Did your child become more intellectually curious in college?

[Anonymous]

My kid is smart, did well in HS and is going to a top 20 college but seems basically uninterested in school. History? Boring. Math? too hard. English? Irrelevant.

Is this being 18? Should I worry? Did your not very intellectually curious kid change in college? (Hoping I get some "yes" answers).

[Anonymous]

No. My kid did not. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Yes. I think history and social studies are not taught well in school, so once she got to college, she realized what those are about, and started reading and questioning a lot more.

[Anonymous]

For sure.

[Anonymous]

why do you care?

[Anonymous]

It’s sad to me that a kid who can get into a T20 hs no intellectual curiosity. This is what happens when you put test scores above all else. Kids can grit through it, but that does not make them hunger to learn.

OP, college will be more interesting if he picks a major he likes. I hope he finds something he enjoys and it lights a spark. Congrats to him on great admissions and I hope he ends up inspiried and enjoys college.

[Anonymous]

My oldest had no intellectual curiosity in high school and could no way get into T20. Went to college for social aspect. Husband and I considered not sending/paying for DC1 because thought it would be waste. Fast forward now a senior in college, doing amazing, engaged in major with great summer internships, etc. also had some fun along the way. Now DC2 is about to leave for college—had been much better student in high school and got into much better college. Not T20 but soundly in T50. Not into social scene. I wouldn’t necessarily say intellectually curious but somewhat interested in academic pursuits as compared to DC1, however much less excited to leave home and go to college. Hopefully similar maturity as number 1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why do you care?

Intellectual curiousity.

[Anonymous]

You know, I became more intellectually curious after moving out of my parents house. It was as if before then I didn’t have the bandwidth. I also was free to learn WHAT I wanted HOW I wanted. I got calendars with art for each month, for example, to learn to recognize different artists. I watched movies about certain times in history to get myself interested in history and then looked it up. Quite frankly, I did a bunch of research on random things that interested me and never told my parents. I researched doing business internationally because I was into it. Had my mother known she’d have tried to make me use that professionally or formally academically. But I just wanted to learn for fun.

[Anonymous]

Mine did for sure. DD coasted through high school with basically no challenge, occupied by her sport and boys. This freshman year she came home and said she had an "awakening" just being exposed to people who are not like her. Made her very curious to learn more about people and she is reading a ton, which she never did. Changed her major from a STEM major to a humanities one, because her interests changed.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. Mine went from TJ to a SLAC. After 4 years of not having a lot of choices in what to take because she did 4 years of fine arts, and had almost no elective slots, plus finding classes very stressful, she’s able to do a second major for fun, explore the curriculum, take classes that bring together several subjects and be in a much less cutthroat environment. She’s still in a STEM major, but is fulfilling divisionals by taking all sorts of classes just because they are interesting and doing research she loves with her advisor.

College is just a healthier environment.

[Anonymous]

Totally agree college is a healthier environment! There is more room to take classes you think are interesting and learn for the sake of learning.

[Anonymous]

Much more so. Far more open to exploring a range of options and just wanting to talk about the news, events, culture etc. Seems a lot more interested and aware of the world and flexible in his thinking. Glad to see it. (He's at W&M).

[Anonymous]

Yes -- all three kids have become more intellectually curious. I could have predicted this with two of them, but not with the youngest. She was a very "what's the right answer?" HS student and is now a "what's the right question?" college student. FWIW, she's a psych major at a T5 SLAC.

[Anonymous]

I didn't become more intellectually curious until law school and later, perhaps after having to force myself (intrinsic motivation being key here) to give my brain a full workout. At that point, I realized how much I had missed just drifting through college.

I was always curious as a kid though, and I'm not sure what was the cause of my malaise during high school and college. The boredom may have started in middle school. (Testing had nothing to do with it. I never minded standardized testing and typically did well.)