College of Liberal Arts Student Life! (Fall Webinar Series)

Hi, welcome to our CSU student life webinar. This webinar is focused on student life through the College of liberal arts. My name is Jessica Rencher an I'm the recruitment coordinator for the College of liberal arts and I have two amazing student ambassadors who are joining us today. I'm going to let them introduce themselves and they'll they can talk a little bit about their backgrounds here at CSU and then will get get going with the slide show.

Makes do you want to start.

I think your sound needs to be turned on.

OK will go to Ryland.

Hi everyone, my name is Rylan and I am a second year student here studying journalism and Mass Communication a little bit about me. I am from little small town in Homer, AK called Homer AK and came to CSU because I.

Just fell in love with it. The people are so friendly and you know Fort Collins and Colorado in general or just an amazing place to be so.

Awesome, thank you ryland.

This is always exciting part about webinars, so always say that the Internet is our friend or technology is our friend, but it is not friendly in that is truly the case. I can't tell you that I've had a single web and R where everything was flawless. There's always one little glitch here or there while we're waiting for Megs to log back on to our participants, go ahead and type in the chat.

What year you are in color in high school or if you're in grad school? I'm just let us know where you're at in your educational journey.

OK, hopefully I'm senior right name right? Is it colon senior in high school? Alright, you're getting ready.

Ready for the college journey?

And then.

Calling your from Massachusetts what part?

In Mitchell senior in high school, awesome Mitchell, it looks like you're from Colorado. Are you in the Northern or southern region?

Oh from Connecticut in Massachusetts for the week. OK, so I teach in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In the summers I teach science classes and so I flown in and out of Massachusetts handful of times, but that whole area is so cool out there.

OK, we're going to get started with our slide show.

Mitchell, I'm right outside Denver OK, awesome red rocks. Not a bad place to be.

Oh, you're on Cape Cod right now, great.

Not too bad a place to be OK, so here we go again. My name is Jessica, I'm the recruitment coordinator. My slides are not loading riling can you seem on your end?

Yes, I can see him.

OK, so does it have like my intro slide right now.

With your name.

Huh?

Yeah.

OK, so it's just not showing up on my end so today. This is the overview in the agenda of what we're going to cover so we'll go over the value of a liberal arts degree will go over a little overview. Maybe touch on scholarships, but the primary focus is student life. So I might skip through this. A few parts just to get to the good stuff, which is going to be our student panel, which Rylan it makes will speak to so the first thing is this question. You all answered the next question. I have for you is how would you describe your college search process?

Is it has been stressful or you eager to get it over with? Are you excited? Is all of the above or none of the above?

We'll see what you say and when you answer, go ahead and type it all out so we can see like the full sentence so you can do a stressed or be eager whatever it is.

Ryland, how are you and your college search where you stressed out? Or were you level headed?

Need a normally stressed out individual, but it was also fun 'cause I remember going. I mean, I know it's limited right now and it's not really available, but I remember going on like a trip with my mom and visiting like 5 different colleges and it was just such a great experience. But yeah it was stressful waiting for responses from colleges 'cause you put all this work and effort in and then you have to wait.

Yeah, that's so true. And I saw Colin said wish I could have visited Colorado. I wish you could too and we have a few options to kind of bring Cala Rado to you. So the first thing is that we have audio tours. If you go to admissions their virtual site will have an audio tour of the campus and there's some different YouTube that you can search.

That will give you kind of like an example of what the campuses, but I would highly recommend you just kind of Google search the campus. We have a beautiful location called the Oval that is my favorite spot on campus so I know you haven't been able to visit, but at least it will give you a taste of what we have to offer.

And then our team is completing a virtual tour. So we have video that's actually finishing editing tomorrow and we will be posting it. So keep an eye out for that. And then our ambassadors reilingen, Megs included, will be creating an audio tour. So you'll get to hear Ryland's voice on our audio tour. Mitchell, I'm glad that you're finding this interesting. It is. It can be a very nerve wracking process.

OK, so we're going to go to the next question. How confident are you in the value of a liberal arts degree? So are you very confident? Somewhat unsure not any of those.

If I can speak to this, Jessica, if you don't mind. So when I was choosing my major, I knew that I love to write and I was kind of looking at journalism, but everybody was saying, You know, journalism is a dying career. You don't want to go into journalism when I got here, there are so many options. It's not even just writing and journalism. There are so many options with liberal arts degree that I had no idea. I thought it was straight journalism, you know.

That's the track you gotta take, but that's so not true.

Yeah, and you bring up a really good point so you know what can you do with a liberal arts degree and we have a slide in here that shows what our graduates have done and so we have people who got a degree in music in there in a SWAT team, or people who did performing arts in there working for ABC News or E con and they went.

On to law school. And so we have people working for ESPN journalism, covering mixed martial arts. I mean, there's so many things that are graduates do an I didn't even know all the things that you could do with the degree. One fun story for you. So I have a friend and he all his brothers did engineering there very math, focused family and when he went to college he said I know I want to join the Air Force. After this an I want to fly.

Like fighter fighter jets, and so he was like. What degree is going to equip me too? You know, graduate in four years and be a good communicator and then go and pursue what I know I want to do. And so he landed on English. So all his brothers studied engineering. He chooses English. He graduates in four years and he actually was the Presidential Jet Air Force like escort.

After 911, when Air Force One was being flown, he flew the president to like this site where at the president bunkered down. So that was just like a cool thing like like he had an English degree and he was like flying this jet on 9/11 to like protect Air Force One. I just to this day I'm like still in awe so you can do so much with it and my sisters both majored in English. One is the psychologist in Washington DC.

And then I have another one who lives up in Northern California and she works for Chico state in their admissions Department, so there's a lot you can do with with a degree from the College of liberal arts.

We have 8 colleges at CSUCLA is one of those eight.

And makes us just messaging me right now. She said her microphone is broken on no.

Well, we will miss her.

Um?

OK, so thankfully we have Rylan here. You are expert student trial and so the College of Liberal Arts is one of eight of the colleges. And if you attend CSU you can you decide on CLA you can choose a variety of disciplines to study under an. I know this web and R is not focused on that but it's a good thing for you to know about. So I want to jump to the next part which is.

My path to CSU and I'm going to start with Rylan obviously and I'll share my story too. Because I'm a student as well, but rilynn? What was your path to CSU? How did you end up here?

Yeah so.

I knew that I wanted to go well. OK, so I'm from Alaska, so with all western states they do a we exchange so you get partial. It's like in between in state and out of state tuition. So I kind of knew that I wanted to do that, but I had visited Idaho and Montana and neither of the colleges like I'm not getting CSU is such a beautiful campus. I mean OK besides Clark.

But that's another story that if you decide to come here, you will be. Yeah, you'll hear the story of Clark, But.

Do you want to tell them what Clark is railing? I mean full transparency.

Yeah.

OK, so it's it's like a building that you go in for your classes, so it's it has about houses, a bunch of the classrooms and a lot of journalism majors are actually like you take a lot of your classes like I'm in Clark all day so but there's a huge joke about Clark because it's probably the worst building on campus, but I'm.

You should know about it if you're considering CSU, because then there's beautiful buildings like the UCA in some of the science buildings have rebuilt in the CSCLA also uses a building called Eddie, which has some good views.

Yes.

Yeah, I was in Eddie last year. Actually an it was it's beautiful in there and it's just like such a great campus and that's what I felt like when I came here. I was like wow, they really put a lot of effort into like creating a beautiful space for their students and I think isn't this a picture of the Oval that's up right now? Yeah, I would have to say the Oval is one of my favorite places to. It's just so beautiful and you can go there to do work or.

Yeah.

Just to hang out with friends. And yeah, it's a beautiful spot on campus and it's just like so beautiful here and right now all the leaves are turning and so that's also really pretty. But and so I decided sorry. Get back on track here. I decided to come here because my cousin he came here and graduated and he's visited me in Alaska and he was like you would love it here at CSU like it is. Colorado is basically like Alaska.

But more sunshine. So I came here. I fell in love with the people. They were everybody like anybody. You walk up to will give you directions, give you help and you might even make a new friend like everybody is just so nice here. And that was one thing that I was just floored by. I couldn't believe how genuine everybody was, so yeah that's why I came here.

And I can just speak to CSU through or graduate lens. So I came to Colorado.

Because I loved the state back in 2010 and I've been an educator in in administrator in the state for the past 10 years. And then I went back and got my Masters and I chose CSU. I actually started at another University down in Denver and I decided to transfer to CSU is a better option for me. I lived in Fort Collins and I wanted to take in person classes and so I remember walking on the Oval and I just thought like this is where I belong.

So I got my Masters and I'm now working on my doctorate in. I had a great advisor I never thought I. I didn't think I would work on my doctor until my 40s and I came on to campus, got my Masters and then my advisor said you should get your doctor at 2. So I found great mentoring. While I've been here in, people have really encouraged me to do more than I even thought I could do in Megs perfectly on time here.

Are regarded.

Are you?

Please.

So we're at the park in the presentation where you share your your path to CSU.

Me specifically, I'm sharing my OK awesome.

What makes go?

Already sorry, my microphone is broken. I uninstalled the driver, reinstalled the driver were here. Now my name is Meg's I am.

How can I say?

Can I pause you for a second like you just have to know this about Megs to all our participants. She's pretty resourceful like in Riley knows well like these two. Nothing will keep them up a web and R OK, go ahead.

Oh yeah, nothing. I'll just go rent a computer.

This makes I am a senior studying political science with a concentration in US government law and policy, and then I also have minors in English and legal studies. So it's been a weird year, but I'm glad to be here. Yeah, so my bad disease you was. It was interesting in high school I went to high school in Loveland, which is just a little bit South of Fort Collins and actually didn't even visit CSU. Probably until my junior year of high school. I was like whatever like it's it's.

Cool time before Collins was like the cool place to go when I was in high school it was very much like you know, if you're going to go out with your friends if you're going to do something cool, it's going to be in Fort Collins. So eventually I made my way up to campus and I would just really fell in love with the community. I heard Ryland talking earlier about how everybody is just really kind up here, and I placed a high value on kindness. So that was definitely a huge draw for me. I actually did an individualized visit, which is a little bit, you know.

Not the same right now as it is normally, but I came to campus. I met some professors and they really were just awesome and made me feel like wow, I could have a place here and these people are studying things that I'm interested in and there's so many internship opportunities in club and involvement opportunities in Fort Collins is so cool. So for me it was just kind of like this huge conglomeration of all of these different things that just really made CSU the place for me. You know, socially, academically, financially, it just kind of all ended up working out.

And I've now been here. This is my third year as an undergraduate and I'm hoping to stay for my graduate degree if I get accepted into the program that I'm applying to for next fall. So that's a little bit about me.

And you will get your top notch student. OK, so let's talk student life. I have a few other slides. I'm a weave in, but let's talk about your experience ladies. Ann Ryland. Let's start with you. What is 1 hitting gym of your student life experience? So like for our participants, what's something that you're like?

You know this is only an insider, knows this about student life.

Oh, geez, um.

I don't know.

And if you need a minute to think, we can go to Megs.

I don't. I don't know if it's like an insider kind of thing, but it's just one thing to know about going into college and I found it a little more difficult this go around like this year, but OK, so it's so different from high school for one, and like me coming from a school of a graduating class of 80, everybody knew me from the day I was born, basically. So it's about like one thing I can tell you about making friends making connections.

Is every time a new semester start where you go into a new class, find somebody to sit with, go up to somebody, introduce yourself. I mean it. I remember my first day on campus is my first class. There was this girl sitting in the grass waiting for class to start and I just went next where I sat down. I was like Are you in this class and she goes? Yeah I am and we introduced ourselves. I told her my major where I was from and obviously my name and we sat together for.

The first, maybe two weeks of classes until I realized that my suite mate was out also in that class and then. So that's how I got really close with my suite mate and that girl that I sat with the first week or two I never saw again, but it gave me an in to the class and it gave me someone to sit with for couple weeks while I got adjusted and so I think the biggest thing is just go up and make a new friend that was the piece of advice my mom gave me. The first day I was freaking out. I was like I Gotta.

This is the first time I ever have to introduce myself to people like what am I going to do? I have to make new friends and.

I just introduce myself and it worked out 'cause everybody is meeting new friends. That's what you have to remember is like everybody is out to meet new friends. It's not like you're in such a big school that not everybody knows everybody. So that's just one thing that I.

Thanks.

So right now they do have assigned seating, but that is not normal, but it is kind of like you get used to the people you're sitting with and you do kind of have like a seat that you sit in. You know it's just, it's just how it works. But no, there's not usually assigned seating, you just sit wherever.

Oh

you know. First I would echo what Rylan said. Actually met my best friend that way. My second semester. In case you we were both in this like huge geology class and this like tall blonde girl just comes up to me and she's like hey is anyone sitting here and I was like no you can sit there and we actually became best friends and we like travel together and hang out all the time so it's kind of this lovely moment. So yes definitely do that. The other thing I would say is join a student organization because I think that there's like.

It's just so fun and you don't even realize the breadth of what types of student organizations are available like you just kind of assume you know, like, Oh, there's probably some clubs, but there's, like so many clubs, there's almost, I think 500. You know it's kind of crazy, and if you don't find a club that you want, you can start a club. I did that instead of made some of my best friends through the knitting club that I started, but there's all kinds of stuff that goes on on campus.

You know there's an English social club. There's all these different types of like language clubs and you know hobby type clubs. I think there's an anime club like really whatever you want you can find and they think that that's a really cool way to connect to the campus outside of the classroom because it's very easy to get kind of sucked into class and only do that all the time. And I definitely have fallen prey to that at points where I'm like doing homework from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, but it's not healthy and your professors don't want that from you. They're like no go outside like.

Get some fresh air. Join a glove. Do something fun. So yeah, definitely that Ann. Just knowing that there's so many people with lots of different types of interests and a lot of times you just have to find those like 5 people with your same interests. I was like there's no way that there's college students who want to like join in knitting club like that's just not going to happen. And now we have like 16 people and I'm like this is wild, but I guess you know giant campus of 37,000 people. You can't find your people and usually it's going to be in a student organization like that.

Yes, so it's less a list and more of like a database and I will put the link in the chat. Actually there's two though, but one we have a list on the College of liberal arts website of all of the College of liberal arts like affiliated organizations and then our slice office, which stands for student leadership involvement in community engagement. They have like a database of all of the clubs that we have and those are for the whole University. The ones that are, you know, CLA related or not, and I'll put both of those in the chat.

You can check him out.

I didn't have one thing that I wanted to add on to what Meg said. It kinda is my little piece of advice, insider advice that OK?

OK, so she was talking about how like your professors don't want you to be doing homework from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed and that is something that I have had to kind of get used to as a type a person and literally just like I'm so academically driven, but in the last year and a half it's become less less so. But I mean, I still I'm here for my academics, right? But College is not all about academics like.

It's about the connections you make and like your grades do not define you. That is, I think, an insider piece of advice. Your grades do not define you. If you were in a student in college or in high school or a B student in high school.

You're probably gonna be like you may or may not be a C or B student in in college, you know, and that's OK, like it's it's really OK to get a B or C on a test like it's OK to get a B in a class or see in a class like it's it's not going to be the end of the world so.

OK, actually this is not like specific to journalism majors. Anybody can do it.

Doing a section this week actually, but so we have a radio station here called KCS. You and it's all. It's actually like our student media. It's housed in the Lory Student Center which is basically just this big building that.

Basically everything is housed in.

And.

So you go there an you can join the newspaper. You can join the radio station. You can. There's a couple other ones too. I think they have a magazine there and that is where I went in and I was going to join the Collegian but the radio station reached out to me and they were like hey you want to join us and I'd never done radio ever an it is then one of the funniest things I have ever joined. Like I get to do live broadcasts and it's so much fun and I would definitely recommend that there are like.

Legitimate clubs, I think it's.

Oh Gosh.

Do you remember what the Journal I was? I was apart of it last year. It's run by David Wolfgang. Do you guys know what that is?

Yeah.

What?

Oh, I love him. I took communication law with him. What a great professor.

Yep.

I don't know of that club, but yeah, Rocky Mount Student Media is going to be like your number one like one stop shop for student media involvement so they have like the radio station. There's a TV station so there they do produce 30 minute programs Monday through Thursday. So that's two hours of TV a week, which is like very difficult. Not only people understand how difficult that is. I mean, you probably do 'cause you're like involved in these things. But yeah, there's TV, radio, newspaper, or magazine you can do, like podcasting. You can do all kinds of fun stuff.

So yeah.

Yeah.

I.

Right?

Although it looks like Mitchell is here.

And then, um.

So waiting on Colin.

I'm coming as well, it's it's loading.

Alright, looks like they're both here.