A big change has come over our house in recent weeks since we packed Son #1 off to college. It’s changed the whole dynamic of the household to have “only” three kids around and we’re all still adjusting to it. He isn’t too far away, about a five hour drive, but far enough that he hasn’t come home yet since his departure.
He seems pretty happy there, and has settled into his dormitory. Fortunately he likes his room-mate, which is never a given in these situations. I had a particularly dull room-mate for my first year of college, and once we were past the first few days of sticking together because we didn’t really know anyone else yet, we realized that we had precisely nothing in common with one another.
Surprisingly that actually improved the situation … as soon as we didn’t feel any obligation to include each other in plans, then we began to get on much better. We could chat well enough when we spent time together, ate dinner occasionally if we happened to be heading down to the cafeteria at the same time, and otherwise pretty much went our own ways.
#1 has got a much more fun roommate, and they’re getting on well (or so we gather from the occasional phone calls and emails we get). At the moment our son hasn’t decided anything concrete about a major, which is fine with us, at least for now. He’s more interested in arts, literature and social studies than he is in science, but beyond that he’s still dipping into a range of subjects.
That’s cool with us … college offers so many more opportunities than high school, I’d actually be a bit worried if he was too narrow-focused yet. Let him stretch his wings a bit and see what looks interesting.