Back from the orientation stuff at Clemson. Overall, I think I’m going to call the experience a draw. The sessions didn’t really provide us any new information, but that’s probably because I’m more than a little obsessive about reading everything I can and doing all the random virtual info sessions and scouring the website. And I get that that’s me being a little Bit Much, and probably not normal. On the second day they had breakouts by college, and S25 is in the College of Art, Architecture, and Construction Management. It’s a small school so this would be, I thought, a good opportunity to really learn more about the program. It started well with an introduction from the new Dean, then one of their student services team gave some highlights of how each of the different departments have their own advisor leads within the student services group, and what they do etc. Unfortunately, that’s where it stopped being college specific. They had the two students who were the assigned orientation ambassadors for the incoming freshmen come up and ask them questions, but it was the same generic “ask a student a question” presentation that we saw at: (1) prospective student visit; (2) admitted student day; (3) the day before at the overarching orientation event. Not specific to the Department, program, or anything else. Then they excused the incoming freshmen to do a scavenger hunt in the building.
(Sidebar: super cool building, lots of awesome art and architecture stuff, S25 enjoyed roaming around. But of three joined buildings with work spaces for processors and students, there was one small hallway, with eight doors, associated with his major. It made it feel really like an afterthought. No workspace for them, no special tools or classroom space. More on this later.)
During the scavenger hunt, one of the admin people from the Department spoke to the parents but it was, again, about general stuff - campus resources to help your student if they are struggling with academics, or mental health. How to, as parents, help them launch. How FERPA works and what information you can and can’t have etc. All useful information, but also all things that we had heard before in the big overarching sessions, and not tied to the specific College. This 2.5 hour block of time was specifically described as an opportunity to learn more about your College and Department, and I felt like it fell down a bit in that regard.
The most specific part of the presentation was when they talked about the study abroad - the architecture and landscape architecture students are required to do a term off campus and the art students are strongly encouraged to do that. So it was interesting to hear about the abroad programs related to those majors. It didn’t happen to be relevant to me, but it hit three of the four majors in the school, so I understand why they did it. That was the last presentation before a 10 minute bathroom and question break, which then led to some families asking specific questions of the reps from their Departments during the break, so some time was available there to ask questions. Unfortunately, the advisor for the Construction Management program was no available, so that was a disappointment, but the Art advisor was there and was willing to answer some questions so I got one question answered (I asked if construction management students can do the study abroad - given they have a very prescribed series of courses, they can’t really do a semester abroad program, but they can do a spring break one week something and maybe a course abroad the summer after freshman year. Beyond freshman year, not really, because they have to get in 800 hours of internship experience, which pretty much is the summers after sophomore and junior year.).
So anyhoo, the day and a half of orientation stuff (this isn’t the only orientation, there are lots of welcome week stuff for students) was maybe not worth the time off of work and drive. I don’t feel like we learned a whole lot, and it is a REALLY long drive. But it was good to see the campus again, S25 was able to familiarize himself with it, and I think that gives him some confidence going in to the start of the year. Although the space wasn’t open to us, we were able to drive to the off-site location where many of the upper level construction management courses are held and see that. (That’s why there’s so little space in the Department buildings - those are really only offices for the professors. They use random lecture halls on campus for the entry level class, many courses are business school classes which are in their building, and the upper level and hands on courses are in the offsite construction yard. They have space for classroom study out there too, but it’s like a small warehouse, so nothing fancy. I am nervous about this aspect of things, because S25 doesn’t have a car, and getting there will be a challenge. When he picked Clemson, his most expensive school, the tradeoff was that we didn’t have the funds available to help him purchase a car. So we’ll see if he can manage to save enough from his summer job this summer and next to buy one before sophomore year starts.)
It’s a beautiful school, it still feels like the right fit for him, he still is happy and excited to be attending. But a down and back in three days is exhausting and for so little new intel, I think we both were thinking it might have been better to stay home and get the extra two days of work and sleep. We got home late last night and we’re both kind of wiped out today.
