Kids in college/university

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
My four young 'uns gave Uni a miss. They appear to be holding down employment at least as well as the average for their ages. Grand #1 did one year. Gand #2 and 3 got jobs (under employed but contented enough apparently). Grand #4 did one year and may go back but still undecided. Three to go - one in Grade 12 , one in Grade 9 and one about to start kindergarten.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Ah, yes, the convenience of living in your Mom's house while you go to school. She has a pretty separate space downstairs, so she has independence/privacy (E left home at 17 for the first time, so she's already done the independence thing), very cheap rent, stability.
Click to expand...

Mine wanted to go away for school. Not just to escape his tyrannical parents:devil:but because he finds London dull as dishwater and wanted a city more to his taste. Ottawa with its bike trails and proximity to Gatineau (for hiking and mountain biking) fit the bell. Being fairly close to Mont Tremblant plays in, too, though he didn't have much time for skiing last winter. He's already musing about grad school which, in comp eng, pretty much means heading South.
 
Well, he's now officially in co-op which means there's a good chance we won't be seeing much of him again this summer. Most of their co-op comp sci and comp eng students get placed in the Ottawa area as I understand it, between the Feds and the large number of tech companies in the area.
 
Hoping that BetteDaughter will get a co-op this summer; she was foiled last summer by the lack of a drivers' license. This is prime construction area, though, so a local co-op job should be just fine this summer.
 
Little M got his full G last spring but I know his cousins (my brother's kids) kind of dawdled on the G2 level for a while and I heard that was common in their generation.
 
They tend to dawdle on it until it impacts their work/co-op opportunities, I think, unless they've got some mad instinct to 'drive', which neither of mine do. My 32 year old son still has no license, no learners permit; he has been quite convinced since he was a teen that he would be a danger on the road. He's a sorta "gentle-but-intense" homeless hippie-type artist-poet-type, who is, I admit, almost ridiculously distractable, so I think he's got a point.
 
It's interesting because when I was a teen in the eighties, getting that license was pretty much one of our rites of passage. I only had one friend who didn't get his license in high school (he eventually did in his thirties or something like that, IIRC). Of course, it was easier then. Learner's permit (=G1 now), test, G class license, no G2. Graduated licensing came in well after I had mine.
 
Until I moved to Toronto I had never met an adult without a license. Now I know lots. People who live on the subway line and take taxis for trips if needed

But it was a huge thing for me at 16 to get a license

Our kids both worked through the process as quickly as possible. I have one friend whose daughter didn’t both finishing the process and had to start over from the beginning. I think they give you five years to complete from G1 to G2 to G
 
Lastpointe said:
Until I moved to Toronto I had never met an adult without a license.
Click to expand...

Which is where my license-less friend ended up. It's possibly the one city I know of where you could probably pull it off in that age. After using Uber to get around Phoenix last week, I'm thinking that nowadays any city that has good support for ride-sharing would be viable (Phoenix, for instance, has dedicated stops for Uber/Lyft at major public locations like the convention centre).
 
Mendalla said:
Well, he's now officially in co-op which means there's a good chance we won't be seeing much of him again this summer. Most of their co-op comp sci and comp eng students get placed in the Ottawa area as I understand it, between the Feds and the large number of tech companies in the area.
Click to expand...
Feeling the freedom or the empty nest syndrome?
 
I got my licence the moment I turned 16...these days isn't it better to wait until you're older because of insurance costs?
 
Waterfall said:
I got my licence the moment I turned 16...these days isn't it better to wait until you're older because of insurance costs?
Click to expand...

Depends on whether your parents can afford the insurance. :rolleyes: We get 50% off his insurance while he's away at university, though.

Waterfall said:
Feeling the freedom or the empty nest syndrome?
Click to expand...

Bit of both. We're both still working which kind of fills up the time so I don't think we'd feel it as much as we would if we weren't working. By the time he graduates, at least one of us will be nearly retired which may shift things.
 
From the point of view of the potential insured, better to get your license early, get registered as an occasional driver on your parents' insurance. Number of accident/claim-free years is a huge issue. I had a sister try to get her first car insurance in her 30s, even though she'd been driving/insuring a motorcycle in Toronto, accident-free, since her early 20s.
 
I'm surprised to hear that so many of you only knew adult drivers for a while. An aunt never got her full licence, only her learners permit and she would only drive on the highways. My Mom got her licence sometime around the time I was born - I can't recall if she said if it was before or after - maybe a combo with the learners. My Grandma doesn't have one. My Grandpa didn't think women should drive when my Mom & Aunt were teenagers which is the reason for that.

I've also known a few people who couldn't get a licence due to medical reasons. Some it was just for a period of time, others permanent. I've also known quite a few who just choose not to get it for a long time. Some of them in big cities, some came from more rural areas.
 
My mother was an appalling driver. Her excuse was that she didn't learn until she was well into her 40s, probably legit.
 
BetteTheRed said:
My mother was an appalling driver. Her excuse was that she didn't learn until she was well into her 40s, probably legit.
Click to expand...

Mrs. M learned late (got her license in NS the year we got married) due to growing up in China where private cars were a rarity. Even today, car ownership is nowhere near Western levels, even in major cities.
 
Learning to drive ... one belief is that people (of demos) shouldn't know this stuff! Thus diminishment of intelligence on moving things ... the danger thereof?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top