Jump to content

Menu

Is this too much?


Recommended Posts

My 14 year old (almost 15) will be doing early community college.  I have a lot of trouble gauging her abilities sine she is a drama queen, a different personality type (she's INFP and I am ESTJ) and she just doesn't "come off" as the responsible type.

However, by some internal drive and miracle, when presented with a given challenge of HER choosing, she always, and I mean always rises to the occasion.  If it's someone else's idea, well....maybe she will fulfill the obligations but at a minimum.

This year she has absolutely excelled at all her co-op classes, given such praise as the deepest thinker one teacher has had in over ten years of teaching.  All A's and has taken her time to self -study, and organized all her own work.  In one month, she will have full completed three full high school levels of math in 14 months...

She and her dad came up with the plan for her to start community college this coming fall rather than waiting a year as I had planned.  She blew the assessment out of the water and she feels like she is ready.  

She is currently signed up for 3 classes and I am worried it's too much.  Freshman English, History and Science.  It's not so much that I am concerned about the actual content, although I know the boring reading will be hard with the Science, as it's a LOT of text in a very short time span. It's more that, she is such a drama queen and gets very upset when faced with certain issues, specifically in the areas of dealing with technology and teacher-student problems or personality conflicts. I chose all her profs as carefully as I could through Rate my Professor. And, her brother is around to help with technology. But, she gets completely flummoxed when a website doesn't perform similar to what she's used to, or if she has to look something up on her phone, etc. etc.  

I don't know...I am just wondering if I should drop that 3rd class to ease her transition a little...but she does NOT want to drop it.  

WWYD?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At my son's CC, there is a generous refund policy of 100% tuition for any course dropped within the add/drop period, which at his school is the first two weeks.  You might want to check into that, if your DD is determined to do all three.  If they have a similar policy, there is no harm in her trying it out for the first few weeks to see how it goes.  The only problem you could run into is if any of the courses use digital textbooks, because once the code is activated for the text you cannot get a refund.

Also, my DD at 16 signed up for a course at our local CC.  During the first week, she was a bit overwhelmed, wondering if she could do it.  I suggested she talk to the professor.  He was so encouraging about her ability to handle it that she stuck with it.  By the second week, she was enjoying herself immensely and it turned out to be a wonderful experience.  So, if your DD does try it, I would l encourage her to stick it out until the end of the add/drop to really give her enough time to get comfortable with the expectations of three college courses.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes that's true, we have a generous add/drop with refund policy as well.  I believe it is two weeks and then two days.  So you can take two full weeks of classes and then have the weekend to decide before dropping.  I'll let her do that, but I like your advice to take the full drop period so she can get the best feel for it possible before dropping.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have always been able to start with a trial period for access codes, usually two weeks. You do this directly from the site, not using a code. However, I do think the first couple of weeks can be deceiving as to workload and difficulty. 

As a homeschooler, you do have the advantage of being able to adjust the rest of her workload. I'd go in prepared to do that. I did not let my kids start with 3 classes, and they were juniors (albeit at the main campus of a mid-sized university, not CC). Because that GPA is forever, and I thought it would be too stressful. You've already let her sign up for them, though, so I'd probably not change gears now.

Part of how heavy the load is relates to things other than the actual classes. How far is the commute? How many days per week is she gone? My youngest did 4 classes at the uni in fall of 12th-grade. The workload itself was not awful, but unfortunately the schedule was such that she was on campus 4 full days a week, and the commute was pretty long, so once things got going, that's pretty much all she did that semester. Which was fine, it was 4 college classes, but fewer/shorter days on campus would have made things much easier. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...