It's Friday on 13th but I hadn't even thought about it until late night, so it had been a very normal day than a lot of other days for me.
My son called me after lunchtime that he got a much lower than average scores on 2nd Biology midterm, which drove him very sad. He said that he focused on the midterms of Public Speaking and Psychology last week, so spent much less time on the preparation for Biology. Next week, the 3rd midterm for Biology would be taken, he would try to do it better. He also went to talk to the major adviser at Department of Economics but the response wasn't very promising because his grade of Calculus 124 was well below 3.0. Though his grades of other prerequisites were all above 3.0 and Cum GPA had exceeded the minimum requirements, major in Economics is a competitive one. As we had checked out and the adviser told him that average Cum GPA for admitted students has been at 3.5.That I pushed my son to pursue Bachelor of Science in Economics might be wrong because BA applicants normally don't take Calculus 124 requested by science/engineering majors and definitely not Calculus 125 for Integrals. He himself also took other hard courses in Science, such as Chemistry and Biology, even the Psychology 101 he took was a very critically graded course by that professor. All of these didn't grant him a high Cum GPA. From competitive perspective, I bet most of applicants for BA in Economics don't take these courses, so their GPAs are naturally higher. To me, if my son can be admitted into Econ major in Autumn Quarter in his junior year, he can pursue a business internship at several large companies headquartered in Seattle which have the tradition of recruiting local students, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Costco, Nordstrom, Paccar, Expedia, etc. If he can't be enrolled until late quarters, it is not very critical for him to graduate a BA degree in Economics or not. However, he still wanted to apply for it, so he planned to take Calculus for Business and Economics in next quarter to earn a better grade, then apply for the major in Winter Quarter. After his Sophomore year ends in June, he will have finished all prerequisites for Psychology major as well, then probably will apply for it in Winter Quarter as well but not now. The adviser also reminded him not to focus on competitive majors, he should target some open majors as backup if the competitive ones don't work out. The reason he called me was to ask me to pick him up at his dorm this afternoon, then I would help him identify several open majors. He knew that I am really an expert in college majors and associated courses because I had done so many researches 30 years before for myself and for him in the last 10 years. In his first two years at UW, he hadn't followed my recommendations exactly, so he learned some lessons.
The traffic on I-90 was very bad but it became much better after getting onto I-5 though it was still congested. What could we expect at 4:00 PM on Friday? Parking along the street at my son's dorm, I viewed the students walking through. I could see many Asians' faces because Asian students hold a significant percentages at UW, either domestic ones from States like my son or international ones from Asia. Since the sky would turn cloudy with probable rains through the weekend, I had expected the weather swap between Friday and Saturday. It didn't happen. However, I didn't want to ruin Mariners' game against Angels due to my own preference. Rains would ruin their games through the weekend anyway. At this moment, it is cloudy but without an indicator of coming rain, which is great.
After dinner my Mom cooked, I went back to my room to watch the shows for a while. Public pressured Trump to release his tax return but it might trigger avalanches to put IRS or even Obama's Administration into a corner. I guess Trump might even be warned by the agency not to release. Anyway, it is a very valid point to having him under attacks.
I asked my son to narrow down several open majors he was interested in for me first, he brought up English, History and Philosophy. I checked out English on UW department webpage, and laid out Backup Plan No. 1 for him:
- Two bundled prerequisites 10 credits in Fall 16, then declare major;
- Two Shakespeare Courses 10 credits in Winter 17 to satisfy two of three pre-1900 requirements;
- Two 300 and 400 level Courses 10 credits in Spring 17, one of the two satisfies the third pre-1900 requirement;
- Two 300 and 400 Level Courses 10 credits in Fall 17;
- Two 300 and 400 Level Courses 10 credits in Winter 18;
- One Capstone Course 5 credits in Spring Quarter to wrap up the requirements for a English Major.
History requires more prerequisites and he hadn't taken any history class in the past two years, so he didn't want to explore the possibility at this point. Checking out Philosophy, I recommended him to make it his minor or even double major in addition to English.
- One 5 Credits Course in Winter 17 to declare major;
- One more 5 credits Course in each quarter afterwards until June 2018.
If he can follow this plan combined with the 85 credits he will have earned in total after this quarter ends in a month, in addition to earning 5 credits more for Diversity, he will graduate on time with a 3.5+ Cum GPA. By the end of this quarter, his should be close to 3.0 with so many hard courses he had been taking.
Following this path, he may make a great career as well. As I kept saying to him that passion actually is the most important element in academic studies and I bet he has more passions on social sciences and humanities.
Objectively, these two majors won't bring a lot of job opportunities but I suggested him to start taking different approaches from this summer break. First, I am going to teach him trading stocks whenever we have chance to do it; Secondly, he should start reading and writing more; Thirdly, he can use our registered LLC to start his own business no matter if is it social media marketing or online publishing. In the next two years before he graduates, if he can build up his own brand in any discipline, he can be either hired as an experienced candidate or even run his own successful business. Of course, if he is interested in, JD at top law school is also an viable option. If Mathematics is defined as foundation of Science and Engineering; Economics as Business and quantitative Social Sciences; Language is the foundation for everyone, nowadays, English is the most applicable globally.
I read a tweet that Eurovision was to be broadcast the first time in US but figured out it not to be available to our package. However, it will be a great night in Stockholm and the Contest Finale must be a success. Ok, I don't want to influence the result, so won't share any songs, instead, let me link to Swedish National Anthem, this version is beautiful.
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