College Time: Crimson Tide

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Wednesday, June 4. 2014

College Time: Crimson Tide

Good friends have a daughter who will be starting at the University of Alabama this fall. The brilliant (math, physics, dance, violin - not Asian but with 800s.) kid would only apply to southern state colleges. South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama. She wanted a cultural change, a complete change of pace from Yankeeland. Good for her. Each one she applied to offered her a full scholarship to go, but the parents honorably refused any scholarships, feeling that they should go to those in need. (This family was all set to pay for Harvard, so they got a windfall even without the scholarship offer.)

Mom told me that the kid had already lined up her roommates via facebook, that she had already found sponsors for the sororities she wanted, and that she had already gotten her football package online. Mom told me she said something like "Honey, this is supposed to be school. Are you planning on studying anything?" This was not the kid she knew.

"I'll worry about the details when I get there, Mom. I'm gonna be a physics major and a performing arts minor. I know what I'm doing, so don't worry about me."

Tuscaloosa. I enjoy seeing what kids will do. It will change her life, probably for the better.

Change is good, or people get in ruts. Over many years, I think we finally found our right rut. It's about friends, interesting activities, a comfy-enough home to sleep in and in which to hang some pictures, a couple of horses and a barn, and a church home. It takes many years, many adventures and a few failures, to find one's right happy rut for the long haul. Even then, who knows what might come next? For me, I plan to work until I cannot.

Posted by The Barrister in Our Essays, The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 14:09 | Comments (19) | Trackbacks (0)

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BRAVO--now here's a daughter you can be proud of (for now) ;-)

Let's hope this is not just an effort to avoid the hard work that the elite universities advertise, but also now fail to deliver in many ways. Let's pray for this gal and hope she stays courageous and truly independent, i.e. that none of the "women's leadership" types get her involved in becoming an "agent of change"!!

#1 faculty wife on 2014-06-04 14:46 (Reply)

If she's lucky, she'll find that the students "tend" to be more conservative than at the "effete" - pun intended - northern colleges, but she'll find the same progressive professors. The weather may be nicer, but the political climate will be much the same.

#1.1 Mike M on 2014-06-04 16:43 (Reply)

I dishonorably accepted every scholarship offered.

#2 Frigate on 2014-06-04 14:47 (Reply)

She has rejected everything her parents paid for. She repudiated them.

So, that's living the dream is it?

#3 Curtis on 2014-06-04 15:05 (Reply)

I think Curtis is missing something.

I went from living in Dorchester and commuting to Northeastern to grad school at Purdue. Rural Indiana was quite an experience. But after 4 years I got to like it.

Eventually returned to the B1G to teach/research/serve at The Ohio State University. Another Midwestern town with a hint of Appalachia and the South.

I hope she enjoys Bama. It has great traditions in sports and culture. And over the years I've come to think that the education offered at the great state Unies like Bama, Purdue, tOSU, Texas, UCLA, et al., is infinitely superior to the inbred pseudo-elite schools of the east.

Writing that I am suddenly reminded of the hothouse scene in the Big Sleep and the Colonel's comment about the rotting flesh of orchids. That's the best image of the Ivies, rotting orchid flesh.

#4 bob sykes on 2014-06-04 15:13 (Reply)

As a graduate of a SEC school, I say welcome to the greatest college football conference in the nation.

Of course, she will have to come to terms with the fact that Alabama football, and Nick Saban, is universally hated in the SEC, but hey - good choice none-the-less.

Geaux Tigers!!!

#5 Tom Francis on 2014-06-04 17:10 (Reply)

I'm not surprised about the shift in interest. It's the theme now.

My older son was not an academic hero, but still managed to get a 3.0 average for his first year. Sadly, he suffered a sophomore slump first semester, so we had him take a semester off and get his head on straight.

My younger son is much more accomplished. Even so, he is also doing the same thing the woman you mentioned is - paying attention to the social aspects of what he's headed for. We remind him regularly that:
1) his scholarships will be taken if he doesn't perform
2) WE will pull him out if he doesn't perform

I have no problem with looking at fraternity/sorority, buying the football/basketball package, etc. I did all that. I also got great grades and took difficult classes and took a semester abroad to travel and learn.

To me the difficult thing is convincing my sons that it doesn't matter what school you go to, it's what you put into the school. They seem to think just because you graduate from an IVY you are automatically 'smarter' than everyone else. My wife believes this, too.

I keep telling them I've had Harvard grads walk in as consultants on an almost regular basis. The "H" bomb is dropped the minute they enter the door. It is always good for a laugh. None have been worth their salt.
Sure, networking and academic prestige got them a sweet consulting gig. Too bad they don't understand the businesses they are consulting on. Smart is being able to walk in, shut up, and figure out what the business is - not telling us how to do it the way you learned it.

No, I don't believe the school you went to is meaningful. It's just the choice you made when you were 18 and thought you knew what you were doing. But if you went there and partied for 4 years and daddy got you a job, the "H" bomb is just a piece of paper.

She will be fine. Alabama is a good school. Let her get her social schedule under control first. I think that's definitely a part of college, and it's wrong to think otherwise.

#6 Bulldog on 2014-06-04 17:33 (Reply)

I bet she transfers after a year....if she makes that.

#7 brobro on 2014-06-04 17:47 (Reply)

I have spent lots of time in Alabama, had an "almost" daughter in law with a masters' from U AL Tuscaloosa, and I say that I think that this story seems apocryphal. You predict that this wunderkind will transfer in a year. I say a semester.

#7.1 MissyW on 2014-06-04 19:14 (Reply)

First chance she gets, she'll be on the beach at Pensacola or Panama City getting a painful sunburn.

You Yankees need warnings about the Southern sun and what it can do to white skin.

I've seen it too many times.

#8 Whitehall on 2014-06-04 19:54 (Reply)

Ha - the most practical advice of all!

#8.1 XRay on 2014-06-04 20:41 (Reply)

She will definitely learn the value of refrigerated air conditioning this September.

#9 mary on 2014-06-04 20:42 (Reply)

Here in Maine I have known or known of many a young person who experienced a bit of culture shock upon matriculating at a university in a southern state. Some returned to New England after a semester; others made it through a whole term. Probably they had not done their homework as this young lady clearly has. Good luck to her.

#10 JaneG on 2014-06-04 20:43 (Reply)

I left NH for William and Mary for similar reasons in 1971. Mixed results.

#11 Assistant Village Idiot (Link) on 2014-06-04 22:13 (Reply)

My youngest is a senior there at Bama. I think it has been good for him and he seems to really like it. I think it is good to go to a different area culturally as well. When he was looking for colleges, he wanted 1) warmer (than Michigan) and 2) a good football school. He definitely got both although they were out for snow days 4-5x this last winter.

Bama does a good job keeping parents informed too.

#12 DCW on 2014-06-05 08:26 (Reply)

Picking a college or university is a mysterious process, and one that many kids approach idiosyncratically. This is an extreme example though. I think most young people don't have the strength of mind, or the serendipity, to choose a school way outside their experience like this.

#13 MTF on 2014-06-05 09:29 (Reply)

Alabama is a good school and she will be able to find the right challenges. My son will be starting his senior year in September and it has been good for him to study there. He was rasised in Connecticut, but my side of the family has roots in Alabama and my father graduated from UA. Besides the southern sun, tell your daughter to take the tornado warnings seriously, they have a good warning system and many designated shelter areas. After walking through the campus and the facilities during Parent's Weekend, I told my son that he will never be so catered to for the rest of his life, so take advantage of it all. Best wishes and Roll Tide.

#14 Hank on 2014-06-05 12:54 (Reply)

I'm with Texas A&M and a colleague who had a consulting job with UA last week told me that a huge percentage of their students are from out of state--something like 40%.

Part of that is an unintended consequence of the Top 10% admission rule here in Texas, which guarantees high school students who graduate in the top 10% of their class automatic admission into a public university in the state.

#15 Ann K on 2014-06-05 15:06 (Reply)

Alabama is a good school. Law and business rank in the top 20 in the country. Lots of recruiters in the spring. The core of the campus is an architectural marvel. Many pre-civil war buildings and gothic and Greek Revival. Physically it may be the most impressive large campus in the nation. Lots of history, as befits a university established in 1832.

Greeks are probably a bit snooty compared to up north. There's still a kind of plantation mentality among them. There is some PC in the liberal arts, but not nearly as bad as elsewhere. After all, this is the most conservative state in the country.

Best of all, hunting and fishing abound. Deer season starts at Thanksgiving and goes to the end of January. Bow season is even longer. Limit is one a day, no restrictions on does.

#16 Tom on 2014-06-05 18:26 (Reply)

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Wednesday, June 4. 2014

College Time: Crimson Tide