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Neither of my son's universities send out grades at all. You have to go online to see them. One of them doesn't even show the student's GPA online, you have to calculate it yourself. All of their mail from their schools comes here because it is their permanent residence.
I'm sorry your dad treats you that way. That's how my FIL treated my husband his whole life, even though he became a very successful businessman, and much more success than he ever was. You just have to tune it out, and go on.
What do you want to do with your degree? Do you need to go to grad school to do what you want?
Your take on your grades is correct: a 3.6 average freshman year in a hard major is pretty damn good.
Since he treats everyone this way that should be all the proof you need that his attitude is not about you at all. He is impossible to please. I would work to get to a place where I can ignore his chattering and go about my business. I would also plot on getting a job straight out of school so I could gain financial independence and ignore him properly. LOL.
Don't go to grad school if you don't want to. You can do what you have to do until you graduate with you bachelors to keep the peace if you want.
Perhaps you can find a faculty member or an academic counselor to talk to at school to help you get anther perspective on your options? It can help to have another adult who can give you positive feedback instead on constant mental takedowns.
You've been putting up with his treatment of you for a long time; you can do it a little longer. Once you have sufficient income, you can move far away from your parents and live how you want.
Focus on your career goals rather than on your father. If you can earn a living without college, fine. If you think the degree will benefit you, also fine. If you don't see any future except the graduate school your father has planned for you, that's what your stuck with.
I can tell you that the tried and true way to get your parents off you back regarding graduate school is to let them know: 1) you typically can get into better grad schools with a few years work experience, and 2) many employers will pay for grad school for their employees.
Even if it is total B.S. for the field you want to enter, this will get your parents off your back unless you end up working at Starbucks or some place like that after graduation.
As for dealing with demanding asian parents as to grades, my friends say just let them vent/nag and have it go in one ear and out the other. They came up in a different culture and more competitive environment where not being at the absolute top might mean a lifetime of poverty (plus they had to walk like 20 miles to school over 2 mountains).
It ends eventually and then they'll move on to demand when are you going to get married and have children.
I'm Chinese so I can kinda relate to having parents like that. Some thoughts:
- Since your parents are paying for tuition, they have a right to say see your progress (grades.) No way around this.
- Avoid grad school like the plague if you know for sure it's not the thing for you. Although I made it through college fine, I went for a PhD right afterwards only to fail out with a Masters.
- Focus on your Career as your primary objective, not grades per se (although good grades should only help.)
- Sit down, perhaps several days or even weeks, thinking and brainstorming what types of jobs/careers you're at least somewhat interested in and find which ones pay the best.
- After you've narrowed down your choices, go to your school's career center and ask them about how to obtain an internship in your selected field(s).
- Listen to the career center's advice and pick courses that help on your career path, hopefully towards getting your first internship.
My university doesn't send out grades on any form of hard copy (unless a transcript is requested by the student and proper identification is presented). They are only accessible to the student through the school's web-site on the portion that the student logs into. Where I'm from (Texas) it's customary that that only the student should have access to their grades. I'm not sure if it is a State of Texas or Federal statute.
I have had professors that have told class that they get calls from parents via phone about their child's grades and they politely tell the parent that it's not possible to so without the student's complete written consent.
I've heard of students going to school getting horrendous GPA's, basically trashing their academic careers (until they get kicked out), whilst having their parents completely unaware and footing the bill.
I have attended 2 public schools in Texas and both were very serious about this policy.
"Student academic records are classified as confidential and may be released only with the student's written authorization and signature, in accordance with the Public Information Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Beginning in September 1999, transcripts sent to other Texas schools include TSI and core curriculum information if available."
Last edited by Alphalogica; 07-13-2011 at 12:11 AM..
It's a good life lesson to learn that when you accept money from someone, there are usually "strings" attached. In your case, you're accepting your dad paying quite a bit for undergrad tuition in exchange for showing him your grades. Sounds fair. If I were spending $50-100k on something over 4 years (tuition, room & board), I would want to know how my money was being spent.
If you want to go it alone via work and loans, you're welcome to do so but it seems a better solution would be to try to work a little harder and get professor/ TA/ tutor help in the more challenging classes. Don't worry about grad school now- just do the best you can in undergrad. The classes only get harder as you go through. You have another 18 months before you need to make a decision regarding grad school enterance exams, etc.
At some point you are going to have to assert your independence, if you don't want your father's scrutiny or to go to grad school. But your independence comes at a cost. You have to accept responsibility and consequences, including paying your own way in life. If you aren't willing to do this, then you have to accept the rules that someone else sets for you.
Your major may be hard, but as a freshman, how many classes in your major are you taking? Most students are just taking the freshman survey courses. If that's the case, then you have much harder classes to face in the years to come so perhaps your father is right that you should be doing better in these easier classes.
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