Touring a college for the first time can be overwhelming and nerve-racking, especially when considering attending school out of state or country. I recently toured the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Campus as a high school sophomore considering graduating a year early. We had scheduled our tour for 2 p.m. on a Thursday and when we came in, we went to the front desk and were taken to a waiting room with a few other future students and their families also waiting for their tour and orientation.
As we waited for our tour guide, we talked with one of the office staff members about the school’s accomplishments over the years. Once our tour guide came in, she introduced herself and we began to walk around the campus for our entire tour.
We went to the financial aid and payment office, cafe, a few classrooms, and study halls during the tour. This college’s campus is pretty small, so our tour went on for a short time, but our tour guide went into great detail about all of the rooms and areas she presented to us.
We also spoke to a few people who ran the cafe’s kitchen and the advisor for students from veterans’ families. What I found most interesting during our presentation was the opportunities for the honors programs and on-campus paying jobs. USF offers a variety of flexible PN campus jobs for their students; these are very beneficial because your boss or employer will understand your schedule and school priorities. Some positions also offer a hands-on learning experience for students interested in specific careers. However, since the jobs are on campus, they offer a safety net while still getting students to meet real-life expectations in the workplace.
The USF college honor program differs from many standard honors programs offered at schools. This honors program focuses more on social classes than core classes like English or sciences. To qualify for this program, you must have a certain GPA and write an essay to be accepted. The honors classes look different than your typical class. For example, your homework would commonly be that you watched a TED talk or video and come to class the next day to talk about the video with your peers. An environment like this allows students to excel in social skills.
After we were told about USF’s unique programs, we ended our tour with our guide finishing up with any questions we had. She got us any help we needed from financial advisors or admissions and made sure we were set with our gift bags, including a booklet of all the majors USF offers, and with tons of other fun and useful goodies. For my first experience of touring a college, I was met with all the information I needed, which helped a lot with my future decisions and thoughts about potential schools.
