Tips from a Tour Guide

This week, instead of hearing a tip from me, I figured it might be helpful to hear from another tour guide.  Periodically, I’ll introduce you to another tour guide so that they can give you your prospective on McDaniel as well!

Here’s a Tip from Lisa Vasapollo!

Year: Senior

Hometown: Westville NJ

Major/Minor: Communication/Journalism & Writing

How long have you been a Tour Guide?: Since Fall Semester Sophomore year

What is your favorite thing about being a Tour Guide?: Getting to meet perspective students and share my own experience of being a student at McDaniel. I like knowing that I am helping them in the process of choosing a college.

What else are you involved in on campus?: Alpha Phi Omega: National Service Fraternity; Green Terror Productions (Campus programming board); McDaniel Free Press; Office of Student Engagement Student Worker; Peer Mentor; Peer Mentor Advisory Board Member; And some random other odds and ends I tend to find.

What’s your favorite building to talk about and why?: Hill Hall is my favorite building to talk about. Not only because I spend a lot of time there, but also because their is so many different departments and resources in that building. I also think it is one of the prettiest buildings on the campus.

Where’s your favorite place to study on campus?: The majority of my studying is done in my room or library. But honestly, anywhere I can find comfortable at the time. Sometimes I’ll be in Ensor lounge and others I’ll be tucked away in the library. It depends on what I am working on.

What is your favorite resource on campus?: The Writing Center. Even though I am a writing minor, it still helps me to better organize my thoughts and put an academic paper together better than I would be able to do without some sort of help.

What is your tip for someone coming on a tour of McDaniel?: Be prepared to walk up and down stairs! Wear comfortable shoes! And please ask us questions about anything! We love having out brains picked and answering questions. We don’t like when our tours are quiet and we have to hear ourselves talk the whole time.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen!  Another tip from another tour guide!

Tips from a Tour Guide

This week, instead of hearing a tip from me, I figured it might be helpful to hear from another tour guide.  Periodically, I’ll introduce you to another tour guide so that they can give you your prospective on McDaniel as well! I interviewed my fellow tour guide, Whitney, to give you a different point of view.

Here’s a Tip from Whitney Walker!

Year: Junior

Hometown: Cumberland, Maryland

Major/Minor: English Major with a Writing Minor

How long have you been a Tour Guide?:  Just over a year.

What is your favorite thing about being a Tour Guide?:  Getting to know all the perspective students and their families. I especially love when a student is excited to be on campus as I always am.

What else are you involved in on campus?:  I’m in the service sorority, write blogs for Admissions, work in the English office and am a peer mentor for the First Year Program.

What’s your favorite building to talk about and why?:  Hill Hall because that is where I spend the majority of my time. Also, I love talking about study abroad and Jan Term options because that is what first interested me in McDaniel when I took my tour.

Where’s your favorite place to study on campus?: During the warm months, I love sitting in Red Square to study. When it’s colder, I like hanging out in Casey’s Corner to work on school work because there’s always coffee nearby.

What is your favorite resource on campus?:  The Writing Center is my favorite resource because I write what seems like a million papers a semester and sometimes I just can’t make my words mean what my mind is thinking and they are always there to help.

What is your tip for someone coming on a tour of McDaniel?:  When going to any college, show enthusiasm. Don’t be intimidated. The students are closer in age to you than you think so don’t be afraid to get to know them and talk to them like you talk to your friends. It could help you learn a lot about the personalities of the different schools.

Tips From a Tour Guide: How to Make the Most out of your Tour of McDaniel

Tip #3: Be Excited

Have you ever heard the saying “Treat others the way you want to be treated?”  Well, the saying stays true while you’re on tour.  The Tour Guides at McDaniel love their jobs, but it makes it even better when you have a prospective student that is excited about being here.  Your energy is infectious to us, and makes us happy as well.  Not to mention, having an excited student on tour helps our energy stay up throughout the whole tour. The tour can feel long, especially by the end, since we throw so much information at you—which can be a little intimidating.  However, if you’re excited about being here, then everyone gets more out of it! Not to mention, if you’re excited to hear our stories, you’ll be able to process more of what we’re saying.

Being excited is easy—just show up with a smile on your face and armed with questions (going back to Tip #1: Ask Questions).  It doesn’t matter if you know what you’re interested in studying as long as you’re excited about something: campus life, the food, a certain department, extra curricular activities, anything.  We share a lot of little fun facts with you on tour, so you can get excited about those.  We’ll share stories of what has happened to us on campus, but we encourage you to tell us your stories as well!

Another thing: make sure you know which college you’re visiting, so that you can reference the things that you know about the college (which goes back to Tip #2: Come Prepared).  Reference any facts that you already know about the campus—it always excites us to have people on tour who are interested in what the college has to offer.  Even if this is your third of fourth college visit of that week (which happens to some people), keep your energy up.  Every college has different things to offer and your campus tour is the best time to find those things out.  Don’t let tiredness stop you from finding out as much information as possible!

Tips From a Tour Guide: How to make the Most out of Your Tour of McDaniel

Tip #2: Come Prepared

                Do you want to make sure you get the most information out of your college visits?  Then, whatever you do, do not go into a college visit blindly.  Make sure you know what you are looking for when you visit colleges.  What are you thinking about majoring in?  Do you want to play a specific sport at the college?  Are you going to be interested in joining a certain club?  More specifically, conduct some research about the school before you get there.  This can help you avoid that embarrassing moment on tour when you ask a question about something that has nothing to do with the school you are looking at, because trust me, after ten or twelve tours, you’ll start to get confused.  You can even make a list, just so you don’t forget things.  I’ll admit, I hated being that kid on college visits with the mom that had the list of questions written down in a notebook, but in the end, I appreciated it.  Having specific questions that I asked at every college really helped me decide that McDaniel was the place for me.

The more information you come into a visit with, the more you will be able to get out of your visit, just because you know you will walk away knowing exactly what you want to know.  It also helps to have the same information that you want to get from every school, that way, you’ll be able to compare them, which ultimately will make your lives easier when it comes to decision time.  For example, ask every college about your general education or liberal arts requirements that you will have to fulfill before graduation and also how many credits their majors are.  That way, you will be able to know just how much you will have to accomplish in your four years and you will be able to evaluate whether or not that is the right school for you.  In fact, ask for flyers that explain it.  We have a whole packet in Admissions all about our liberal arts requirement, which is called the McDaniel Plan.  It can seem rather daunting at first, especially during a tour, so being able to sit down later and look it over can be helpful.

Don’t forget: use everyone you can as a source for information.  If you come prepared with questions and different things you want to know, the wonderful people of McDaniel will help you.  I found myself even just talking to random students when I came to visit, since someone told me that they were studying what I was interested in.

Tips From a Tour Guide: How to make the Most out of your Tour of McDaniel

Tip #1:  Ask Questions

 I have been a tour guide since the Spring semester of my freshman year, and it is honestly the best job on campus.  I love being about to tell people all about why I love McDaniel and all of the wonderful experiences I have had here.  However, it is very obvious to me which prospective students want to be here and which ones are just walking around because they were dragged here by their parents.  Whatever the reason, there are some fantastic ways to make the most out of your tour.

There is nothing worse than having a whole tour full of people that don’t ask any questions.  If you have been on any college tours, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  The tour guide will excitedly ask, “Do you have any questions?”…and there’s dead silence.  Do not be this person!  Take advantage of the tour guides standing in front of you.  The tour guides are students, just like you will be, so they are the people that can give you the best information.  They’re the ones that know what students do on the weekend, what the professors are like, how the food tastes, and what Greek life is really like.  Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and ask them something that you want to know.  What’s the worst thing that can happen?

At McDaniel, we also give you our business cards at the end of a tour, so that if you think of any questions you may have for us, you can contact us.  Don’t be afraid to use our e-mails and ask us questions.  I always tell my tours to feel free to e-mail me and that if I don’t know the answer to something, I will find out the answer for them or direct them to someone who can.  Utilize the tools you are given and take advantage of the people that you make connections with on tour.  They have all the information you need!