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My son has recently entered the 11th grade and as a family we are starting to get serious about plans for college. Problem is, my husband and I don't know really how to best chart the course for our son.
We both have college degrees and have spent our degrees in the medical field, along with most of our friends. Our son is an average student and says he might want to go into engineering, but isn't particularly sure or excited about it. We have no knowledge, friends or family in those fields and don't know what to tell him. Obviously it takes a college degree to get into engineering -- often a very rigorous one -- and from an accredited institution. Many of which in Texas are not inexpensive
Seems like an expensive proposition to lock both our family and our son into a path for engineering school, especially if he isn't sure he even wants to go into the profession. We feel like we are caught between a rock and a hard place -- no family/friends to point him to. High school guidance counselors are scrambling to maintain the minimum standard for the worst case students, and have been little more help than a simple google search. The college admissions counselors have been even worse, quickly pointing us to their website for application checklists, seemingly with an attitude "call back when you're ready to give us your bank account and routing #."
Not to mention nowadays we know of many families with children who have recently graduated from college and are unable to get a job. We are not even sure a college degree is worth as much as it once was.
Sorry for the long post, but are there other resources out there for families that see the 'big picture' between high school, college, and early career?
Seems like an expensive proposition to lock both our family and our son into a path for engineering school, especially if he isn't sure he even wants to go into the profession. We feel like we are caught between a rock and a hard place -- no family/friends to point him to. High school guidance counselors are scrambling to maintain the minimum standard for the worst case students, and have been little more help than a simple google search. The college admissions counselors have been even worse, quickly pointing us to their website for application checklists, seemingly with an attitude "call back when you're ready to give us your bank account and routing #."
Where have you been the last 3-4 years? Where is that discussion in your family regarding your son future?
Engineering is not for the faint of heart. You need to find an engineering program that will let your son go and talk to his profs (and maybe the chair) and get an idea of what kind of classes, time demand, course composition and structure he is looking at. If his math skills aren't good, he is going to have a hard time.
My son has recently entered the 11th grade and as a family we are starting to get serious about plans for college. Problem is, my husband and I don't know really how to best chart the course for our son.
We both have college degrees and have spent our degrees in the medical field, along with most of our friends. Our son is an average student and says he might want to go into engineering, but isn't particularly sure or excited about it. We have no knowledge, friends or family in those fields and don't know what to tell him. Obviously it takes a college degree to get into engineering -- often a very rigorous one -- and from an accredited institution. Many of which in Texas are not inexpensive
Seems like an expensive proposition to lock both our family and our son into a path for engineering school, especially if he isn't sure he even wants to go into the profession. We feel like we are caught between a rock and a hard place -- no family/friends to point him to. High school guidance counselors are scrambling to maintain the minimum standard for the worst case students, and have been little more help than a simple google search. The college admissions counselors have been even worse, quickly pointing us to their website for application checklists, seemingly with an attitude "call back when you're ready to give us your bank account and routing #."
Not to mention nowadays we know of many families with children who have recently graduated from college and are unable to get a job. We are not even sure a college degree is worth as much as it once was.
Sorry for the long post, but are there other resources out there for families that see the 'big picture' between high school, college, and early career?
My husband and I both have advanced degrees, as do most of our siblings. Both our children, and all of our nieces and nephews, took the lead in all of their college preparations, including what their interests & career goals were, where to apply, scheduling their own college tours, and completely handling all of the application processes. All, we parents did were fill out the FAFSA, provide limitations as to how we could (and mostly could not) help with finances, visit the campus's that our children selected and consult on costs & loans.
This was pretty typical among our friends. Also, most of our children were considering various colleges and careers well before 11th grade.
I have several nieces & nephews who are engineers and they were clearly interested in that field from a young age. My niece is in college and started taking engineering specialty courses her freshman year.
Perhaps, your son is not ready to go into engineering (or even attending college) or he would be taking the lead.
Or, perhaps, our children, nieces, nephews and friend's children were unusual in how active they were in selecting and planning their own college goals.
I would suggest that you just start visiting colleges that have an engineering major that are nearby. Many technical oriented colleges that I visited with my son had specific events for the different majors so you would get a good idea of the major - what stats are needed for entrance, cost, and often career outcome. This program was really helpful to both of my sons: RIT College & Careers Go to your local library and start reading. There are some book suggestions at the top of this page. For engineering, make sure the engineering college is ABET accredited: 69 Accredited Engineering Schools in Texas
My husband and I both have advanced degrees, as do most of our siblings. Both our children, and all of our nieces and nephews, took the lead in all of their college preparations, including what their interests & career goals were, where to apply, scheduling their own college tours, and completely handling all of the application processes. All, we parents did were fill out the FAFSA, provide limitations as to how we could (and mostly could not) help with finances, visit the campus's that our children selected and consult on costs & loans.
This was pretty typical among our friends. Also, most of our children were considering various colleges and careers well before 11th grade.
I have several nieces & nephews who are engineers and they were clearly interested in that field from a young age. My niece is in college and started taking engineering specialty courses her freshman year.
Perhaps, your son is not ready to go into engineering (or even attending college) or he would be taking the lead.
Or, perhaps, our children, nieces, nephews and friend's children were unusual in how active they were in selecting and planning their own college goals.
I'd say that your family is amazingly well organized. I know dozens of college kids and the only ones I know whose parents took a hands off approach ended up applying and attending the local state U's or community college. Yes, it can be done solo by the kids, but our involvement led to much more interesting choices than they would have come up with.
College is hugely expensive. Our son's education cost more than our first house. There's no way that we were going to stay hands off with that much of our money involved.
To the OP, One thing we did during Junior year was visit colleges whenever there was a day off school for any teacher in-services. The more you visit, the more your son will fine tune what he wants in a college. I don't think I know any boys that were really interested in the college search until pretty late in the game.
I would hope that counselors and college tour presenters would point out that a student doesn't need to choose a major right away. Assuming your son takes math and some science courses in his first semesters, he will still have a lot of options open to him.
My husband and I both have advanced degrees, as do most of our siblings. Both our children, and all of our nieces and nephews, took the lead in all of their college preparations, including what their interests & career goals were, where to apply, scheduling their own college tours, and completely handling all of the application processes. All, we parents did were fill out the FAFSA, provide limitations as to how we could (and mostly could not) help with finances, visit the campus's that our children selected and consult on costs & loans.
This was pretty typical among our friends. Also, most of our children were considering various colleges and careers well before 11th grade.
I have several nieces & nephews who are engineers and they were clearly interested in that field from a young age. My niece is in college and started taking engineering specialty courses her freshman year.
Perhaps, your son is not ready to go into engineering (or even attending college) or he would be taking the lead.
Or, perhaps, our children, nieces, nephews and friend's children were unusual in how active they were in selecting and planning their own college goals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by toobusytoday
I'd say that your family is amazingly well organized. I know dozens of college kids and the only ones I know whose parents took a hands off approach ended up applying and attending the local state U's or community college. Yes, it can be done solo by the kids, but our involvement led to much more interesting choices than they would have come up with.
College is hugely expensive. Our son's education cost more than our first house. There's no way that we were going to stay hands off with that much of our money involved.
To the OP, One thing we did during Junior year was visit colleges whenever there was a day off school for any teacher in-services. The more you visit, the more your son will fine tune what he wants in a college. I don't think I know any boys that were really interested in the college search until pretty late in the game.
Perhaps, I should clarify my comments a bit. Although, our children (and the children of our close friends and relatives) definitely took the lead in their college plans, they kept us well informed of their choices and accepted our input.
This was quite different from a few of my coworkers, who did 95% of the investigating and work involving their teens college plans, including contacting Universities for information and filling out all of the applications. One of these extreme helicopter parents continued to stay very actively involved with their children choices throughout college, such as selecting their college major and classes each semester. BTW, that did not work out very well for that particular child, who ended up flunking out.
Our family was different than toobusytodays family, as our children knew from the very beginning that, except for about $6,000 a year in expenses. plus a small inheritance from their grandparents, the total cost of college was their responsibility, whether that meant scholarships, jobs, or student loans (it ended up being all three). In spite of that limitation both of our children graduated from top ranked schools in their fields as undergrads and our son has a PhD. from the top school in the nation in his specialty.
OP, perhaps your son may need a little push to get involved but I am surprised that with his friends talking about their college tours, and their investigations. and their plans it is not getting him excited. When I sub teach at high schools I frequently overhear many kids talking about upcoming college visits, various scholarships, and other college related topics.
Last edited by germaine2626; 10-01-2014 at 02:41 AM..
The 'might want to go into engineering' and not being too excited about it would make me think twice about investing a lot of money.
Also there's a lot of different types of engineers.
I think the 1st step: see if you can find an engineer of whatever type he's talking about and asking if that person could/would talk to your son. Maybe even let your son shadow him on the job for a few hours-admittedly that may not be possible.
Quite frankly, with your son being an average student and not having any enthusiasm for that degree, I'm wondering if he is really wants to go to college. Have you asked him?
I'd say that your family is amazingly well organized. I know dozens of college kids and the only ones I know whose parents took a hands off approach ended up applying and attending the local state U's or community college. Yes, it can be done solo by the kids, but our involvement led to much more interesting choices than they would have come up with.
College is hugely expensive. Our son's education cost more than our first house. There's no way that we were going to stay hands off with that much of our money involved.
To the OP, One thing we did during Junior year was visit colleges whenever there was a day off school for any teacher in-services. The more you visit, the more your son will fine tune what he wants in a college. I don't think I know any boys that were really interested in the college search until pretty late in the game.
I would be very careful using or recommending College Confidential. Perhaps it was useful at one time, but in the last year or two there seems to be as much misinformation being doled out as there is good advice. It's often repeated by a lot of the regulars with tens of thousands of posts, and reinforced immediately by others.
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