19 won’t officially graduate until Dec 2023 but he will be allowed to be a part of the May 2023 graduation events and walk across the stage at the ceremony so that’s nice since most of his friends will be done in May.
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I wish you luck in getting reservations!
With DD finishing in summer she had the choice of walking in May or December. Figured get it done while she is still down there rather than come back months later, plus most of her friends are able to walk in May too. Unfortunately they won’t recognize her at commencement for having a 4.0 since she won’t be done. We will know though!
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Middlebury has the same problem. We are looking for places to stay in May 2023 as well. Unfortunately, it is too early to make reservations in most places. We’ll camp if we have to…
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We are in the same boat with Elon for graduation. There are only a handful of close places to stay that will sell out the morning they release the rooms, and yes AirBNBs are booking out already. Most hotels say they will announce their process shortly before one year ahead (because the past two years have been unusual so the standard process hasn’t been used), so I’m making lists of hotels to call in mid April this year.
It is really hard to believe that we are making graduation plans for this class!!! My fear is that my high schooler and college student will graduate on the same exact day, in states 7 hours apart. Pre-covid, the graduation days for the two schools were on the same Saturday in May. Curious as to what others would do!
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I would attend the College graduation unless the HS kid would be very upset. Still offer to have a "party"for the High schooler a different day.
My D’17 did not even attend her HS graduation as she had something else that meant more to her that night (camp for inner city kids she volunteered at)
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I think I would attend the HS graduation, in my world that’s a bigger deal. Or split up and send one parent to each.
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@TS0104 I had this fear last year, when I had one graduating from college in San Diego, and the other from high school here in MD. Thankfully, they ended up graduating six days apart. I’m not sure what we would have done if they had been the same day. Most likely, H and I would have split up. D17 had already had more of a crappy end to college - her entire senior year was remote but they managed to have in-person graduation. Some of her friends did not even bother to go; they were home in other states for their senior year but our D had stayed in her off campus apartment in SD. So, it was already a bummer that not even all of her classmates would be there so of course, at least one of us needed to go (only two family members allowed to attend due to Covid restrictions - MIL, who lives in CA would have gone if one of us were not there). OTOH, no way could we completely skip out on S21’s high school graduation for several reasons. So, I think to be fair, H and I would have split up. Then more than likely, the one who stayed for the HS grad would have flown to SD the next day for a post-grad celebratory dinner.
Fortunately, it did not come down to that since they were consecutive weekends. In the end, we actually surprised D17 and flew her siblings out for her college graduation. They couldn’t go to ceremony but we had a graduation dinner afterward with MIL and two of H’s siblings and their families who all live in CA. D17 had no idea they were all coming so it meant a lot to her considering her senior year of college was such a let down.
Hopefully, you won’t have to make that tough decision and they will graduate on different days/weekends!
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Sounds similar to my D17’s college graduation (although it was all online). We flew out, with younger son, to try to make it a celebratory event…decorated the house, the roommates wore their gowns and walked across the living room when their name came on screen, the families had a nice outside dinner. We definitely wanted to put together some sort of celebration as that year and graduation itself was so flat and anticlimactic.
It’s interesting because opinions seem split as I ask people about the competing graduations dilemma. When I asked my boys (the ones that will graduate the same year), they both said “college”. I was thinking high school feels like a bigger deal…because we have a close community here, everyone knows each other, friends from age 3, etc. I’m probably overlying my college grad feelings which was a huge school, in a football stadium, no walking across stage, so missable…I can’t even remember if my parents were there even though they were there for that weekend. My son’s college is smaller so it won’t be impersonal like that. But honestly I realize as I type this that I want to attend the HS graduation, especially since it is our youngest and that school and community have been and are a huge part of our lives! I better keep on hoping for separate dates because I am also the much more willing traveler between me and my DH.
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