castleview
I'm on my 103rd attempt to grown
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2004
- Messages
- 5,509
I'd say give it a year. I hated school the first semester and by the end of the year I loved it.
Agree there's no reason to even be thinking about a major at this point.
I mean if someone knows what they want, has a strong interest and whatever, fine, cool, focus on it.
Plenty of people USE college to explore different areas they haven't been able to, been exposed to, had an opportunity to try out, and that's a big part of a liberal arts education.
My advice would be to look through the course catalog for next semester and NOT take only core requirements. I'm a big proponent of taking at least one ridiculous class a semester - sounds like your son needs a semester of two or three of them.
Ridiculous classes, to me, are ones that you don't "need," and wouldn't normally think of taking, but that sound fun and interesting.
Take an art class. It doesn't have to involve drawing if he can't draw. I took 3D art, photography and a host of other unusual art classes in college - just because they sounded interesting. I enjoyed every one. Some I really, really enjoyed. The 3D was one of my favourites.
Take a theatre class - technical or acting. Take a class in something academic that sounds interesting - some period in history or psychology or philosophy or science. Take a phys ed - most colleges have interesting fun ones that are only a credit. Try Karate or something if he's never done it.
Most of the classes will fit in a core under the 'three credits of X type' requirements, and it's a way to find what interests him, meet different people, have some fun (college isn't high school - take advantage!)
I agree with the above clubs, extra curricular thing but I think he also needs to see that college itself, the academic aspect, can be an awesome, fun, different growth experience. It isn't just a slog of Comp 101-type classes. Yes, he needs that stuff but mix it up and find what's interesting. It may be something he'd never have expected or tried, that he'll find he absolutely loves.
I'm a big proponent of taking at least one ridiculous class a semester - sounds like your son needs a semester of two or three of them.
Ridiculous classes, to me, are ones that you don't "need," and wouldn't normally think of taking, but that sound fun and interesting.
Even if he is failing, he should not withdraw from his classes until he talks to his professors, academic advisory, and financial aid if he receives aid of any kind. The rules have changed a bit and withdrawing from a bunch of classes can impact your ability to get aid in the future and also you may end up owing the college money. If he is considering dropping out, he needs to talk to an advisor first.What are his grades like? Do you know if he is failing the classes right now?
Make sure you hunker down and read all the deadlne dates of withdraw, esp. the money part.
Hate is pretty strong and being undecided makes it harder. I have to say if he is getting F's or D's pull him out.
Just wanted to say AWESOME advice, and LOVE #3....my own started fencing this past summer and continues at college now
Not knowing how to study is very common. High school is all but fail-proof these days. An intelligent student can get by with paying attention in class and completing the assignments. In contast, in college a student must know how to read complicated texts, assimilate the material, and do well on the tests and papers -- without the teacher breaking things down into small bites with lots of reviews, as they do in high school. You can google study skills online and send him some articles to read. Encourage him to get a planner and schedule his reading /study time. Tell him that flash cards aren't just for elementary kids. Are study sessions or tutoring available for his hardest subjects? If not, encourage him to ask around and see if anyone else wants to start up a study group; he's not alone in this. If he's smart enough to get into college, he can figure this out -- it's mostly a matter of realizing that he needs to work at studying, then developing the self-discipline to follow through with it.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea that a major should be the last thing on his mind -- I mean, college is pretty expensive, and having him take classess randomly much means he will almost certainly need more than four years to complete his degree. However, the need for a decision should be tempered with his adjustment to college -- without both, he won't be successful long-term.
To a certain extent, I agree with this statement. It is important during Freshman year to take care of some of the classes which are required for all majors. Also, if you have some sort of idea of the general area of study you want to go into (for instance, "I want to be a scientist!" instead of "I want to study Immunology!") you can start focusing in those more general areas. However, I knew way too many folks who took a whole bunch of classes in their chosen field, then ended up changing that field and having to take a whole bunch more classes because the ones they originally took were completely useless. Their focus on a major early on actually resulted in them taking more classes. I knew one guy who started out in basic liberal arts, then switched to the engineering school (which is a major undertaking, by the way), and only then realized he was not really cut out to be an engineer, so he switched back and ended up studying environmental sciences. I knew another guy who was sure he would be a scientist and took all the basic Freshman intro-science courses. He's now a poet with a creative writing degree. Those people I know who went into college with no preconcieved notions about majors may have ended up taking a few more classes here and there than other more focused people, but they tended to end up with multiple majors (I have three myself) or minors as evidence of their extra work.
This. Regardless of major, you will always need a passel of elective credits. No reason they can't be in something random.
Also, as noted here, and in the post in which the poster's daughter randomly took a class in Polish and is now minoring in the language, people who try a bunch of things can often spend LESS time, because they find an actual interest, as opposed to trying to take all the classes to something it turns out they then don't want and having to start over.