Imminant Launch

George and I spent today at the parent/student orientation at UTArlington today with my first born. It was a simultaneously sobering and encouraging experience. The Engineering Counselor tried to put the fear of God into the prospective students by telling them that his son, who got a 700 on the math portion of his SAT, still got a D in Pre-Calculus even though he'd gotten an A in his high school Calculus class. The son blamed it on the teacher and finagled getting into Calculus the next semester and got a D again. The Counselor added, 'you need to realize that just because you got an A in high school without studying doesn't mean you know anything. You're going to have to study a lot more for our math classes, which I'll tell you, are in fact too hard.' Yikes. But there is free tutoring available. We'll just have to see how it goes this fall.

The good news is that with so many defense companies in the Metroplex, there are a lot of internships available. The Engineering Department is also very respected, so I feel good about the quality of education that Ben can receive, should he choose to apply himself, and if the subject matter remains of interest to him. There's a fine line between switching majors because it's just not for you, or if you just don't want to work that hard. I think he's of strong enough stuff that if he did, it would be for the former reason.

The Orientation Staff also said that students who live on campus and/or are engaged in campus life, are much more likely to do well over students who commute and leave right after their classes are over. Ben, who will commute corresponding with George's long office hours, isn't that interested in the more social "Greek Life" fraternities, but he thinks the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle club sounds "uber cool". He's very into hands-on projects, and had a really good time talking with the UTAustin solar car club who rode through our town a few years ago. I was amazed how well he spoke their language, even though he mispronounced "potentiometer", saying po ten chi a meter, which was supposed to be potencho meter. (addending after George's comment to say that what is written is actually backwards, both Ben and I remembered it wrong.)

I wish I had been with him when the students, who were separated from the parents towards the end of the day, participated in an ice-breaker. They divided into six groups to sing the Maverick fight song, each group in a different style like rap, country, or chorus line. Ben's group got opera, and since no one else would attempt to sing opera (the other groups had more enthusiastic participation), Ben volunteered. He has a fine, resonant bass voice that is getting honed by singing in our Church choir, which I wish I could have heard in that application. From his description I can't tell what the reaction was because apparently the other kids in his group thought it would be a good idea if everyone pretended they were asleep since opera is so boring. But three girls decided they would share the glory by faking ballet dancing to his rendition. I guess there was at least polite clapping at the end.

Sending my "student" (the pc word to denote the in-between stage of college young adults who are really still kids!) to sink or swim away from my watchful eyes and our homeschool environment is so weird! But he's pretty excited, and that gives me joy.