Your Off-to-College Stories

[Granny_Weatherwax]

With all of this talk about orientation and going off to school, I thought  it might be nice to hear stories (good and bad) about our experiences.  If anyone cares to share, that is.

 

Here's my story:

 

As stated in another thread, I was first gen and going to school far away from home to a college I had only seen in the brochures (this was in the late 80's and there was no internet access at that time).  I was 100% responsible for everything (applying, travel arrangements, etc) and thought I had it figured out.  I bought my plane ticket from the local airport and flew into Boston.  At that time luggage was included in the cost of the ticket and I had my dad's military trunk, two suitcases, tennis gear, and a backpack.  The Peter Pan bus system was supposed to have a bus that left Logan and would take me west to the college campus.  I had timed my flight so I would have had plenty of time to catch the afternoon bus to Springfield and a connecting bus to South Hadley.  However, due to a malfunction the Logan bus was late getting to Springfield and I missed the connection.  It was late evening and there were no other buses to SH;I had all of $300 cash and no way to get to the campus. I asked a man who had ridden on the bus with me what I should do.  He told me he would help me out.  He called a cab and took me to a motel along the strip.  He made sure a room was available(it took $40 of my meager funds), paid the cab driver and helped me carry all of my luggage into the room.  The room was something else - holes in the door, stains on the carpet (flashbulb memory won't allow me to forget).  Luckily, he was a decent fellow and he took me to get a sandwich and made sure I was going to be okay before he left.  As soon as he departed, I shoved my trunk and suitcases against the door and sat on the chair and cried.  I didn't get a wink of sleep because this hotel was THE place to go for hookers.  All night long, I was treated to sounds of the nocturnal activities of the denizens of Springfield, MA.  In the morning, the clerk called a cab for me, and I hauled my luggage to the curb; I couldn't stay in that room another minute.  As I was standing there waiting, the woman in the next room came out(smoking cigarettes, wearing a bathrobe, and wearing smudged makeup and bright red lipstick), began playing with my hair and telling me that if I wanted to get anywhere in the business I was going to have to learn to take better care of myself.  She offered me a pink barrette and said it would be a start.

 

By the time I made it to the bus station, purchased a new ticket, and was safely aboard the bus and on my way to the college, I was emotionally exhausted.  The bus dropped me off by the front gate (the driver was not happy about having to help me unload my trunk and kind of just dumped it on the curb) and I thought my problems were over.  My dorm, however, was on the opposite side of campus and I was left to make multiple trips to get my luggage and trunk across campus.  As soon as I got everything to the dorm, I was met at the bottom of the stairs by the dorm committee and told I had to pay $200 dorm dues before I could go to my room.  I handed over what precious cash I had left and hauled everything up multiple flights of stairs as that dorm did not have an elevator at that time. 

 

When I got to the room, my roommate was already there (with her mother, father, and brother) and had already selected and decorated her half of the room because I was late and they didn't want to wait until I arrived.  I had no choice or say in anything except to make lame excuses to their multiple questions which included queries as to why I was alone.  While they went to the parent activities, I went off to find the financial aid representative so I could get on campus employment right away to start earning some money since I was completely broke after paying my dorm dues.

 

I survived and became quite adept at planning travel to and from CO to MA but I swore nothing like this would ever happen to my children.

 

[AK_Mom4]

Boy, Scouter, What a Trip!

 

Mine was much less drama.  I was traveling a long way, so I went with just one suitcase and a backpack.   Apparently, many of the girls on our floor knew each other in advance and there was a lot of roommate-switching at first.  I was assigned to a three-man room that apparently was highly desirable because we had our own sink in the room.  I think I had 6 different roommates in the first three weeks as those girls seemed to shuffle rooms every few days.  I never knew who would have moved in when I got back from class.

 

Finally, the other oddball on the floor ended up as my roommate and the two of use had this huge room to ourselves.  She was a fabulous roommate - read books all the time, went to classes every day and never borrowed ANYTHING.  Oh, and her older brother was in one of the service fraternities so we got to go to all thee fun events on campus for free.

[Little Nyssa]

First back up a generation...

When my Dad went to college his Mom embarrassed him in front of his new roommates by going shopping for him and festooning the windows with curtains, and decorating everything, etc.

So Dad swore he would never do that to his kids. So, they drove me there, put my suitcase in the room, and left.

 

I was absolutely terrified and had no idea what to do. That evening while all the other kids seemed to be running around campus having a great time getting to know each other, I stayed in my room.

So... I swore never to do that to my kids!! Somehow there has to be a happy medium.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

My parents dropped me off. It was a rough parting as my dad was not himself. It turned out that he had a brain tumor and had surgery later In the semester. Back then, it was hard to communicate as there was just one pay phone in the lowest floor hallway, so some stress as news was slow. My roommate was a rather rigid transfer student that studied constantly,from 6 a.m. to midnight. I did not get much sleep due to her schedule.

 

I am so sorry to hear about your dad.  I hope he recovered. :grouphug:

[Jenny in Florida]

Let's see:

 

I don't remember my parents being involved in any of my "first days," but my college journey was a bit windy. I started at the community college when I was 16. I wasn't dual enrolled, though. I was officially considered graduated. So, neither my parents nor my previous high school needed to be involved in the process. I drove myself to campus and went to class. Next on the path was the private university. I'm not sure either of my parents set foot there in the year I attended. (Edit: No, that's not true. They did attend a ceremony when I won a writing award.) Then I spent a couple of years at the big state university campus. 

 

I did live at home, which may make a difference. And I didn't participate in any performance or sports things that welcomed audiences or spectators. I finished my degree mid-year, and there was no graduation ceremony available. Then, by the time the regular one in the spring rolled around, I was already employed and busy living my life and wasn't interested. 

 

My kids have had experiences quite different from mine. My daughter attended a residential early entrance program beginning at age 12. My husband (who has a bad back and hates to travel) stayed home with our son while I drove her from Florida to Virginia, and we made a couple of side trips along the way. Orientation and move-in was a two-day affair. Actual move-in was much of the first day, and most of the parents were there to help set up rooms and make last-minute shopping runs. There were a couple of info sessions that afternoon and a dinner with faculty that evening. The early entrance kids participated in some of the regular orientation stuff but also had a few of their own sessions. Parents had our own sessions. Day two, as I recall, was really just the morning. We did a continental breakfast in the dorm, a couple more fairly information meet-and-greets, had an opportunity to take photos of the entering class, then were kindly but firmly ushered off campus. 

 

I made the 13-hour drive home by myself, which had the advantage of giving me time to cry a bit and process a bit before I got home and had to get back into mommy-mode for my son.

 

When our son started college last fall, I wanted to make sure he didn't feel in any way slighted because we didn't do the whole orientation thing. Also, while my husband had not been able to attend the orientation for our daughter, our son is going to school only 90 minutes away from home, making that trip a whole lot more feasible for him. Our son is our second and last kiddo to go off to college, and I didn't want to leave anything to regret. So, I insisted we do the full program. It actually turned out to be both interesting (not all of it, but enough) and helpful. His school does parent orientation at a hotel near the campus. As with our daughter, day one is mostly actual dorm move-in, followed by dinner in the dining hall. Then the students go off to get-acquainted events that evening, while the parents head to the hotel for a reception with faculty and a chance to meet the students' advisers. On day two, students and parents had separate sessions much of the day, then an opportunity to touch base one more time before parents left. 

 

 

[mathwonk]

Here's an off to college story i heard yesterday, and although its biographical facts conflict slightly with what is written on the web about the subject, it was told by one of his close friends and collaborators (Benedict Gross), so may be true.  The math prodigy Don Zagier graduated high school at 13 and wanted to go to Oxford, so applied and was accepted until they learned his age, and told him one had to be 16 to go to Oxford.  Disappointed he went instead to MIT, graduated at 15, and then went to Oxford as a grad student, since grad school admission there had no age limitation!

 

All I recall about my own trip to college, taken by train alone at 17, was that when an elderly lady passenger learned I was attending a prestigious ivy league school, she immediately introduced me to her apparently eligible granddaughter.

[Mom22ns]

I really don't remember much about going off to college. It was 4 hours from home and my mom took me I think. She helped me move in my stuff and left. There was no orientation. There was nothing for parents to do. My most vivid memory is that my room mate and I couldn't find the entrance to the dining hall and felt like idiots. Our room was actually very close to the back door, but not the entrance and you had to leave the building and come back in to get there, but we didn't know that. We ate soup in our room and I was homesick. By the next day our suite mates were there and one was an upper classman. She showed us around and all was well. Classes started and I loved every minute of the next 4 years. 

 

That was my parent's only trip to the town where I went to college until I graduated and got married on the same day 4 years later.

 

I do expect move in to be different with ds. I know they have a program for parents and 2 days of orientation for the kids. Ds will be less than an hour away and will have his car and cell phone with him. We'll go help him unload and get out of there as quick as the school will allow in order to not embarrass him. I will probably text later to check-in. I agree cell phones make it a very different experience. Communicating with home was challenging when I was in college.

[Catherine]

I'll tell you my dh's story first-he was an ambitious first gen college student who attended an Ivy sight unseen, as he lived in Florida at the time.  So he basically took a very long bus trip from home to school with what he could carry in his 2 hands.  I think the trip itself came off reasonably well though i don't think he slept much on the bus.  He too was chronically broke during that time and worked various crappy jobs to make ends meet.  

 

I attended a LAC that was only 30 minutes from home.  My parents did bring me to school and help me move in.  I had already communicated with both roommates and we were able to meet briefly that day.  I lucked out in the roommate department and we got along very well, though ran in different social circles.  What I remember most was noticing immediately that my parents were silent and intimidated by the confident (and rich, to them) people all around me-and it was the beginning of my uncomfortable transition into the middle class. 

 

When my only college student thus far went to school, we did attend an orientation one day and I do recall that the school very kindly offered a"young siblings" orientation for sibs less than 12, so little ds, who had just turned 10 at the time, got to spend part of a morning playing in the quad, eating ice cream and doing crafts with some sweet college kids while we attended 2 hours of parent orientations.  I also clearly remember arriving at ds's triple and being stunned at how tiny it was.  Really, it was so small that pulling the desk chair out far enough to sit down was impossible.  They were able to "loft" the beds to give them a little more room, and in the end he spent little time there, only going back at night to sleep.

[TravelingChris]

I went away to school in the early 80's.  My mom and my godmother drove me to Union Station in DC and saw me off on the train.  It was an overnight train and I did have a bunk.  I got to the large train station in the city and managed to get my belongings to a porter and then to a taxi.  Orientation was fun but I don't remember that much of it except I do know I watched High Noon and attended a discussion about it.  It was very exciting to be in a new city by myself and I was super happy to be at college.

[J-rap]

Oh my!  Scoutermom, that was a crazy story!  I hope things went smoothly after that. 

 

My story is pretty boring.  My family was moving to a new state, as my dad had recently lost his job and they decided to move closer to their original home, halfway across the country.  So, I decided to transfer to college in the new state.  This still felt like my first real college though, because I had been attending a local community college and living at home before then.  The college I was going to was about two hours from the metro area my family was moving to.  We drove into the new state that morning after driving halfway across the country, and went directly to the college.  I had never seen it before.  My parents helped me move in.  There was no parent orientation in those days. We probably had lunch together, and then they left.  It was very exciting! 

 

The next day we transfer students each had to meet with an adviser and register.  I still remember the look on their faces when they asked me where my parents worked (for their financial records), and I told them neither of them presently worked.  I guess they weren't so careful about knowing all of that ahead of time back then.  But it all worked out.

 

Our son was our first child to go off to college, and was moving to NYC.  He packed up two suitcases and we got him a flight reservation with award points.  My father gave him cash to take a taxi from the airport to his boarding house.  He had never been to the school or the boarding house, and barely knew the city.  He figured it all out on his own.  We weren't in a position then where we could go with him and help him feel settled and oriented.  But, he had spent the previous year traveling in Europe alone, so he was already very independent.

[FaithManor]

I was sixteen and half, my little sister was 3. So mom stayed home with her, dad drove me to campus, carried my things to my room, hooked up the dorm fridge he had purchased, walked with me to the registrar's office to get my book list, and stood in line with me at the bookstore in order to purchase my books. Then he kissed me on the cheek and drove away. It took about 3 hours. Nothing emotional as far as I know. I was very ready for it, and my older brother was married so they had already gone through having a child move away. Maybe mom was teary at home.

 

It was uneventful. I spent a few minutes talking to my roommate, and then headed to the practice rooms. Performance majors tend to be rather narrow focused, LOL! That was my life, go to class, go to the practice room, go to lessons, go to performance groups, and if there is any time left over try to sleep or eat. It was not the experience that many other students were having!

 

DD commuted from aunt's house so very different.

 

So, we haven't done the drop at the dorms thing yet.

[EKS]

My parents drove me with my stuff to school and they helped me get it to my dorm room.  I think after that we went out to lunch in town, and then they left.  My room was a triple and my two roommates' went to dinner with their respective parents.  I was fortunate in that a childhood friend was living in the same dorm and so we went to the dining hall together for dinner.

 

My roommates and I hit it off that first evening, and we were inseparable for the next four years.

[mathwonk]

now its coming back.  one of my dormmates had an electric guitar and he said since I was from Nashville, I should sing, so I belted out "Money" by Barrett Strong, and the party went on for much longer than appreciated by the rest of the dorm members.

[FaithManor]

Okay, so I said we haven't done "drop at the dorms" yet. BUT, we did leave P at Michigan Tech U Sunday morning for aquatic ecology research camp. He checked himself in while we waited, got his student ID, signed the behavior/rules/conditions statement after carefully reading it, and marched out to the elevator in Wadsworth Hall. We caught up to him and asked if he would like us to help him carry his things up - he had a duffle bag, waders, pillow, sleeping bag, and backpack/day bag for the hikes. Nope. I got the barely existent "boy humors mother just barely but dad is out to lunch" side hug, and he was OFF. I don't think he could ditch us fast enough! :lol:

 

And it felt a little surreal. We needed to drive home due to his sister having another health crisis so there was the possibility that I would need to head to New York. (PTL, she is okay. It was a scare, but turned out to be nothing serious at all! WHEW!) Home is 9 hours away, across the Mackinac Bridge so if he were injured or something, we would not be able to get there with any speed at all. (Oh, we could get a puddle jumper flight from Detroit to Chicago to the Keeweenaw single strip, single hanger airport that would cost $450.00 one way per person!!!!!!! and with the 5 hour layover in O'Hare, the 3 hour drive to Detroit, and another stop in some small place in Wisconsin take 10 hours to get there.....) So I can say that my mommy heart did a tiny flip-flop. But, then it was over, and all okay.

 

This is the same kid we allow to free range the woods around here with a granola bar, first aid kit, water bottle, compass, and walkie talkie, and the same one that we let free range some in Reykjavik, Iceland last year so there isn't any reason to believe he won't be fine. I think that it was just harder in that moment to admit that we were going to be a long way from him while emotionally feeling that same 9 hour drive distance from DD as she was going through such a hard time. It was like being on the rack, pulled in two separate directions.

 

Really, I am pretty certain that while it was busy and intensive when they were all little, it was actually easier than now with everyone going their separate ways in many directions and yet feeling like they still need us. I guess I'll be all "practiced up" for fall 2016!

 

My friend T takes her daughter to Northern Michigan in Marquette Aug. 20th. That's 7 hours away and again across the bridge. (The reason this is a big deal because the bridge is closed when winds go above a certain threshold which during the winter can happen quite frequently, and I-75 can pack in so badly with snow in the upper peninsula that college kids can't get home.) She is going alone. I offered to go with her, but she says she is pretty certain she is going to bawl in the car for the first two hours of the drive and doesn't want to embarrass herself. Poor girl. Meanwhile I am pretty certain that her daughter "C" will be champing at the bit to be left.

[elegantlion]

My off to college story has a huge timeline gap.  :lol:

 

I graduated high school in the mid 80s. I graduated at semester because I hated school, 3 friends did the same thing. I applied and was accepted at one school out of state. My older sister had done the whole college thing on her own and I remember my dad being, um, less than happy about having to divulge financial information to the school. Plus, they couldn't help with $, except some spending $. Since I didn't know how to seek help and hated reaching out, I didn't go to school. I wasn't sure I wanted the debt anyway. I know if the Internet had been around, I probably would have found the info I needed and attended somewhere. 

 

I thought I'd find a decent job and work my way up. I got caught in the time just when employers started to want a degree to hire or promote. I topped out at two jobs before ds was born. 

 

One of those jobs I started as a temporary. I was going to attend community college and get a commercial art degree. I filled out aid forms, talked to the financial aid office (who were less than helpful) and was going that route. Then the company I was working for offered me a full-time permanent position. Great pay, excellent benefits (ex was self-employed and we had no insurance). It was an office job. I cried when I make the decision to stay with the job and forego school - doing both wasn't an option. In the end, it was the best decision as a year later I was diagnosed with cancer. They caught it very early. I'd been sick with what I thought was the flu, the only reason I went to the doctor at that time was because I had insurance. 

 

Fast forward several years. Divorce is why I'm in school. When ex and I separated, I knew my option was start retail and try to find an office type job down the road, or go to school and see if I could live off loans. Because I applied so late in the spring, I only got Federal aid and lots of loans. The first year I did online to give ds some stability for homeschooling. It worked pretty well. I must have spent an hour in the bookstore the first time, just looking through books required for other classes. 

 

Year two, I had to be on campus. I was as nervous on the first day of school as when I was a kid. Homeschooling was harder, so we opted to graduate ds a year early. He starts in the fall. I'll start year 3. I'm on a 5 year graduation plan. 

 

Yesterday, we went to IKEA ( :hurray: ). I now have a nice new desk, ds has a new desk, and I'm putting together my first Billy bookcase this morning. We're ready to study. 

[FaithManor]

Elegantlion, You are an inspiration!

[Mom22ns]

Elegantlion,

I'm so proud of you. I've been very impressed with the way you've handled what life has thrown at you the last couple of years and I think it is great that you finally have your off to college story!

[shawthorne44]

I didn't move out of the house until sophomore year, so I never really had the shock of all those changes at once.  In fact, the border area between my high school and state university was lunch places for both groups.  I coasted through high school and then was scared out of my gourd that I'd flunk out.  So, I studied studied studied that first semester.  Which meant, I eased into the college social scene too, which was good for me because i found my peeps first then got social.  

[lamppost]

I was pretty shy and never good with change as a young person, so it was a huge deal for me to move many hundreds of miles away for school and live in a dorm with a bunch of strangers. It wasn't an option to stay home, though, because my divorced and struggling mom had already rented out my room for some extra cash and this school was my best bet since they'd offered me a full scholarship plus room & board.

We made the all-day road trip in our beat-up van: me and my grouchy but distant mother, my kid sister, and my sister's rat. Her rat had been ill and needed to be given medicine several times a day, so my sister didn't feel good about leaving it home with the friend who was pet-sitting her other rats. I was already pretty displeased about sharing a vehicle with a rodent all day, and when we arrived at my dorm, I was mortified to learn that kid sis wouldn't put the rat down and insisted on carrying it into the room. I made her hide it in a towel and prayed my new roommate wouldn't ask why a middle schooler was snuggling a blankie.

My roommate had already set up and was just going out to dinner with her family when we arrived, so thankfully the rat escaped notice. I went back out to the van to get another load of stuff and was pissed to find upon returning that mom & sis were nowhere to be found. I figured they were off wandering the campus, and with every load I brought up to the room, I got more angry that they weren't there to help me out. Finally I came in to find them sitting on my bed, my sister in tears. They told me she'd discovered that her rat was stiff and cold, apparently having at last expired from his lengthy illness, and they'd spent the last couple hours scouting out a place to bury it (??) on campus. Thankfully, they eventually decided against it (mainly because they had nothing to dig with) and came back to the room.

"So where's the rat?" I asked. 

And they pointed.... to my new roommate's mini-fridge.


Blessedly, for some reason my new roommate decided to spend one more night with her (local) family and didn't end up coming back until the next day, by which time my family had vacated with their dead rat. To this day, she doesn't know.  :leaving:

[Mabelen]

OMG, lamppost! That is so funny! I am sure it was NOT at all funny at the time though!

 

I have no drop off stories to tell. I commuted every single day for five years (back then in Spain B.A. degrees were five years long). The commute involved a bus, the underground and then either another bus or a long walk, fun times!

[FaithManor]

I nominate, "Rat corpse goesto college" as the best yet! Not that it was funny back then, but it is great story now!!!