My College Guide figured that you would enjoy seeing what a college theatre program really looks like: the rehearsal, set design, costume construction, and, well, you get the idea!  Watch the Theatre Department at Cal Poly on YouTube or below.

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Courtesy of Nichols College

What is the Professional Development Seminar?
The Professional Development Seminar (PDS) Program is a series of 4 one-credit courses in career and professional development. The courses were developed based on student developmental models…we tried to match students’ needs and developmental stage with appropriate skill development, over the 4 years. Our program closely aligns with Chickering and Reisser’s (1993) student development model. The focus of the program is to teach the skills necessary for our students to find success in the job search process and in their professional careers.

Why do you feel this is a necessary program?  What will a student “get” from this experience?
Most colleges and universities educate their students in the academics but then leave the student to their own devices to find employment. At Nichols College, we believe an education consists of outstanding academic instruction and learning, coupled with skill development in finding a position and succeeding in a career. For instance, resume writing instruction begins in the sophomore PDS course and is repeated in the junior and senior courses. By the time the student uses the resume to apply for a professional position, it has been reviewed and graded at least 6 times by a trained PDS faculty member.

Svadilfari / Sean

Additionally, interviewing skills are introduced in the sophomore course and most of the junior courses focuses on this topic. In the junior course each student is required to participate in a mock interview in front of the class, assuming the role of both an interviewer and an interviewee over the course of several weeks. The student not only learns from participating but also from watching and critiquing almost 20 other interviews.

What are some of the topics covered in the program?
We alter the curriculum every semester in order to stay current with the demands of the workplace. For instance in the last five years we have added: how to apply online at a company website, using Facebook and LinkedIn for networking, multiculturalism and globalism, behavioral interviewing techniques, and more.

Additionally, our students create a professional portfolio beginning in the sophomore course and continue the process through the senior course. They add to it each year and it is graded by their professor. We then train the students how to use this portfolio in an interview.

Are there guest speakers or hands-on projects in the Professional Development Seminar?
Yes, we use guest speakers (alumni, area business leaders, college recruiters, and faculty) in classroom presentations and for the Sophomore and Senior Choice programs. The Choice Programs are a series of special workshops and presentations that the students attend in lieu of one (sophomore course) or three (senior PDS) class meetings.

For the topic of interviewing skills in the junior year, one faculty member brought in an FBI Special Agent who interrogates suspected terrorists to describe what he looks for in both word usage and body language during an interview. Another faculty member brought in a Vice President of Human Resources to discuss what he looks for in applicants, and to describe his do’s and don’ts of interviewing.

Courtesy of Nichols College

Sophomores must attend the Academic Fair – an event much like a career fair where faculty and seniors from each major “man” a table with information about their major. Sophomores transverse the room and spend time speaking with the faculty and seniors about various majors/minors, internships, and employment opportunities. The students have overall found this event very successful in helping them to decide on a major, a minor or a second major.

Who teaches these courses?
The courses are taught by full-time faculty, administrators, and adjunct faculty. Most college academic majors and departments are represented on the PDS faculty. Thus, this program serves to unite the college over a common goal – of teaching students the professional skills they need to be successful in the “real world”. The challenge is to provide comprehensive, ongoing training for faculty in order to deliver the curriculum consistently across sections and courses.

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hjl / Ho John Lee

My College Guide believes that college blogs are a great and wonderful tool that you can use to learn more about the colleges and universities that you are interested in. After reading our giant 101 College Blogs to Put You in the College Mood article, we figured some of you may have been thinking “study abroad” and were perhaps left wondering about the existence of international college blogs!

We’ve found a slew of international college blogs (93 of them to be exact) to aid you in your international college search. From the Imperial College London Blog with the clever snapshots of students complete with mini-movie previews to athletic blogs like the ones found at Simon Fraser College, Vice Chancellor blogs at Macquarie University, or the arts at RMIT, you’ll find something to keep you entertained – and informed!

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Courtesy of Saint Michael's College

This is definitely a college first! Where did the idea come from? The idea came from collaboration between Chris Cleary, the sculptor from On The Rocks, and two SMC professors Valerie Bang-Jensen and Mark Lubkowitz.  When the Teaching Gardens were installed three years ago, Chris designed a large rock to say “The Teaching Gardens of Saint Michael’s College.”

When designing the large rock, Clary used a rubber-resist sandblast process to create the letters on the stones, and he realized that there was a lot of wasted rubber. Clary says it is the nature of his business to create as little waste as possible, so he continued to play around with the leftover materials, sandblasting words into extra pieces of stone, and before he knew it he had lots of words, which are now all being used in the garden.

How will this word garden be used? Are there any special features we should know about?
The garden will be used by the Saint Michael’s community and those visiting our campus. The possibilities are endless; one can create poetry or wordplay or just sit and meditate. Classes will be able to use the space, as will our orientation and community service programs. A Professor of English just decided to use the Word Garden in her Genres Poetry class this fall. Someone could even write a marriage proposal, send a message to a friend, or just leave some silly or profound phrases for others to contemplate.

What are some of the words students can discover in the garden? Do you have any favorites?
There is a wide variety of words in the garden, ranging from words like peace, love, and God to leprechaun, fur, and ninja, plus verbs like open, exit, believe and think — Ninja is definitely my favorite word in the garden. I made the sentence “Ninjas are here” which can be seen in the video.

Are there plans to add more words over time?
We have one more “word-delivery” coming up in a week or so to give us a grand total of 350 words. We are hoping that classes, departments and others will donate words to the garden. The garden is a huge draw already and everyone from visiting families to faculty and staff to theater-goers to campers are having their say, with some pretty interesting results. A chalkboard and a chessboard made of stone will arrive this week as well.

My College Guide thinks this sounds like a lot of fun — and a great idea! Check out the Word Garden at Saint Michael’s College on YouTube or below for more about the Word Garden.

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Marquette University

We love the way Marquette University points out the differences with a spoof on a popular TV commercial using actual MU alums. Can you guess which one? We spoke to David Murphy, Senior Director of Brand Marketing, at Marquette University to get the back story. We just wouldn’t be us if we didn’t!

We dig the Marquette Alumni Reunion videos — it reminds us of one of our favorite commercials (if you can like a commercial)! Where did the idea come from?
Actually, I like commercials. In my past world in advertising, I created them for twenty-five years. The Alumni videos are derivative of a fairly popular approach that has been used on television by many advertisers…you might be thinking of one in particular.

How long did it take to get this video made start to finish?
There was about a week or two for pre-production. This includes concept meetings with Advancement members, research of the generations and writing the scripts. For the actual production it took one day to cast talent, one day to shoot, two-to-three days to edit, color-correct and score the music.

What’s your favorite Marquette U video so far?
Tough question.  My top three favorites:
The wacky world of Danny Pudi
Jesuit 2.0
How the Search Makes us Who We Are

You can also see the difference between the Marquette University Class of 1980 and 1990 and the Class of 2000 and 2005 on YouTube – there’s even Alumni Reunion Weekend Video Outtakes.  We’re told to expect more YouTube videos in the fall: we’ll keep you posted! Note to future students: high-fives are apparently out and the fist bump is in, at least according to the clever videos by the talented folks at Marquette University.  Watch Marquette Reunion Video: Students Then and Now: ’60s and ’70s on YouTube or below.

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seanfraga / Sean Fraga

How did this large scale blog community begin?
I began working for the Hopkins Undergraduate Admissions Office in August 2003, and from the onset Hopkins Interactive was a pet project of mine. My Dean allowed me a lot of leeway in creating the site and recruiting the students. After a year of research, I spent much of the second year recruiting the first bloggers and working collaboratively with them to design the site. Finally in December 2005 we launched Hopkins Interactive and have been expanding the endeavor every since.

How do Johns Hopkins U students get involved?
Members of the Student Admissions Advisory Board (SAAB), the students behind Hopkins Interactive, are selected from a pool of applicants at the start of every academic year. The application is made available late in the summer and is advertised mainly to newly enrolling freshmen, as the upperclassmen on the board are typically returning members. We interview each applicant during the week of new student orientation and make our decisions by the beginning of classes. Traditionally, we select 6-8 new members each year, and the overall group size ranges from 20-23 students.

How do you choose your student bloggers?  What do you look for?
In the selection process we try to make a balanced group, so we look for diversity of background and talents, creativity in their writing abilities (sample blogs are part of the application), personality, and dedication to the promotion of Hopkins. Since the board does more than just blog, creativity, personality, and an innovative mindset are factors more than just how one writes. Last year we had about 50 applications.

Wysz / Michael Wyszomierski

What can a prospective student take away from these blogs that they couldn’t get otherwise?
Before launching Hopkins Interactive, I had a number of conversations with my colleagues and current students about what our goals should be in providing blogs and more significantly providing prospective students direct, uncensored access to current students. There are a lot of misconceptions about Johns Hopkins as an undergraduate institution and some that truly frustrate current students. Presenting “the real Hopkins” through the blogs and other social media endeavors has allowed us to dispel many of those myths and connect a new group of prospective students to the university.

Any particular blogs college bound students should make it a point to look at to get a better feel for Johns Hopkins University?
Expanding from just offering an Admissions blog and a number of current student blogs, to now offering blogs written by alumni, parents, faculty, and staff has really made me proud. I know of very few other University blog programs as extensive as Hopkins. I also am impressed about how we have expanded to so many other social media programs, providing prospective students with a variety of ways to connect with our current students.

Knile

Spill it!  Do you have a favorite?
In my opinion the great success of Hopkins Interactive has to be our Academics Blog. I know of no other University that has such a site. Pretty simple, the Academic Blog contains student-written entries about every academic major and minor offered at Hopkins. These blogs provide an up-close look at the experiences that real students have had at Johns Hopkins. Within the blogs, one will read about students who have changed or added majors, taken classes completely unrelated to their major, fulfilled multiple majors and minors, and otherwise explored their academic curiosities while at Hopkins.

I also often reference our Guest Blog as one of our other great successes. The mission of the Guest Blog is to feature the story of a different Johns Hopkins undergraduate each week. In over four years we have had nearly 180 entries written by approximately 150 different students.

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alice_burgess

My College Guide discovered a slew of Second Life campus tours on YouTube – and we thought you might like to see them.  You won’t believe the ways in which the college campus has been reinterpreted within these virtual worlds!

Check out the  Washington State University Second Life virtual college tour with an appearance from the WSU Mascot Butch T. Cougar himself.  There’s also Florida International University that mimics the Miami, Florida campus – right down to the palm trees.

You’ll find the University of Kentucky, Saint Paul College’s tour that shows off The Pavilion (a meeting place with video screens and virtual Coke machine), as well as Ohio University and several learning kiosks.  But YouTube has even more, like East Carolina University, Texas State University San Marcos (with drivable golf carts and boats), San Jose State University, and ECPI College of Technology.

A trip to a Second Life virtual college campus won’t replace an actual college campus visit — but you can check out college coursework, student Second Life projects, and even sit in on lectures, speakers, and events – while having a little fun, too!  Take a look at how the college and university campus is transformed into this virtual world in recognizable (and sometimes not so recognizable) ways.  Watch Texas A&M’s Second Life Campus on YouTube or watch it below.

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Do you live and breathe books?  Does the thought of a traditional college setting not feel like the right fit for you?  You, my friend, might want to take a look at a Great Books program.  We spoke to Jon Daly, the Director of Admissions at Thomas Aquinas College, in Santa Paula, California, and Cecilia Corrigan, the assistant Director of Admissions at St. John’s College (which has locations in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe New Mexico).

ANiceCupofTea / Jan

Great Books, or classic books, replace textbooks, discussion replaces lectures, and all that is required is a love of and respect for the written word.  No majors, no minors, and no electives – nothing gets in between you and the current book, whatever classic that may be.

What kind of student would benefit from a great books program?
Thomas Aquinas: Students who love to read, who want to develop the skills of critical thinking, who want to explore the full range of academic disciplines, and who long to search for truth and real understanding would benefit from our great books program. The program challenges students to a disciplined scholarship in the arts and sciences that is indispensable for critical judgment and genuine wisdom.

Instead of attending lectures, Thomas Aquinas College students gather around tables for careful inquiry in small tutorials, seminars, and laboratories. They engage in conversation with their peers under the guidance of a full-time teaching faculty member, which enables them to become highly engaged in their own learning. The Socratic Method, as this form of learning is called, nurtures habits of independent thought. Students learn to think clearly, analyzing positions in terms of their component parts and underlying assumptions, and they learn to articulate their thoughts in a logical manner, offering support for their conclusions.

St John’s College: Great Books programs are designed for students who are often referred to as Renaissance men and women: students who enjoy making thematic connections between disparate categories of study benefit from a historical approach to math, science, literature, theology and political science. Students who believe that the world has much to offer appreciate seeing it portrayed through many diverse perspectives.

Larry Miller / Larry Miller

What do you think makes the great books program a good choice?
Thomas Aquinas: One mark of our program’s success is the variety of professions and careers graduates enter. Nearly half of our alumni attend graduate and professional schools in a wide array of disciplines; among them, philosophy, theology, law, and the sciences are most often chosen.  This versatility stems not only from the great books, but also from the way in which the great books are taught here.

St John’s College: A great books program is a good choice because, in order to feel like a thoughtful, confident participant in one’s own life, it is essential that one know how to navigate through the bombarding conjunctions of instinct and reason. Through the analysis of great books , students gradually learn when to be flexible and when to be insistent, how to distinguish the essential from the superficial, and how to extend the consequences of a given point of view beyond what has been made explicit by an author or a classmate.

Any advice for students considering attending a Great Books College?
Thomas Aquinas: Any student considering Thomas Aquinas College should come visit the campus and/or attend the College’s Great Books Summer Program. Two weeks long, the Summer Program introduces participants to a selection of the Great Books. They attend classes twice daily, and these are run in just the same fashion as the College’s regular classes.

St John’s College: Try to think about what you want out of a college. What is important to you? How do you want to be different after four years? Visit the colleges you are interested in and try to picture yourself there.

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Courtesy of University of Arizona

Of course, there are plenty of resources that can help you adjust to college (like our website, this blog, and annual magazine for starters) but we haven’t heard about such a comprehensive college program…until now!  My College Guide thought you might like to know about this one – so we spoke with Lynette Cook Francis, the Assistant VP for Student Affairs, at the University of Arizona to learn more.

Why a Faculty Fellows Program?  What is it?
The Faculty Fellows program lowers the barriers between students and faculty by placing faculty in environments on students’ home turf:  residence halls, athletics, cultural centers and Greek houses.

Faculty hold regular hours in these facilities, getting to know the students, mentoring, participating in events and hosting their own events.  There are about 35 fellows in over 30 locations.

What role do these faculty members play in helping a new student smoothly make the transition to college?
Fellows often help make the transition from having a parent around all the time to having a caring adult who will listen and with whom they can check in with when they need to. The goal of the program includes helping students to make a smooth transition from high school to university, more effective decision making, an ever-deepening love of learning and, ultimately, graduation from the University.

Courtesy of University of Arizona

Do faculty fellows and their students take part in any activities or events?
A key part of being a fellow is to bring a unique interest to the students, Fellows are famous for engaging in all kinds of activities.  Some include cooking for their residence hall every month,  engaging students in a semester-long mural project; working with students on sustainability projects; taking students to performances; and tutoring and doing study skills workshops or practice job interviewing.

There you have it!  The University of Arizona’s Faculty Fellows program looks like a great way to incoming students successfully make the transition to college and so much more!  And what college student can resist the offer of a home-cooked dinner?

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Brad J Ward

We know you’re a little nervous about the first day of college – but My College Guide is so here for you!  You can read through our advice on how to get settled in at college, what to bring to college, and all about college welcome week! We’ll keep dishing out the tips so when the big day finally arrives – you’ll be all set!  For now, check out what college welcome week is all about – from Butler University’s Kristen Raves, the Coordinator for Electronic Communication!

So – why Welcome Week?
Welcome Week is an important time in the life of a incoming freshman.  It is a great way to kick off the fall and get ready for an amazing year.  It is an essential part of the freshman experience at Butler University.

What kind of events and activities make up Butler University’s Welcome Week?
There is a great variety and diversity of activities that combine to make Welcome Week such a success!  Among them are a few events such as Play Fair which gives the students a chance to meet other freshman and make new friends, along with Block Party where nearly all of our 135 organizations are on campus to help get these freshman involved.  The mission of the Welcome Week is to provide programming and information that will help students make Butler University their home.  We want students as involved as they can be right from the start and feel like they have their place on campus from the second they get here.

My College Guide hopes that makes you feel better about that first big leap into college life.  You can see what Butler University’s Welcome Week 2009 was like and sneak a peek at what actual college students are lugging in to college!  The 2010 Welcome Week video won’t be due out until the next month or so (we’ll keep you posted).  But in the meantime, watch the Welcome Week at Butler University Video on YouTube or below.

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