Our eldest DS just finished his first year of college. That in and of itself isn't a brag. Anyone who has had a GT child who breezed through HS knows that the real challenge comes when they hit college and that challenge isn't even to their intellect, it's about everything else involved.
DS carried aprox. 36 college credits from HS to college, which meant he's pretty much fulfilled all of his liberal arts requirements and a half dozen credit hours for his Physics Major as well. Needless to say, there was no period to ease into college, first semester consisted of Calc II, Physics I for Engineers, Chem. I, and a Presidential Honors course. WHAM! Axe between the eyes! In addition of course was becoming accustomed to living with someone new, eating habit changes, time management, focus when there are so many distractions, new people, new bed, etc. etc.
Well, the first semester was indeed a challenge, somewhat from the rigor but mostly because of everything else. The requirements for the his Physics Scholarship and in particular Presidential Scholarship that he was blessed with are pretty demanding for GPA.
My DS and I sat down over lunch during his winter break after the first semester. He was pretty discouraged and disappointed, questioning his ability to meet his own expectations in college. From his years in club soccer he learned after each practice or game to analyse his performance taking the emotion out of it. I had him write down everything he thought he did right and everything he thought he'd done wrong during the first semester. We talked about elimination of distractions (texting, social media, gaming, etc.) how to deal with a roomy that is less than cooperative, dealing with professors and their vastly different styles of teaching, and a host of other issues. I asked my son to keep that list of what he did right and what he did wrong and look at it every day.
This last semester was a completely different story. Going into finals week he practically had to fail any final he had not to get the desired grades he was after. He disciplined himself, managed his time well, got away from distractions, was a leader in group projects, didn't procrastinate, and even found time to train at the gym 5 times a week. I'm exceedingly proud of the life skills he's applied this semester which have secured him continuation of both his Physics and Presidential Scholarships for next year!
Last edited by Old Dad; 05/09/13 09:44 AM.
