Even When High School Grads Attend Accredited Distance Learning Degree Programs Moms And Dads Feel Better Knowing The Ropes from Degree Space
It’s not uncommon for colleges and universities to welcome freshmen students to campus through orientations. These offerings provide students with information about campus resources, organizations, activities and more. Many colleges and universities might even offer webcast orientations to help familiarize distance learning students with what they have to offer online and on campus.
Many parents these days might be among the freshmen student population. Colleges and universities reporting increased, even record, enrollments for fall 2010 attribute at least part of the growth to an adult student population. In the recession, some say, adults are taking college and university courses as part of attempts to keep their jobs or find employment, according to reports.
Still other parents are spending time on college and university campuses as well. In some instances, they’re sleeping in dorms and eating in dining halls, as well as meeting with professors, a Fox News report noted. These parents are participating in parent orientations that a number of institutions throughout the country provide.
Parent orientations might encompass two to three days, and many adults apparently participate. The Boston Globe recently published and posted online an article where a representative of Boston’s Northeastern University was among those who provided details about orientation programs. At Northeastern University, the institution’s representative told the Boston Globe, the parents of about 85 to 90 percent of students participate.
Parents might have to pay fees for orientations, but they might also find that the experience, which includes seminars, is more worthwhile than they first realized. One particular seminar that’s been receiving recognition focuses on helping parents “let go” of their children. This might be particularly difficult in instances where the first-born leaves for college or the youngest leaves the nest. Parents in the latter situation might experience what’s known as “empty nest syndrome.”
With safety and alcohol-related issues often among the areas discussed during student orientations – some of which parents might be able to participate in – colleges and universities provide a means of addressing some of the issues that might concern parents. A recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution also included expert advice for students. The article provided information for parents who enjoy being involved as well.
Technology makes it easier for parents and students these days to keep in touch with each other. Social networking programs, such as Facebook, allow for keeping in contact and sharing photographs and videos. Offerings such as Skype allow for video calls that can bring telephone discussions to another, more personalized, level.
Parent program orientations might help ease the pain for parents with college and university students on campuses far from where they reside. Technological offerings such as Skype and Facebook might help bridge the distance. There is a balance that students and parents might want to reach, however, in that students should to some extent be independent, an author quoted in an article in the Chicago Tribune suggested. Campus visits will also benefit online school program students. As for the parents? They may surprise their kids and themselves by taking advantage of back to school loans options to advance their own education!
Even When High School Grads Attend Accredited Distance Learning Degree Programs Moms And Dads Feel Better Knowing The Ropes from Degree Space
