Parents of College Freshman who are now Sophomores... UpDate 7/28/09

[Lynn CC]

Probably too much at the beginning. Buy them extra for Christmas Having less of items forces them to get into the habit of washing regularly. Plus remember that you need more socks in the winter than you do in the summer (I haven't needed a pair of socks in weeks, because it's been sandals weather), so I'd send more at Christmas.

Trust me, college students, particularly boys, won't think twice about wearing socks twice! Your friend was also right about the sheets - a guy I knew in my first year of university changed his bed TWICE during the entire year. That's an extreme case, but many students change them only a couple of times between beginning college and Christmas.

DS will be a Senior in College this Fall. His first year at the dorm he changed his sheets every week and pillowcase EVERY night. I'm not kidding he has to have a fresh pillowcase (I wonder who he gets that from?) We are freaky like that in my family.
His roomates couldn't believe it but they got used to it. We just can't sleep without a clean case. LOL Nothing like a fresh smelling pillowcase. Anyone else do this or are we weird?

 

[Lynn CC]

ok this is what I've bought so far from memory. I've been shopping sales for a couple of months. Actually, every time I buy something and I go to stick it in his closet I see something and I think "oh yeah, I forgot I already bought that." My son is in a single bedroom 9 x 13. It connects to a bathroom that he shares with one other student. Then those two rooms share a small common area with another set of two rooms.

So - his Grandma got him a trunk that doubles as a coffee table
http://www.cnmfg.com/college/

Target had XL sheets on sale last weekend. We got those and a mattress pad and a couple of new pillows. He still needs blankets. I keep asking him about posters and such, I get blank stares in return.

I've stocked up on shampoo, hair gel, toothpaste, deodorant, and a pack of new toothbrushes. He also got his own bottle of Tide last week. He needs some sort of laundry bag. I also need to get him some quarters because his dorm laundry doesn't take the swipe cards yet. I'm unclear about a shower caddy. The bathroom has a vanity and he only shares with one person. I think he'll just keep everything in the bathroom.

A couple of power strips.

His dorm is wired, but not wireless. I bought him a wireless router so he can take his laptop to his bed. The IT guy at college said it really wasn't needed because so many kids bring them and they never lock them down - you can always find an available connection in the dorms - but what the heck.

an ethernet cable just in case the router thing doesn't work out. I also got him a new USB flash drive. I decided against a printer. He can go to the labs to print or buy it himself.

A desk lamp. I think he needs some more desk stuff - a stapler, some sort of bookends organization stuff. I don't know know who I'm kidding, the books, papers and laundry will end up all over the floor, same as always.

I got an area rug from Home Depot. I got an indoor/outdoor rug that is washable.

I've bought 3 pairs of flip flops so far. I hope he wears them. Dorm floors are icky.

I think he's going to buy his own tv. I keep asking him but he doesn't seem that interested. Really, he doesn't watch much tv, so maybe he doesn't want one. When we did the tour most of the kids had tvs out in their lounge areas, maybe they'll split the cost for that.

As for risers, he has to use the type the school provides, you can't buy your own.

He'll need a couple of mugs and some silverware, also a supply of herbal tea. He is way too much of environmentalist to even suggest disposable. This will be interesting to watch. He has a refrigerator in his room, but the closest microwave is 2 floors away. He is not allowed to bring his own. The kid lives on herbal tea - I'm wondering how often he'll be willing to make that trek to fix it though. I need to order a bunch of protein bars etc. Those are commonly his 2am snack.

I've started to buy pens and notebooks etc. as the sales have started. He needs a new backpack. His HS calculator will be fine - I can pretty much guarantee he'll take as little Math as possible. He wants to take his bicycle down there. I'm undecided about that. His campus is not that big and it will be useless come the first snowfall anyway. Oh yeah, I think he needs and umbrella. Do kids use umbrellas?

I bought him a new swimming suit last weekend. His dorm is right next to the Aquatic center and they have intramural water polo. I'm not sure how that will go - he's never played water polo in his life. But he seems pretty gung ho about it.

I need to get the Amtrak schedules printed out with all the ways to come home and visit Mom highlighted.

You may want to check with the computing dept. DS's ethernet cable had to be a CAT 5

Don't forget the flashlight in case the power goes out! DS and his roomates were relieved when DS had his with the camping lamp.

 

[BriarfoxinWA]

We checked in the university bookstore for the required textbooks - they had three of them and the fourth I managed to get the IBSN number and look it up. The other three they had used ones for sale pretty reasonably priced so I bought them there. Still looking for the fourth one.

 

[ColoradoBuffaloMom]

Sounds like our situation only DD is a bit farther away and starting sophomore year. We did the same thing, encouraged her to stay around campus esp in the beginning when things are forming and whatnot so she would not miss out on anything she was interested in and "feel funny" about joing things already started. It worked out well although I did miss her so much butthen she would call or text about doing something fun, meeting new people and I was so happy for her! I hope she does the same thing this year

Thanks for the encouragement. I know it's best if she stays around campus a few weekends a month but I know I'll be missing her so much. I keep reminding myself that if she is having fun (the good kind ), then it is a good thing, right?

 

[MerryPoppins]

Hang onto the receipts for textbooks. Several times DS has gone to the first day of class and had the prof. say he/she didn't want a book. I don't know how they get the wrong books on the list, but they sometimes do. Once it was a bunch of plays that they weren't even going to cover in class, so we returned them. If you have the receipt you can usually take the book back within the first week or so, at least from the college bookstores.

 

[aprilvaca04]

Thanks for the encouragement. I know it's best if she stays around campus a few weekends a month but I know I'll be missing her so much. I keep reminding myself that if she is having fun (the good kind ), then it is a good thing, right?

Oh believe me you will be missing her but it's the whole process of letting go...so I'm told. While I had always imagined I would be just sobbing as we drove away from dropping her off that didn't happen. I found it was those moments that randomly just hit me where I just missed her so I would open her bedroom door at night to stick my head in to say love you and good night and it was empty that killed me. I really lost it when my DH was sitting at the dinner table after she had been gone about 3 weeks and said...I knew I was gonna miss her but I never knew how hard this was gonna be...he's my rock so when it got to him But we did all survive and she did have a great year and is looking forward to going back. Just hang in there...it is a good thing and as far as the good kind of fun...one can only hope I really keep trying to remind myself that she is a pretty level headed person and has made good choices in the past and hopefully that won't change.

 

[Kath2003]

I cannot believe how many text books you guys are supposed to buy and how much they cost. I bought 9 books over my three year degree, spending less than $300 in total. For my Masters, I never bought a single book. For my teaching qualification, I bought one $40 book.

Seems to me that the guys you pay in tuition fees (the maximum a university can charge here for tuition fees is $9,000 a year, but that's recent - when I started, it was a maximum of $2,000 a year in tuition) is enough without getting incredibly ripped off for text books on top of that!

 

[MerryPoppins]

The textbooks are crazy expensive! DH says he thinks it won't be many more years before all textbooks will either be online or in a handheld reading device. That'd be cool. They wouldn't have all those books to haul around.

I had a hard time those first few weeks. What I missed most was my DS still came to tell me goodnight every night and kissed me on the cheek and said "Love you, Mom". In fact, he often still does that when he's home. He'll never know how much those simple words and little peck helped keep me from wanting to pinch his head off when we went through teenage trials.

 

[Kath2003]

The textbooks are crazy expensive! DH says he thinks it won't be many more years before all textbooks will either be online or in a handheld reading device. That'd be cool. They wouldn't have all those books to haul around.

We don't use text books, we tend to use academic journal research articles, all of which are online. The university pays a subscription fee which allows all their students to access them free of charge. They don't use text books because they take too long to be printed and get onto the shelves, they're practically outdated by the time they reach the bookshops - the journal articles are more recent and therefore more relevant.

 

[Galahad]

Our youngest starts college in a couple of weeks. We'll miss him in the house but mostly we're just jealous. I hope he savors every moment of college!!!

 

[mamacatnv]

Our youngest starts college in a couple of weeks. We'll miss him in the house but mostly we're just jealous. I hope he savors every moment of college!!!

I get that jealous thing I say the same thing. I never had the opportunity to go live in a dorm and immerse myself in the college experience. I keep telling DS I want to go with him

 

[Green Tea]

I talked to our insurance agency regarding coverage while he is away. In our case, as long as he is a dependent all the stays the same with the car insurance. No upping the coverage b/c of a different rating for that city. And, 10% of our coverage on homeowners carries over to his dorm furnishings. All covered, but I might increase the upper limit on our umbrella policy for liability since he will be driving in such a different environment from what he currently knows.

 

[madge]

I talked to our insurance agency regarding coverage while he is away. In our case, as long as he is a dependent all the stays the same with the car insurance. No upping the coverage b/c of a different rating for that city. And, 10% of our coverage on homeowners carries over to his dorm furnishings. All covered, but I might increase the upper limit on our umbrella policy for liability since he will be driving in such a different environment from what he currently knows.

oh. now that's one thing I didn't think of. We're adding laptop, ipod, etc. to the mix ... it might not be a bad idea to look into that coverage. thanks for bringing that up!

 

[mamacatnv]

oh. now that's one thing I didn't think of. We're adding laptop, ipod, etc. to the mix ... it might not be a bad idea to look into that coverage. thanks for bringing that up!

Good point! Dialing back agent......she is gonna get tired of hearing from me! Yesterday I was bugging her about some sort of rider for borrowing a wave runner from a friend.

 

[DVCLiz]

The textbooks are crazy expensive! DH says he thinks it won't be many more years before all textbooks will either be online or in a handheld reading device. That'd be cool. They wouldn't have all those books to haul around.

I have had a Kindle - Amazon's new electronic reading device - for about 6 weeks, and I am seeing lots of chat about textbooks in the Amazon forums. I think it will be a few years but agree that in the future most books will be downloaded instead of purchased in paper form. The issue of a black and white only technology and the problems formatting images will keep really image heavy books in print, but for straight text the Kindle (or another ebook reader) will be the way to go.

My DD14 is beginning high school this year, and her school requires students to buy their textbooks, so I will have not only college textbooks to buy, but high school ones as well. I am going to check this week to see if DD14's English books are available in Kindle format, and download them for her if they are. I would rather pay the Kindle price (usually much cheaper) and not have the books themselves to deal with. We'll see how it works for her - I will buy the paper version, too, if she finds she needs it.

DD19 will be a junior in college this year - she visited her school's town a few weeks ago for a campus event and was able to get a booklist for a couple of her lit classes. We bought them at Barnes & Noble - I don't know how much, if any, of a price savings there was, but she's been able to read one before classes start and I hope she will read some of the others as weell - it will make her semester so much easier!!!

Another professor sent a list yesterday - in her email she said most reading would be online and there were only four textbooks needed. She sent us ISBN numbers and I ordered them from Amazon yesterday - $90.87 for the four, including shipping. DD19 could have downloaded almost all of her lit books on the Kindle but she will probably stick with print books for her college years and we will wait for a new upgrade before we buy a second Kindle. It's great technology, though!!

 

[Amy]

Here's one for the "are we giving him the right advice" column:

DS18 took a lot of AP courses in high school. We were notified a couple of weeks ago that he qualified for 14 college credits, which is great. However, he's an engineering major, and the only AP class that he could apply in college is Calculus I (4 credits); the other AP credits would have to go for electives (2 music electives, 1 history, and one I can't remember right now).

The registrar e-mailed everyone who got AP credits to check their schedules and see what they wanted to change. We initially told DS to see if he could take Spanish I in place of Calc I - he's had 5 years of Latin, but Spanish would be more useful in the real world. (And foreign language isn't required for engineering majors for some reason.) Well, the Spanish I classes are full, so the registrar recommended that he go right into Calc II.

DH then suggested that DS auditCalc I this fall. His reasoning: HS Calculus is diff. than college Calc; reinforcing what he learned in HS; and staying abreast with the rest of the college freshmen engineering majors. (He didn't say, but I think another reason is that DH made the comments months ago that healmost failed Calculus in college.)

I'm kind of iffy on this one. I understand that engineering demands a good, solid base in math, so auditing Calc I would be a good review and pick up on anything HS Calc didn't cover. But I thought the whole idea of taking AP courses in HS was to avoid having to repeat the classes again in college? I know kids tend to forget a lot over the summer, so DS is looking at this as a way to review and since he's already got the credits for the class there won't be any pressure. (DS is a very disciplined kid - sometimes TOO disciplined - and I know he won't blow off the class because it's an audit; he'll go to class and take all the tests and beat himself up if he gets a B. )

But I'm also thinking further down the road...use his AP credits and maybe have enough credits to graduate early and get a jump on the job market. Then again, he'll have a lot of adjustments to make with going off to college, so maybe auditing Calc I will be a low-stress way to ease his way.

But some part of me is seeing it as a waste of time.....he already earned the credits, why bother auditing the class? Would he be bored? Then again, jumping into Calc II as a freshman might be a lot of stress, and DS tends to put a lot of pressure on himself to be perfect, etc., so maybe auditing would be the best choice as a freshman.

What to do, what to do......

DS e-mailed the registrar last night asking about the possibility of auditing Calc I; we'll see what he says. Maybe the decision will be taken out of our hands (I can only hope).

 

[luvflorida]

Maybe I'm just in a funk this morning, but reading this thread is making me really sad and nervous. There just seems to be so much pressure to get everything right- to send the right stuff with your child, to make sure they're going to eat the right foods, to get all the right books, and so on and so on...

I know this is all necessary and part of the college experience, but the closer it gets to actually taking our daughter to her dorm, the more I find myself dragging my feet and thinking it's just happening all too fast.

I'm sure a huge part of it is the fear that my daughter is really not ready to move in this new direction. She is young, not all that independent, and hasn't really spent much time away from home. She seems excited enough, and seems to want to move into the dorm and start college, but she's also been known to back out of new situations due to some anxiety and sensitivity issues.

I am keeping most of my own anxiety to myself and I am encouraging her and I want SO MUCH for her to go off and have a positive experience. However, I find myself thinking that it would not have been a bad idea for her to take a year off between high school and college, and have the time to gain more maturity and independence.

Sorry for the 'Debbie Downer' post, but I just thought this would be a good place to get it all out.

 

[Amy]

Maybe I'm just in a funk this morning, but reading this thread is making me really sad and nervous. There just seems to be so much pressure to get everything right- to send the right stuff with your child, to make sure they're going to eat the right foods, to get all the right books, and so on and so on...

Sorry for the 'Debbie Downer' post, but I just thought this would be a good place to get it all out.

Oh, I know just what you mean! The parents got a letter this week from some "gift package" company - for only $72 you can arrange for your college student to get 3 gift baskets/packages delivered to his/her dorm room: (1) a "move in" package with a bunch of snacks, coffee mug, etc. (2) a Valentine's Day package (chocolates and balloons) and (3) a discount card good at some of the businesses around campus. Well, DS is allergic to nuts, and looking at the list of goodies included in the baskets, he could only eat 1/4 of it (and none of the Valentine's stuff). We'd probably be better off making up our own gift baskets and shipping them to him. But we're going to get these anyway. Why? Because we don't want to hear "all the other kids got one" and have him feeling left out. Plus, we hope that in giving away the goodies that he can't eat he'll make some new friends. I'll probably still send small care packages anyway.

I think all of this is part of the "fear of the unknown" whenever we face something new, esp. with your first child to go off to college. You want him/her to fit in with everyone else, not feel left out, etc. so you're always second-guessing yourself. Then when it's time to send your younger children off, you're more familiar and sure of yourself.

Isn't that what "they" say - that your first child is the child you learn with!

 

[luvflorida]

I think all of this is part of the "fear of the unknown" whenever we face something new, esp. with your first child to go off to college. You want him/her to fit in with everyone else, not feel left out, etc. so you're always second-guessing yourself. Then when it's time to send your younger children off, you're more familiar and sure of yourself.

Well, believe it or not, this is our THIRD child going off to college and I STILL find myself second-guessing everything. She is our youngest. Her sister and brother are 24 and 27, so it's been awhile since we've sent a child off to college.

Our oldest commuted to the local university, so that wasn't a huge adjustment, and he was on the six year plan after changing majors more than once. Our middle child went to college about an hour away from home, and yes, I cried and cried! But, I knew she would be just fine. She's always been our independent, social, easy-going child. She's always known what she wants out of life, and she's not shy about going after it.

I'm finding it extremely hard to let go of my youngest. She is our baby and last child to leave, and she has a sensitive nature that can get the best of her at times.

My new mantra has become- "one day at a time...one day at a time..."

I'm just a little sad today, but I know we will all get through this.

 

[mermaidlady]

We are off to the college this morning. DD has her nursing orientation. I asked her yesterday if she wanted me to go with and she was waffling about it. Today I asked her and it turns out she wants me to go because she is afraid of getting lost but she worried if I went I would be bored waiting for her. We are leaving in about 1/2 hr and will also check into getting some books.

Last Sunday we went to the container store because they had a college night. It was madness there, reminded me of the running of the brides at Filene's. We got a few things and were out in 25 min. The store was very organized and had lots of employees there to help.

Amy, we also got the gift package thing but ours was $95. It included a halloween package as well as the move-in and valentine package. We haven't decided if we will do it or not. The letter said about 50% of the kids on our campus get them so she shouldn't feel bad if we decide not to get it.

I worry about DD going. She is a good kid but seems so anti-social at times She has talked to her roommates but only if they call. She is nervous about calling them. She has never had to share her room but now will need to share with 2 other girls. What if she doesn't get along. I know she can be stubborn and not willing to compromise even if she is wrong. I know she will have to be the one to work this out but it still makes me anxious for her.