Calculating a Career

You know that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel? The one I mentioned yesterday regarding Daniel’s academic career? Nathan has been seeing that light as well and today it was his turn to step into the bright light of being a college grad. While Daniel knew what he wanted to do career-wise when he was about five minutes old, Nathan was more normal. He went through several ideas over the years. As a middle schooler, inspired by Mr. Davis, his beloved choir teacher, he was thinking that being a choir teacher would be absolutely fantastic. In high school he realized that being a public-school teacher would make it difficult to support a family and his focus shifted. He had a fantastic physics teacher (a teacher that my dad worked with years ago while he was still teaching) and his thoughts turned to majoring in physics. As a junior in high school, a brand-new high school opened that covered our area and he was instrumental in building what has become a large and successful math department. His enthusiasm for the subject and his desire for upper-level math classes helped prioritize some of those classes as the math department structured their class offerings. He would frequently come home from school and use the whiteboard I have on the fridge to show me what he did in his math class that day. He was just so excited that he had to share it.

Nathan started college with a plan to major in physics, but as he got going in college-level classes, he discovered that the math was what he really liked about physics. That realization led him to shift to a major in math. When the chronic headaches and migraines brought him home from his mission earlier than anticipated, he also discovered that he loves reading all the statistical data that’s included with the prescription medications that he was given. Most of us throw those informational leaflets away, the ones that detail all the FDA studies that were done prior to approval of the medication, but Nathan read them for fun. That fascination led him in the direction of statistics, and he settled on a major in math with a degree in math statistics composite and a desire to work in the field of data analytics.

During his time at USU, Nathan has made his mark in the math department. Students taking math classes at USU register for a recitation in addition to their main course. The recitation is basically a smaller class led by an upper-level math student and designed as a supporting class period in which to ask questions and get help with the concepts taught in the larger classes. Nathan was encouraged to apply to be a recitation leader a few years back and it has been one of the numerous jobs he has worked concurrently over his college years. This past summer he was also asked to work with the Aggie Math Learning Center to compile data relating student visits to the AMLC to how well they do in their classes to show correlation between visits and success in classes as well as to supply justification for funding. In addition to using his math prowess to make sense of the data, he used the programing skills he had gained in a basic programing class to create an online dashboard as an easy-to-understand visualization of his results. The professors in the math department were enormously impressed with his work, and it has already been useful to them. 

During this graduation season, he was the recipient of awards for both the outstanding undergraduate recitation leader and outstanding math/stats composite undergrad. He also graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.95 GPA and a minor in ASL. As one of the top students in the undergrad math department, he was invited to be interviewed for a series of short videos highlighting exceptional students from all fifteen departments in the newly merged college of arts and sciences. (More on that massive merger upcoming.) Snippets of a few of these videos were played as we waited for the ceremony to start, and Nathan was one of the lucky winners of a minute on the big screen. He was also featured in the Utah Stateman, the USU student newspaper.  While he never makes choices based on how much attention he will gain, he does strive for excellence and that has obviously been noticed throughout his time at USU.

I promised more info on the huge college of arts and sciences, so here it comes. Due to state mandated budget cuts, the university decided to merge the colleges of Humanities and Social Sciences, the College of the Arts, and the College of Science into one massive college. That merger decreased day-to-day running costs, but it also means that half of the university is contained in that one college. Which also means that half the students graduating were doing so in one massive ceremony. Having said that, the graduation definitely could have been worse. Although about 1100 students graduated, only 700 actually participated in the commencement. It only took an hour and 15 minutes to read all the names. And they didn’t play Pomp and Circumstance, which was a bit surprising, but at least we didn’t have to hear the same two minutes of music repeated ad nauseum for over an hour. The entire program lasted just over two hours, but it could have been shortened if the person introducing the valedictorian had given a briefer introduction. It was one part of the proceedings that was far too long. The valedictorian didn’t speak for a terribly long time though, so that was good. The other speaker was a grad from 1998 and a current doctoral candidate. He is from Iran and his story of coming to the U.S. for college was interesting until he asked for donations and a QR code was flashed up on all the screens. In my opinion, that was in poor taste. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I have not talked to anyone who had any idea what he said after that. Anyway, lack of tact aside, we survived the graduation and had pizza and Aggie ice cream at Daniel and Tawni’s apartment to conclude our evening. 

Nathan is not sure what is next for him. He is planning to stay in Logan for the summer and then move back (almost) home if he doesn’t have a job and somewhere else to live by then. The job market is tough right now and both he and Daniel are dealing with a multitude of resumes and job applications submitted with very few responses of any kind. That brings with it a great deal of uncertainty. And so, Nathan has plans to study for his next ASL professional certification test so he can hopefully pick up more interpreting hours while he is looking for a job in his preferred career field. And if finding that job takes longer than hoped for, at least he will have a lucrative side job that he is well qualified to do.

The Wild Blue Yonder

You know that light at the end of the tunnel? The one Daniel has been seeing all year? Well, today he finally emerged from the darkness of undergrad academia into the light of having earned his Bachelor of Engineering with a major in aerospace engineering. This kid has been leaning towards a career in engineering almost all of his life. He did take a brief foray into the study of dinosaurs as a preschooler (At his preschool graduation when most kids announced that they wanted to be firefighters, policemen, or superheroes, he proudly proclaimed that he wanted to be a paleontologist. The people sitting behind us murmured that the parents must have coached him, not knowing we were the parents. I can assure you there was absolutely no input from us. It was 100% Daniel.) but by first grade he was firmly grounded in space travel. And his fascination with all things that fly has not diminished over the years.

Starting at about age four, Daniel turned his eyes and his aspirations to the sky. That was the year I sewed an astronaut costume for Halloween. In first grade he had the opportunity to meet a real astronaut and that solidified his desire to fly. As a fourth grader he discovered origami and a lifelong hobby was born. Within a few years, he progressed far enough that he became aware of the work of origami master and mathematician Robert Lang, who was deeply entrenched in the field of space origami. Meeting Lang was another experience that reinforced his passions. Cub Scout space derbies and teachers who gave him opportunities to build and launch rockets added further fuel to the fire. He visited as many airplane museums and attended as many airshows as he could, and his love of flight continued to grow. (In fact, the first time anyone in our family besides Nathan-who you will remember was one of Daniel’s roommates-met Tawni was at an airshow. Malia and I missed out on that one due to a complete lack of caring about the whole airplanes bit, but Kevin and Matthew got to meet her!) As his schooling progressed, he leaned into his strengths in math and sciences and decided engineering was the route he wanted to take. Post mission, he enrolled at USU and began the process of learning the nuts and bolts of engineering. I think one of the amazing things about Daniel is that despite the years of study and hard work, the many tests studied for and passed, and the many hours spent head down in his homework, he still gets just as excited about space travel as he did as a four-year-old. Only now that he has a better understanding of all the many things that have to be designed, produced and deployed perfectly to make it all happen, I think he appreciates it even more. As an example, he closely followed the launch and mission of the Artemis II last month with complete fascination. If you ask him about it, expect to get a detailed and enthusiastic account of the mission. His eyes light up and everything when he talks about it.

Today, Daniel reached a major milestone in his journey towards the sky. With his finals finished and his capstone project completed, it was finally graduation day. The college of engineering is one of the larger colleges at USU (although nowhere near as massive as the college Nathan is in-more on that tomorrow), so Daniel expected the graduation to be long. However, the speakers kept things concise, and with only about 340 graduates participating in the ceremony, it only took about 35 minutes to get through all the names. I had planned for a long haul and had my kindle and an audiobook all ready to go to quell the boredom, but I only ended up reading a few pages. 

After we were done with the official portion of graduation, we retired to Daniel and Tawni’s apartment for lunch followed by a copious amount of Aggie ice cream. Tawni’s parents and her youngest sister drove down from Idaho for the occasion and her two other sisters, both of whom live in Logan, came as well. It was so nice to visit with them on a day that was a bit slower than a wedding day! Unfortunately, Kevin and I were short on time as Malia needed us back home in time to help with her Arena scheduling for school next year. So, our visit was short. But I suspect there will be more occasions over the years to get to know Tawni’s family a bit better.

Now that Daniel has completed his undergraduate work, he will begin preparing to take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, which is basically a certification showing that he does indeed have the skills necessary to work as an engineer. He has been submitting job applications throughout this last year, and now that he is officially done with homework, he is going to lean into the job search. Tawni is gainfully employed so they will stay in Logan for now, but that is not their long-term plan. However, Daniel doesn’t know exactly what is next. It all depends on where the work takes him. He and Tawni are not only open to moving wherever they need to, but they also have a desire to live somewhere other than Utah. So, there may well be adventures in their future. The sky’s the limit and Daniel would love to be in a job that focuses on the broad expanse of the heavens. And I hope and pray that he will have that opportunity. 

He’s Glad to Be a Grad!

Well, he finally made it. After fifteen years of school, the past three being spent in active anticipation for life after high school, Matthew finally graduated. The actual ceremony only lasted two hours despite the fact that there were 900 graduates in his class, and Kevin and I arrived on time despite the absolutely insane slowdowns that had us wondering if we were, in fact going to make it. Seriously, we are so, so very tired of all the road construction in our neck of the woods. There is literally no good way to get out of our corner of the valley right now. Everywhere we turn there are more traffic cones. Add 900 students’ worth of family all heading the same direction and you will have an idea of the traffic snarl we ended up navigating. But like I said, we made it, actually found a parking spot and two seats together, and felt like we lucked out a bit with the relative brevity of the event.

Matthew has been very involved in school activities pretty much ever since he hit 8th grade. Seventh grade happened during the covid shutdown, or I expect he would have been heavily involved that year as well. He has been in a concert type band and jazz band since 7th grade and added marching band once he hit high school. He jumped into the world of stage crew as an 8th grader and became the lighting lead at both his middle school and high school by the time he was done. And as a senior he added choir to his rolodex of activities. Add in three private trumpet students, involvement in the theater department from time to time, and a healthy dose of social activities, and we honestly haven’t seen Matthew in about five years. 😂 

The band didn’t play for graduation, but the choir students sang the school hymn (not the school song, our high school has two separate anthems) so Matthew got to sit right up front with all the madrigals which was exactly what he wanted. These are the kids who have been his social group all year, the ones who welcomed a band kid into the world of choir. Some of these kids are ones he has known since elementary school, and one of them was even in his preschool class. Along those lines, Matthew’s 6th grade teacher was at graduation. Matthew’s sixth grade class was his very first class, so he attended the graduation to basically commemorate his first year of teaching and celebrate those kids who were in his first class. Matthew met up with his little crew from that year and they were able to take a minute to celebrate this milestone in their lives. There were five of them that were in that class that are still friends. And several of them were in vocal jazz with Matthew his year. Thinking back on those days when they were small, it seems like time has gone very quickly.

As I’ve mentioned, Matthew is glad he is finally done. Over the past year, he has become increasingly more frustrated with some of the foibles of some of the teachers he has worked closely with. He is totally over all the high school social drama, although luckily, he has been able to ride mostly on the periphery of most of it. He is ready to be out on his own, to be his own boss, and to be able to take more control of his life. And for the most part, I think he is ready. Like all young adults, jumping into the real world can be kind of a shock, but we have tried to prepare him and teach him some of those necessary skills that being an independent adult requires. So hopefully he will transition fairly easily, because he will be leaving the safety of home pretty darn quickly.

I think today was one of those reality check days for me. Although we have known for months that Matthew would be going on a mission, we have all been in the mind set of “we can think about that after graduation.” Well, with graduation officially over, we have hit that “after” we have been talking about for months. And we don’t actually have all that long to get him ready to go. I guess life never actually slows down. It just changes direction once in a while. And it looks like it’s time for me to switch back into mission mom mode.

Glad to be a Grad

Although there were many times when it seemed like high school would never end, Nathan’s graduation day finally arrived. Last year’s seniors were unable to have a normal graduation, so they did a graduation parade instead. The parade was such a success that they did it again this year. The parade was yesterday evening, and although he waffled back and forth, Nathan decided to participate. He wasn’t sure he would since high school has not really been a happy time for him, but ultimately, he decided he was going to participate in all the traditional events that occur at the end of the school year. I think he was glad he did. I was certainly glad. Although his high school experience was not at all what he hoped it would be, I would hate for him to have regrets later in life. So Kevin drove, and Nathan hung out the car window and grinned and I think he enjoyed himself.

We weren’t certain that they would be able to hold a traditional graduation ceremony, and in fact none of the normal venues would allow that, but since this is only the second year our high school has been open, the graduating class was small enough that they were able to hold graduation on the football field. It was enormously hot, but I think that worked in our favor as those speakers who are well known for being long winded kept their remarks short and sweet. Nathan sang with the Madrigals and because he had a solo and the choir sat in the front rows, his was the very first name called. In fact, I’m not sure everyone was even ready because we barely heard his name. But we were watching and were able to cheer him on. He got a good cheer from the other seniors, and I honestly think that caught him by surprise. He has felt alone and friendless for most of high school and those choir people who he expected to be friends with didn’t turn out to be cronies, but he has found friends in unexpected places like physics and ASL. And he is a rather high-profile person at the high school whether he realizes it or not. Faculty, staff and students alike know who he is. He has made friends with the lunch ladies (which I love because most students are not nice to the cafeteria staff) and because of his kindness to them, they have a tendency to give him perks in the form of food. 😉

Speaking of ASL, Nathan earned the Utah State Seal of Biliteracy to accompany his diploma. Let me explain what that means. The state has a program where graduating seniors who are skilled in a foreign language can test to see if they are considered literate in their second language. If they are, they earn the seal of biliteracy which is basically and endorsement on their diploma stating that they are conversant in two languages. It is not an easy test, and it is estimated that students need at least four years of foreign language instruction in order to pass. There are different levels of biliteracy as well: beginner-high, medium or low; intermediate-high, medium or low; and advanced-high, medium or low. Nathan took ASL 1 as a junior, skipped ASL 2 and took ASL 3 as a senior. After only two years, he earned the seal of biliteracy passing at an intermediate-low level. He is one of only two students from his school who earned the seal. I believe the other student passed in French. Of all his ASL classmates from both high schools he has attended, I think there was only one other who passed. Needless to say, we are very proud of him. He has picked this language up incredibly easily and has discovered that he has quite a passion for it. He has a desire to learn more and wants to be able to become involved in the deaf community. I don’t know where this skill might take him, but for now, we are all pleased as punch with his accomplishment!

After lunch, Nathan went bowling with some friends. He opted to skip the grad night party since it was held at Lagoon and 1) he hates rollercoasters and such as they give him headaches, 2) he really didn’t feel safe driving home at 1:00 in the morning and 3) there were not a ton of people he wanted to hang out with anyway. He opted to spend the night at home instead where we celebrated with some delicious chocolate orange cheesecake. Nathan told me to surprise him with the flavor, so I made a creamy orange cheesecake and topped it with a dark chocolate ganache. I made a tiny one sans chocolate for me, and both turned out delicious. And then we watched a movie. So it was a low key grad night, but one that held exactly what Nathan wanted-some time with his few friends, a reason never go to the high school again, and cheesecake. Oh, and there were presents as well. Kev and I gave him a super cool game piece organizer for one of his favorite board games, my mom made him a super cool quilt that featured a piano keyboard, and there were the super dorky graduation socks we gave him on his birthday last week so he could wear them for the big day.

Although high school was not what he hoped it would be for a multitude of reasons, I’m very proud of how Nathan soldiered through. He did his best to be positive at school and while he had to verbal vomit on a regular basis once he got home, he had a reputation for being optimistic and upbeat at school. He was the “student of dreams” for several teachers in that he was so excited and enthusiastic about the topics being taught that he literally radiated joy and was always asking for more knowledge. Not many high school math or science teachers get that kind of enthusiasm from their students. And I can vouch for that enthusiasm because Nathan would come home and draw physics diagrams or physics problems on my white board as he was telling me about what he had learned that day. 😂

While many kids are reluctant to leave high school, Nathan is most definitely ready to be done with this chapter of his life. He has already been in contact with his academic advisor at the university on multiple occasions and for a variety of different reasons, has his schedule planned out, and is looking forward to experiencing college life. He can hardly wait to get started. Now he just has to wait out the summer…

 

Pomp, Circumstance, and Swing

Last night was the official end of Daniel’s high school career, although to be completely honest, the concert last week felt far more like an official end than yesterday’s graduation. If nothing else, it was a far more emotional moment for me than last night was. Nevertheless, graduation was yesterday evening and despite our fears that it would be a four-hour event (900 graduating seniors!), it lasted just two hours and only about 40 minutes of that was the reading of all the names. They had it all worked out to run as quickly as possible.

The program was pretty standard: speakers from the high school admin, the district, the student body, etc. In addition, the chamber choir sang a couple of numbers and the jazz band played. I can honestly say that their portion was the highlight of the program. They played a jazz arrangement of “Rhapsody in Blue” which meant that Daniel once again played the beginning notes and subsequently got the raucous first applause. He switched from his clarinet to his saxophone for the remainder of the piece and looked like he was having the time of his life. The audience responded really well to the music and was clapping, dancing and generally cheering them on. I suspect it was a very heady feeling to have an entire arena full of people cheering for you. When the band finished the number, Daniel was beaming. It was a fantastic last performance of high school.

On the way home, Kev asked me how I was doing seeing as I am now the mother of a high school graduate. Honestly, it doesn’t seem real yet. I don’t think it will feel real until we get the mission call and start prepping for that or until everyone else goes back to school and he doesn’t. For now, it’s just like he’s out for the summer. Yes, I know reality is bound to come crashing down on me at some point, but for now I’m perfectly content to feel like nothing has changed.

I’m so proud of how hard Daniel has worked throughout all his schooling to this point. We’ve never needed to nag him about doing his homework or have a come to Jesus talk about how he wasn’t giving it his best effort. I know it is a blessing to have children that love learning and therefore enjoy school. I’m enormously grateful that all my children fall into that category. When Daniel was a sophomore in high school, one of his teachers actually sent me an email thanking me for having a kid who worked hard for his ‘A’ rather than one who expected something for nothing. That attitude will take him far. It has already worked to his benefit. Not only is he graduating with a 3.997 GPA, he has been accepted into the engineering program at Utah State University and plans to major in aerospace engineering. He has a four semester 90% tuition academic scholarship and another smaller music scholarship that comes with a stipend for participating in the marching band. There are several professors in the music department who are trying to woo him into being a music major based on his auditions for music scholarships and the fact that he is equally skilled in two instruments (he’s thinking about a music minor). He has a lot to look forward to.

Daniel is stepping off into the next part of his life. None of us know exactly where he will end up. But no matter where his path leads him, I suspect he will continue to work just as hard and show just as much dedication as he has up to this point.