College kid questions

[TexasHusker]

So my son is going to Oklahoma State in the fall. He is receiving $11K a year in an Achievement Scholarship, and his mother and I will be funding the remainder - about $23K a year. That includes room, meals, tuition, and books.

I told him that he would have to provide for his own "mad money". Eating at places other than his meal plan, gas for his car, snow cones, impressing hot chicks, etc.

After all of his graduation gifts and work this summer, he should easily have $2-3K in the bank. That's plenty for a year's worth of mad money. The question is, should I request that he get a job during school? On one hand, school is darn expensive, and I don't want to have to pay for an extra semester or two at the end because he had to take lighter loads to work a burger-flipping job along the way. I want him taking 15 hours and he has to maintain a 3.0 to keep his scholarship.

On the other hand, work can help kids with time management, etc.

Thoughts on this?

[Singuy]

I think college is enough to teach someone time management when it's a black hole of time sucking distraction with no supervision.

[Like2Plan]

Given your concerns, does it have to be all or nothing? Could you see how the first year goes and then make a decision?u

[creditcardfree]

If you do suggest a job, I would highly suggest limiting the number of hours he can work, simply to minimize the amount of impact it would have on school which should really be the priority.

My oldest daughter got a very small part time job doing graphic design work for the music college on campus. She has a full time teacher as her boss. She makes $10 a hour. On average she works just two hours a week. This is plenty considering she is usually carrying 18 credit hours a semester.

The beauty of the job for her is that as a graphic design major she is getting experience working with a client (the music department), building a portfolio of work, and having to communicate with her boss, as well as meet deadlines.

I do think waiting until second semester to suggest it is a good idea. College is a pretty big transition.

[TexasHusker]

Given your concerns, does it have to be all or nothing? Could you see how the first year goes and then make a decision?u

Good thought.

[TexasHusker]

If you do suggest a job, I would highly suggest limiting the number of hours he can work, simply to minimize the amount of impact it would have on school which should really be the priority.

My oldest daughter got a very small part time job doing graphic design work for the music college on campus. She has a full time teacher as her boss. She makes $10 a hour. On average she works just two hours a week. This is plenty considering she is usually carrying 18 credit hours a semester.

The beauty of the job for her is that as a graphic design major she is getting experience working with a client (the music department), building a portfolio of work, and having to communicate with her boss, as well as meet deadlines.

I do think waiting until second semester to suggest it is a good idea. College is a pretty big transition.

Good thought.

[disneysteve]

Your kid needs to be clear that his A-#1 job IS college. Doing well in college is hard. It take a lot of hard work, focus, and commitment. As Singuy likes to point out, the 5-year graduation rate is an abysmal 53%. You don't want your son to go that route. If a job isn't absolutely necessary financially, I wouldn't push him on it.

If he does get a job, unless it is something super low key like the 2 hours/week CCF mentioned, I would advise not doing so in year one. No matter how smart, friendly, or well-adjusted your kid is, going away to college is a huge life adjustment. It pretty much completely uproots everything that is comfortable and familiar in your kid's life. New home. New surroundings. New people. New food. New responsibilities. Adding a new job to that mix can just make it even more overwhelming.

Some of the brightest people I know totally floundered when they went off to college. Nothing in our first 18 years prepares us for the experience of college even the slightest bit and there's no predicting how each kid will deal with it.

By year two, however, you pretty well know the answer to that question. Your kid will be settled in, know their way around campus and around town, have some friends, have a professor or two they connected with, and looking for a little side job becomes much less stressful. They may even have come across an opportunity in year one. There are a number of on campus jobs that are only open to upperclassmen and they advertise those in the spring for the following school year. Local businesses do the same as they may have students working for them who will be graduating and they are looking to replace them.

Best of luck to your son by they way. As the parent of a kid who just graduated last week, I can tell you there are interesting times ahead.

[TexasHusker]

Your kid needs to be clear that his A-#1 job IS college. Doing well in college is hard. It take a lot of hard work, focus, and commitment. As Singuy likes to point out, the 5-year graduation rate is an abysmal 53%. You don't want your son to go that route. If a job isn't absolutely necessary financially, I wouldn't push him on it.

If he does get a job, unless it is something super low key like the 2 hours/week CCF mentioned, I would advise not doing so in year one. No matter how smart, friendly, or well-adjusted your kid is, going away to college is a huge life adjustment. It pretty much completely uproots everything that is comfortable and familiar in your kid's life. New home. New surroundings. New people. New food. New responsibilities. Adding a new job to that mix can just make it even more overwhelming.

Some of the brightest people I know totally floundered when they went off to college. Nothing in our first 18 years prepares us for the experience of college even the slightest bit and there's no predicting how each kid will deal with it.

By year two, however, you pretty well know the answer to that question. Your kid will be settled in, know their way around campus and around town, have some friends, have a professor or two they connected with, and looking for a little side job becomes much less stressful. They may even have come across an opportunity in year one. There are a number of on campus jobs that are only open to upperclassmen and they advertise those in the spring for the following school year. Local businesses do the same as they may have students working for them who will be graduating and they are looking to replace them.

Best of luck to your son by they way. As the parent of a kid who just graduated last week, I can tell you there are interesting times ahead.

I was hoping the good doctor would weigh in! Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

[snafu]

Our guys [4 years apart] could have almost walked to campus from our home. By the end of 1st semester they were in group housing. Both had weekend jobs in most of high school and we expected them to hold summer jobs making decent money. They knew they each had an investment account to fund 4 years if they were very conservative with spending. They made choices that made DH and I choke! DS #2 ended up borrowing a sum that equalled tuition his final year. Both ended up working intermittent hours at a bank, more or less in their field. DS #2 worked a year after grad, paid off his student loan and returned to school for his Master's with some assistance from his employer.

I've worked as an adjunct and I was discouraged by the high percentage of students who couldn't be bothered to get to my 8 AM class, turn in papers, or turn in something unacceptable from an 8th grader. Faculty were relieved when they dropped out. Most of these kids could have been successful if they had taken two years to work, mature, and learn to manage time and money. They wasted so much effort on drinking, drugs and partying.

[Thrif-t]

I agree with the majority that you should let him get adjusted the first year, it is a big change, and college is a lot of work. Plus what is his major? My girls had 3.7 gpa's in high school; took honors and ap classes.

Fast forward to college, one is an engineering major and the other a nursing major. I didn't think keeping a 3.0 in college would be a big deal for them given how well they did in highschool with the caliber of classes they had. Well IT IS!! Every spring we get anxious waiting on grades, they've both maintained their 3.0 for their scholarships but it can be stressful.

Our nursing major is the only one away at school. She didn't work her first year but this year she got a job as a receptionist at a classical radio station on campus. It's perfect, around 10 hours a week and she can sit and do homework or study as the phone hardly rings. I would recommend looking for a campus job if he does work as they tend to let the kids do homework and work their schedules around their classes.

Good Luck to your son!!

[FLA]

DD attends a state school in our city but lives on campus. For year one, we planned on no job since she got directly into the business school, unusual for a freshman. We also agreed to pretend she lived four hours away, she is not allowed a car on campus. Second semester she felt settled in and because she had taken so many college classes in high school, her second semester was a little less challenging. So she chose to take on a part time job at Barnes and Noble. She's studying abroad second semester next year and wants to have enough to stay there for the summer. School's out now and she's working 40 hrs minimum. Her grades didn't suffer, her friendships and social life didn't suffer and she still takes being in the business school very seriously. In fact, when the local B&N's social media director went on maternity leave, Claire offered her services and they hired her to manage all the local social media while the director is out. So the job will help pad out her resume as she has an interest in marketing. I was leery of Claire working during school but she's a kid who knows herself well and is pretty driven. I should've known better than to question it.

My oldest child is working while attending community college. He's not meeting our expectations but it has nothing to do with the job. Some kids just aren't cut out for 4 yrs of college right after high school and he's one of them. He prides himself on how good he is at his job and it directed him into wanting to be a geriatric social worker (he works in a high end nursing home). He will be geriatric by the time he becomes a social worker and I have learned I have to accept that, lol.

[greenskeeper]

with the sweet ride you gave him for graduation, he could uber that during the "drunk hours" and make a killing

[disneysteve]

I agree with the majority that you should let him get adjusted the first year, it is a big change, and college is a lot of work. Plus what is his major? My girls had 3.7 gpa's in high school; took honors and ap classes.

Fast forward to college, one is an engineering major and the other a nursing major. I didn't think keeping a 3.0 in college would be a big deal for them given how well they did in highschool with the caliber of classes they had. Well IT IS!! Every spring we get anxious waiting on grades, they've both maintained their 3.0 for their scholarships but it can be stressful.

So true. This is something that so many people - kids and parents - just don't think about. Going through school up to and including high school, our kids may be at the top of their class. They are used to being the best. But then along comes college where everyone there was the best and they're now competing against each other. For many kids, it's the first time in their educational lives that they've ever not been at the top of the heap.

[~bs]

i would say to not let him get overloaded with the amount of work, and perhaps not to work in the first semester or two to get adjusted to school, but there is a great deal of value in working crappy part time jobs.

I do some hiring, and I've found that the college grads most likely to fail to transition well to workplaces are the ones that are full time students with no work experience. There are many job related skills you can learn from crappy jobs that is difficult to get from just merely attending school, and internships are even better. You learn things like what it's like working in a hierarchal structure, dealing with workplace politics, time management, being told to do certain jobs you may not like to, the value of the dollar (at minimum wage), responsibility of showing up on time for shifts, etc. It's easier to teach shortcomings on certain technical aspects of difference in 3.0gpa schoolwork to 4.0gpa schoolwork than it is to teach things like work ethics and attitude.

I've known 4.0 gpa college grads with no work experience to fold within the 1st year in a stressful job experience, then transition to a low stress job unrelated to their degreee! At the same time, I've seen sub 3.0 gpa single mother able to succeed. The 4.0gpa student may be able to achieve that because they have unlimited amounts of time to spend studying with relatively low stress. The latter example may not have the best grades, but is better able to handle high stress and able to manage competing interests and delivering an acceptable product in a constrained amount of time.

[~bs]

I agree with the majority that you should let him get adjusted the first year, it is a big change, and college is a lot of work. Plus what is his major? My girls had 3.7 gpa's in high school; took honors and ap classes.

meh, my opinion is kind of the opposite. the classes in the first 2 years of undergrad are the easiest you're ever going to get, especially if you choose harder majors.