New extremely random thing that S25 has brought up - vehicles. Most of the students at his school have cars. He, in fact, missed out on multiple extra credit opportunities in the fall because he had no car and couldn’t get to the site (it was for a construction management class and there were things at various job sites). He’s been talking, for some time, about buying a used car before sophomore year. (Longtime readers will remember, had he gone to the cheaper in state option college, we would’ve bought one for him, but by choosing the more expensive out of state option, he took that cost on himself.)
Now he’s saying he might prefer to just buy a scooter. Is that what they are called? Things that are like vespa’s, like mini less powerful motorcycles.
I absolutely do not want him to do this. People drive like crazy idiots, and his small college town has had TWO students die in traffic accidents this year while driving their scooters. No one wears a helmet, apparently it’s not the law there. My kid absolutely WOULD wear a helmet, but I still think this is a bad idea. Am I overreacting?
I also wonder how useful it would be - I mean, he can’t take that to get home for breaks, he can’t easily take it to job sites. But I guess on the pro side it is tremendously less expensive, like orders of magnitude less.
Realistically, he’s got enough money in the bank that he could just go buy a scooter if he wanted to. The car he’d need a loan (which I’ve offered to give him). Oh well, we’ll see how this goes.
Scooters are very very popular with college students in the college town where I live. As are e-bikes. That said, I’m not a fan and most of the kids aren’t wearing helmets here either. There are accidents all the time.
What about suggesting a zip car membership? Or using uber for the time being until he has enough for a car?
And more long term, how is he getting to/from his internships this summer?
Have you/he looked into lease options? It could be a good/affordable solutions while he’s in college. Also reliable if he decides to drive home vs. flying. Just a thought. I wouldn’t be thrilled about the scooter option either.
This summer his job is near our home. He’ll live at home and take my car, and I’ll metro to work. It’s what we did last summer too and worked out ok.
Other than for the summer, the vehicle thing is more a want than a need. Like he could have ubered to the extra credit things last semester, he just didn’t want to. And next year he’ll be living off campus and he wants a car, but the complex he’ll be living in has it’s own shuttle to campus every 30 minutes, and the campus busses come by every hour, so he can make it work if he wants to.
@Mdowns123 - I hadn’t thought about leasing, that’s a good idea. Really, this is coming faster than I expected. Our plan had been to have him use my car over the summer for his internship, but during that time to be looking for a good used car for him. Frankly, I was hoping he’d be discouraged by the price and take me up on our offer to sell him our CRV at a much reduced price. It’s in great shape and has reasonable mileage and I’d undercut the blue book cost for him by several thousand, but he doesn’t want a CRV. I was thinking when he saw how much further his money could go by buying our car then he might go for it. It probably has 7-8 good years on it, but even if he only keeps it for a few, that would be a good deal for him until he can save for what he really wants. Just this whole “maybe I’ll get a scooter” conversation has sped up my mental timeline on vehicle acquisition.
This is probably going to be way too expensive but if he decides to rent a car on a monthly basis just to see how it works out for him, hertz is the only company that doesn’t charge an under-25 surcharge— if the young person joins AAA and rents through the AAA-Hertz app. Their manager special are usually much less and AAA often has deals. My son ended up doing that for his summer internship last year as no other combo of rent/lease/purchase/borrow made logistical or financial sense.
And that’s funny about the CRV comment because when I first read your post my thought was …I wonder if he’d be interested in my very old but very reliable CRV that we probably want to sell soon!!
Right? CRVs are great cars! I don’t know why he doesn’t want it! (My older son bought our other family car from us and its, frankly, not as nice or as reliable. But he really wanted a car and wanted the cost savings of what we were offering, so he wasn’t picky.)
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted. Son is at University of Richmond..Finished first semester..All semester, he seemed so extremely stressed. He didn’t dip his toe in..went straight into some really hard courses….on top of intensive Spanish. We made the decision early on that we weren’t asking him about grades…(I was really too big a helicopter mom with this in high school, even though he finished #1 in his class.)
So we really had no clue how the semester went. He also didn’t look at his final grades until this past Sunday…We finally said to him on Monday, you need to look to make sure you didn’t miss anything or that none of your professors emailed you.
I don’t know why I was expecting awful…he is so motivated. He finished with 3 A’s and a B+…The B+ disappointed him most, not because its a B, but because the professor didn’t get give any feedback on his final paper…
I have an S27 that is very interested in Richmond and at this point is considering EDing there (we’ll see, lots of time to change his mind and it would be a reach for him). He loved our visit there and felt that the kids seemed happy and engaged. He wants a midsized school (Richmond is the smallest of the schools on his current list) and wants to be within a quick flight of MA. That campus is so beautiful! He has a friend with a sibling there and she loves it. He is interested in the school of leadership.
Is it out of character for your son to be so stressed? I am trying to help my kiddo find a school that is more collaborative than competitive. How has the social life been for you son? Is he able to balance academics and social activities?
We needed something safe and quickly after my son totalled the jeep in junior yesr of HS (not his fault). He had a 35 min drive to school every day (each way) and me doing a round trip twice a day wasn’t an option. He planned to buy a used car but when we factored in all the new saftey features of a new car I felt comfortable in the end leasing (i had PTSD).
Speaking as a professor: We often don’t give feedback on final papers, but that’s mainly because we’ve seen the vast majority of students never look at the feedback, so why bother? (In many systems, we can see if they opened it up to look through it—and if it was turned in on paper, we know how many students never even bother to pick theirs up.)
However! If he goes in to that professor’s office hours very early next semester saying that he’d like to know what he did well and what he should work on to do better in the future, he will most likely get good feedback in person. I mean, there are certainly exceptions, but I think I speak for most of us that if a student makes the effort to come in to ask about an assignment, it’s worth talking to them about it.
I feel like I’m uniquely qualified to answer this question!
At UCLA, I had a scooter (Honda), but a Vespa type thing. So many of us had these…I have fond/crazy memories of scootering to sorority meetings in a dress and nylons and heels. (No helmet of course because I was young and foolish.)
Eventually I took it with me to Clemson. That was REALLY not good. I needed a car! Clemson is really difficult without a car. There is so much more rain/bad weather in the Southeast…everything was so much farther away…there was a boy who liked me who would drive me to class when it was pouring down rain and i couldn’t walk or scooter….(so sorry!) and no, the state of South Carolina doesn’t require helmets (red state)…! My now husband had a motorcycle while at Clemson and I don’t think he ever wore a helmet. Goodness but we were stupid! Now our son has a motorcycle/dirt bike and he does thankfully wear a helmet. Even so, it scares me to death.
My first year at Clemson, one of my students was killed in a car accident. He was going home over Christmas break, and hit a tree on Hilton Head Island and was killed instantly. I sent his mother all of his papers and course work. It was heartbreaking and I still think about him.
ETA: At my D’s school, at least 3 students have died this past semester. An incoming freshman died this past summer in a freak hiking accident; another student died suddenly right before Christmas, and a 3rd student died in a car accident. Two years ago, a student there died from a blood clot in her brain. She was 21. Just horrible. Life is so unbelievably fragile.
Sorry if I’m being a downer…all we can do as parents at this point is trust that we have installed some common sense, hope, and pray. Letting go is the most difficult thing any parent ever goes through, in all of its variations.
Nice to see everyone’s updates. Our D25 overall had a good first semester at Skidmore, and we’ve all been very happy with her choice of school. She luckily has a great roommate, and after a slowish start socially is making friends and feeling very comfortable there. So far she is a way better student than I ever was in college at Oberlin — all A’s first semester! — though she says it’s because all she did was study and work, so we’ll see if she stays that committed, lol. It’s been great having her home for a long winter break. She’s been volunteering while she’s home, but has otherwise been sleeping, hanging out, and doing a lot of drawing, which is good for her soul. This weekend she drove to Vermont to see her childhood best friend who is working as a snowboard instructor over break, so we’ve gotten a taste of how quiet it’s about to be around here again (she’s an only kid). But honestly I think we hear more from her at college than we did in high school when she was under our roof (texting and FaceTime are very different than the answering machine messages we used with our parents in the ‘80s ), so she still doesn’t feel entirely absent when she’s at school. Hopefully things will continue to go well second semester!
Oldest kid (S19) really needs a new job but his adhd and anxiety have him in functional freeze.
S23 had his court date. 6 month driving suspension. No criminal charges. Annoying but able to work around. He will be getting an on campus job as he did last spring. He had been earning his spending money by playing poker but he can’t drive so he needs to earn money the hard way. His dad drove him back.
S25: She goes back to school tomorrow. Made the Deans list for the first time ever. We reviewed her classes and added one last night. They only had her registered for 12 credits and told her to consider a gen ed/writing intensive course. The one they recommended would work but she is already taking English this semester (along with communications, 2 social work classes, and philosophy). Instead of doubling up english, she decided on a Latin American history class that meets 2 of her gen ed requirements. We are allowing her to take her car this semester. She wants to try to get a job on weekends there. During the week in the evenings she will do her required multicultural meeting, attend her Christian core group meeting she likes but not do the large group one so only 1 night instead of 2, because she wants to increase the dance club from 1 night a week to 2-3 as they are doing a recital this May she is excited about. She for sure is going to room with a new friend but they are open to 2 more. The school has quad rooms where each gets their own bedroom so that is her preferred. Hoping she gets 2 other good roommates.
My semester starts back up Monday as well. First few weeks are always busy. I started on a low dose of glp1. I do have a ton of weight to lose but I was having a bunch of hip pain that was really limiting my sleep. Its been going on for years. I have been doing twice monthly massages and stretch appointments but being over 50 I knew cortisol and hormones were causing havoc. I have had a blood clot before so providers dont want to discuss hormone supplements with me. Anyways, only down 3 lbs but the last 2 weeks I have slept so much better with my hips. I am starting to exercise more too. Now to try to lose 50 lbs. Not easy when you are female over 50.
You are uniquely qualified to answer this question!
I bet we could start a whole separate thread about dumb things we’ve all done.
@OctoberKate It doesn’t seem fair that there would be extra credit stuff requiring a car as not everyone has one, but that seems like an opportunity to pool resources for an uber or lyft.
S23 didn’t take the car until this year- when his younger brother went off to college. It’s an old Volvo. It helped that he seemed to have no interest in drinking.
Yeah, I didn’t think it was particularly fair to have off campus extra credit stuff either, and would’ve suggested to S25 to find a friend and ride together or that I’d pay the uber for him, but I didn’t know about it until the semester was over. I think the school assumes that most students, at least those in his major, have a car. The upper class construction management classes are not on campus. When I asked about it (during tours, accepted students day etc) everyone gave an answer that was basically “huh, there’s probably a bus or something, but pretty much everyone has cars so just get a ride with someone”.
I don’t think S25 was really thinking about needing the extra credit - frankly, that class should’ve been easy, and it ended up as his worst grade. I think he did so poorly because each week they had a guest lecturer from industry. And the guests seldom stayed on the topic they were supposed to cover, so you really had to read the book to do well on the tests. And my kid admitted that he just didn’t really read the book, he was counting on learning from the lecturers. The subject matter wasn’t hard, he just didn’t so what he needed to do. Hopefully this is a lesson learned for this semester.
I think the biggest issue with him was that he had WAY WAY TOO EASY of a year Senior year..So it was a bit of shock to him. Also, he is a huge Philly sports fan..and didnt do too well with delegating his time between watching sports/working in September.
I definitely don’t feel like U of R is competitive. The students all seem to work together for one purpose. He has definitely had a good balance of activities..between going to football games, basketball games, field hockey..and also participating in some group activities. He is also volunteering for Special Olympics in Richmond.
Makes sense. With Richmond being smaller, there were only like 19 other kids in the class, so I think that my son felt that would give him time for feedback. He also very much feeds off/appreciates help/support…
Lord have mercy. We’re moving. To West Virginia. My husband got a promotion/transfer, and it feels like now is as good of a time as any to relocate. I was adament about us not moving when S25 was in school, but I promised my husband I would follow him anywhere once he was in college. He stayed in the same position for 14 years since relocating is a big part of moving up at his company. I am nervous about making such a big move, finding a new job, adjusting to a VERY different culture, but I am trying to think of this as a grand adventure. We love hiking, camping, paddling and anything else outdoorsy, so I’m hoping this will allow us to do more of those things. I told S25 on Saturday that we were moving. He knew his dad was interviewing and had initially expressed a lot disappointment. He was a bit sad when I told him on Saturday, but he was also happy for his dad to get such an amazing opportunity. We promised him that we would fly him back to see his friends anytime he wants.
I don’t know our timeline, but I am thinking sometime in the next couple of months. I am going to get cracking on applying for jobs and am hopeful I can find something. And then start packing the house.
The good news - WVa has some of the most beautiful nature you’ll find. The mountains are old and glorious, and the hiking, camping, paddling will be great. If you are up in the WVU area, it’s actually very close to Pittsburgh and DC isn’t far for when you want/need a city. WVa is the land of summer camp for so many VA / MD / PA families, because it’s just beautiful.
But yeah, big cities are not exactly plentiful, and the state, on the whole, has some very low income areas. I’m assuming this will be a promotion, thus a raise, which means your money will go far, and you’ll likely be able to get a really lovely home. I’ve had colleagues who love WVa so much that they commute to DC - daily - so that they can live there (they live in the panhandle so closer to DC, and take the train, so it’s not as crazy as it sounds).
We’ll be down south (west?) in Huntington so closer to Lexington, KY. (and not much farther to Columbus and Cincinnati) I just have to figure out a job so that we don’t go without my income. But it’s a promotion for my husband who made a lot of sacrifices for us over the years. I’m excited for him to have a new challenge. And it’s a chance for me to practice my resilience. I’m sure it will be fine. I’m a firm believer that I can make the best out of any situation, if I choose to.
), so she still doesn’t feel entirely absent when she’s at school. Hopefully things will continue to go well second semester! 
