He spent June in a Summer Bridge program at Indiana Tech, which was an abbreviated summer semester for incoming freshmen. Only 22 kids enrolled (well, 23, but Hector, Nick's only roommate, bailed out after a couple days), so they got to know each other as a small group.
We dropped him off, and in classic IT fashion, they weren't prepared for us... the staff that enrolled Nick had left the university so they had no record of his participation. Same with four other kids, but we got there early, giving Dr. Tim Raines a chance to sort it out. Nick and Brandi were well prepared, packed, and ready for him to survive three weeks: clothes, laundry supplies, tech tools, and she assisted in the room setup. We stocked his fridge (trunk) before leaving town, following a meeting with the fourth admissions counselor he's had in the past year. This one, Emily, is a keeper: good listener, took good notes, and got Nick and additional $2K in scholarship money based on his HS final grades.
He communicated occasionally over those three weeks on campus, about the Math and Psychology classes for which he got a few credit hours, the wet trip to Cedar Point, evenings in the Rec shooting pool, and of course the food. He even made a few human connections this time, which is a maturing step for Nick, as people aren't his thing. I was bummed he had a room to himself, so he still hasn't had much roommate experience, but he will in the Fall. He'll remember the event for leaving his dashcam plugged in and draining his car battery, but it was no big deal, one jump got us going again.
He and I did a short adventure at the end of June, we drove up to Detroit Eastern Market for Burger Bash, and voted for our favorite local burgers, after taste testing about seven of them. It was a hot Saturday, but nice enough, and we stayed hydrated. We also caught a Mud Hens game earlier in the month. And Brandi and I visited the Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg Museum in Indiana after dropping off Nick, which has been on my list for some time.
Photos here from graduation and early summer.
