Saturday, May 14th's Open House Recap!

Hey Berkeley! This quarter has been my busiest by far, so let me first apologize for not keeping up to date every week! This past weekend I helped host the Berkeley College Open House on the Garret Mountain Campus. It was great to see all these students come out to visit the school and get an idea as to where they wanted to go after graduation. I am not sure on how many students we had, but it seemed like every time I returned from giving a tour to one group, there was another group waiting to go, so overall, you can say it was a very successful day.

As I was giving the tours on Saturday, I was thinking to myself, this use to be me. Scared about going to college and not knowing who I may meet or where I would end up. The thing I was able to incorporate into my tours was the fact that Berkeley doesn't make anything scary and there is ALWAYS someone there for you if you needed help with something. Surprisingly, I didn't have one Marketing Major in any of my groups, which I was kind of bummed about, because I wanted to have a little Marketing talk! LOL But that's ok. The students I did meet were very cool and seemed to love all that Berkeley had to offer. As I was walking through, I was wondering what drew some of these students towards Berkeley. I had a range of different answers, which I thought was great! Some students said they liked the programs that were offered. Others said they liked that the class sizes were smaller compared to big lecture halls with over 100 students in them. I definitely made sure to point out the small class sizes because it really gives you that personal connection with your professor and plus if you have a question, you won't have to worry about it not being answered, because the professor will know you personally and can answer right in class if time allows. Overall, everyone had a good feel about the school and after the tour, I had a lot of good feedback from the parents on the information I provided, which was rewarding for me!

Another point I made sure to point out was the benefits of Career Services and the Academic Support Center. Many students worry about a job after they graduate, but as we all know, Berkeley College is there for life. It's not guaranteed they will find you a job right away, but they will be there for you through the whole entire job search, which many schools don't even offer. They give you a degree and out the door you go. Luckily, Berkeley cares and many of the students were impressed with that fact, even the parents were very happy to hear that! I encouraged the students to get started with the Career Services early on this way when the time comes, they are ready to rock and roll!

Also, the Academic Support Center was another key note I made. FREE TUTORING and lots of computer access! I can't even tell you how many parents said to me, "Wow, you guys offer a lot of computer access." They are just a beneficial learning tool we like to provide to our students, and again, the parents and the students LOVED that!

Students in their college searches don't know what they want,but they want to know what each school will offer them. I had a few students in my groups who were still Juniors in high school, narrowing down their lists. Hopefully I was a good enough tour guide and gave them all the ins and outs about Berkeley to help eliminate some other schools. In the end, it's the students choice, but I'm glad I was able to give my input and share some of my experiences with Berkeley!

Tomorrow's adventure is the Berkeley College Commercial shoot, which I will be taking part in! I am so excited and will definitely be blogging about that in the days to come! I hope everyone has a great week! I know it's crunch time for me. 4 research papers due so you can only imagine how stressful my life has been. All of that plus interning, life is just throwing it all at me! That's ok, I'll take it as a life test and just chug on through it all!