S23 is finishing the last week of his internship near home. He’s at the same place as last year, and it’s been great. But it’s mostly coding and project management and he’d prefer his next internship to include more ChemEng. However, he’d prefer to stay local and knows he’ll be lucky to get any internship next summer. He seems motivated to put effort into applications all year.
Last year he worked as a supplemental instruction leader for math, and next will do a ChemEng class. It’s an ideal job and pays well. We’re in a bit of disbelief that he’s done with all of his classes other than engineering courses.
He’ll be in his first apartment, with 1 roommate he knows, and 2 other random guys assigned by the complex. He gets his own room and bathroom. We recently went to goodwill and the dollar store where he got his kitchen stuff for ~$100.
His savings account has sufficient rent money for the duration of his lease and he set up his online rent portal to auto-debit. The money worked out such that his job earnings (including from summer) will stay in his checking account and should cover all his food for the year with some left over for discretionary spending. He’ll manage that budget himself as a good next step to financial independence. He’s close already, woohoo.
He’s decent at food but wants to learn a lot more. This summer we’ve done some meal planning and shopping at Aldi, emphasizing that the goal is avoid eating out much, but it has to be realistic. Some of the new genres he’s added to his repertoire include curries, asian noodles, mexican, and creamy pastas. One of the biggest things he’s learned is how to stretch a meal by adding extra protein, veg, and sauce. Once he saw the beef prices he said he likely won’t bother with it (so proud). He’s only come around to beans recently and he freaked out at $1/can and then I really blew his mind with $1/lb for dried.
He won’t have a car but has a discount grocer, an Asian grocer, and Aldi within a mile (all on a bus route too). His bday is soon and if a roommate doesn’t bring an airfryer, he’ll get one as a present. We shall see how the food goes this year!
He’s had a wonderful, social summer. For fall, he’s booked a train ticket to see a friend in Canada, and a flight to visit Purdue friends. We are soaking up the last couple weeks and are really going to miss him.
Our youngest will be a senior and is doing a half-day vocational electrician program through the local CC. Our current plan is to see where both kids settle out in a couple years and then ditch our mortgage and move to a smaller house. Can’t believe it’s all happening so fast.
and focused in on research skills, it’s been a great experience. He’s seriously considering law school now and took a diagnostic LSAT cold turkey and did pretty phenomenal lol, surprising himself, so I think this may be his future path with his BS in Econ…time will tell!
In addition to the lab, he’s been spending time running info sessions and having coffee chats for his project team’s upcoming recruiting season. Junior year seems off to a great start.