Graduation

My Father's Day gift came yesterday afternoon:

Last kid out of college. This one: Chemistry major - he'll be working as an intern in King Estates Winery's lab. At the departmental graduation ceremony where they say a few words about each graduate as they walk across the stage and get their degree, the announcer said he aced the final in quantum chemistry and told the other graduates to blame him for their low grades, because he set the curve. There was some doubt about whether he would even be able to get into college, and my goal was simply for him to finish in any major, so the announcement was a very pleasant surprise - more so since he didn't have all the math prereqs and taught himself a lot of what he needed to complete the course. He was always more interested in athletics than academics, an all-star pitcher on the number one team in the state in high school, he has intramural championships in several sports here at the UO (and just missed a few others), another in city league, etc., but lately he's turned his focus to academics. After the ceremony, one of his professors tried to convince him to continue in physical chemistry, and that was also a pleasant surprise. I try not to do much personal stuff here, but as you can probably tell, I'm very proud of him.

Comments

[2slugbaits]

A job in a winery. Sweet deal.

[spencer]

Do you have the same deal that I had with my kids? I paid for them to earn a BS with no debt. But graduate school was up to them. Actually, I back tracked on that a little bit as it turned out.

But congratulations.

[Mark Thoma]

Thanks.

Yeah, pretty much the same deal. They've taken on student loan debt in grad school.

I've had at least one kid in college (undergrad) for the last eight years, and two at once for half of those, so I can say that I'm pretty glad the financial part is over (three kids total). Even if I'd tried to help with grad school, not sure how much I could have provided (and that's even with the small break I got for the two that went to the UO).

Which reminds me - when I first starting doing this blog I wrote a lot about college costs and the impact of rising costs on access to education. Maybe I should try to do more of that as I'm concerned that we've slipped backwards on the access issue.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Attaboy.

Old joke.

Congregant: Rabbi, when does life begin?

Rabbi: When the last kid graduates from college!

[gaddeswarup]

Congratulations. It is a relief when children finish university, though university education is not a big strain in Australia. We find that we have a bit more money to spare now. But one of the kids is going back to uni after working for five years in IT. She finds economics more interesting. May be I can learn from her.

[ndd]

Congratulations!

[gronk]

Congratulations!

Physical chemistry is an excellent choice to continue working/studying in -- it's one of those fields that was interdisciplinary before that word even existed, and almost as interesting as economics.

[economistmom]

Mark: That's beautiful! Congratulations. Of course you should be very proud. Would love to see you write about college finances again, because I too worry about access--both as an economist and as a mom. It'll be at least 13 years before MY youngest of four is graduating from college! (Still, I know that time will fly by.)

[notsneaky]

Congrats.

[donna]

You are so lucky.

Mine are taking forever to get through school...

[hari]

King Estates's Winery Lab!

Congratulations and welcome to my wine cellar.... one of these days you'll find wine and chemistry are pretty good fellows to socialize with and might even allow you to come to Europe to witness how old Roman vineyards have survived and flourished with a bit of chemical analysis and whatnots.

Mark will have the benefit of knowing difference between bulk and quality vintage! That's great for a family to have a knowledgeable guy at the dining table to taste wine....

[Kathy G.]

Congratulations to you both! It sounds like both you and your son have many reasons to be proud of each other.

[Abi]

Congratulations!

And thank you for giving me an opportunity to de-lurk myself. I can now go back to my usual lurker self ...

[OhNoNotAgain]

My congratulations, also. That's big load off your shoulders - knowing that your kids are all off to play the game of life with a good foundation under their belts.

But, a winery ? Tell him he needs to use that chemistry degree to come up with something to help save us from ourselves. We need energy and energy efficiency, not wine.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Hmm, there was supposed to be a at the end there but it got cut off.

[OhNoNotAgain]

Okay, apparently I can't use my "grin" characters because TypePad thinks it's an HTML tag. So, my last sentence was supposed to have a :-) at the end.

[Cynthia]

Prof. Thoma,

No one has to look long and hard to see that your son gets his smarts from you. He's also blessed with your good looks, too!

[curious]

Why do Americans make their kids wear these ridiculous outfits? Just curious.

[Holly W.]

Congratulations to you and your handsome, accomplished kid!

[Eric Dewey]

Isn't that what all the economic theories are really all about - making it possible to raise children who can succeed and carry on?

Congratulations! You're clearly an economic success!

[Ryan Vann]

Congrats on graduation and the internship. I worked with your son at the SSIL lab, and can personally say he is a great guy. Although, I always found it amusing that he passed on the dismal science and went the Chemistry route, given that both his parents are Econ people.