Student Life Off Campus (Fall Webinar Series)

Man said man, me and Sarah and Sarah had fun, so that's what matters.

Alright, let's see if people start joining in.

It's going to be really funny if nobody else joins us today.

It says we have a.

Here.

Oh well, I'll go ahead and start launching in as you all are joining us. Welcome so glad to have everybody here today while we're waiting for just a few other folks to get to trickle on in. If you all joining us, wouldn't mind letting us know who you are. So hop into that chat feature down on the bottom left of your corner. Let us know your name where you're coming from and since today is a little bit more about off campus or outside of academics and studying, I would love for you to share like.

What are you and excited to get involved in at CSU? So type that on into the chat will wait for a couple more folks to get in today and then we will get us moving and Groovin.

Alright.

Power Ranger.

In Assam.

Now I can see everybody that's in here so fabulous again welcome. Thank you all for joining us today. If you would like to let us know who you are, hop down in the chat tells your name where you're from and as I was saying earlier since this, this broadcast is a little bit more about what to do outside of the classroom. Tell us why you're excited to get involved in so we can help. Try to you know, shape this just a little bit more to who you are, what you're interested in. So casting from California. So glad to have you here.

But while we do that, I'll go ahead and introduce myself and then I'll have all of our panelists say hello to my name is Kelsey Stewart. I usually her pronouns, I, me, assistant director of visitor services in the office of admissions at Colorado State University. I am a proud CSU grad. I have a degree from CSU from 2013, and nutrition and food science. So Kayla, do you want to go ahead and go introduce yourself next?

Sure hi everyone, my name is Kayla. Could Banting. I am a junior majoring in zoology and minoring in chemistry. Emergently from Orange County, California. See if you will. I see a few California people in chat. My pronouns are she, her, hers, afew of my involvements include the equine assisted activities and therapies club on campus as well as active minds. Which environmental health advocacy club I was an undergraduate teaching assistant in the Biology Department and Lastly I was an alternative spring break participant.

Through our student leadership involvement and community engagement office.

Hello everyone, my name is Katie. I am a junior studying mechanical engineering with minors in sustainability and sustainable energy originally from Lakewood Co. Some things I'm involved in our I'm in the Honors Program I'm involved in fraternity and sorority life. I'm involved in club and intramural sports. A number of professional organizations, an executive boards on campus employment as well as undergraduate research.

Alright cool, what's up everyone? My name is Hayden. I'm a junior studying psych and business. I'm from Longmont, Co originally, which is just South of Fort Collins. If you didn't know a couple things I'm involved in, I'm apart of crew which is a campus ministry that we have here is you. I love playing in real sports so I try to do those as much as we can and then I love meeting perspective students. So I give a lot of tours during normal years.

Hello everyone, my name is Darlene. I'm a fourth year student majoring in ethnic studies with a concentration in education. So I am I am part of the licensure program here on campus. I'm actually looking to get involved. I missed the first meeting because I really struggled at first with Zoom University, but I'm really excited. I want to get involved in the cohort for teachers of color that's coming up. The next meeting here. In that first week of October. I'm also involved in.

Oppurtunity and sorority life. More specifically on part of a Latina sorority within the multicultural Greek council. And also too if you'll on the typical school year you would find me out and about screaming all over the all over campus. It's not really me screaming, it's just me on tour, but my friends did that they can hear me from anywhere, so that's where you can typically find me an I call Aurora Co home.

Fabulous, so now you all know a little bit about our student panelists today and let's go over what we are going to talk about today and sort of the structure of this little webinar. So our agenda today is we're going to go through a variety of different ways to get involved at CS. Go both on campus off campus extracurriculars. All those things. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about student clubs and organizations. Education abroad research work opportunities, getting off campus, and then in being active around here as well.

I'll give you the facts and then our students are going to give you the actual stories. What is like to be a student on this campus and we would love for you to ask whatever questions you have, like whatever's on your mind, whether it's about this stuff or unrelated, will take whatever you have for us today. Again, just always drop those in the chat and we'll get to those estimate as we possibly can.

So we'll launch right in and talk about probably one of the more popular ideas when you think about stuff outside of the classroom at student clubs and organizations and CSU, we have a lot of them. The numbers right always around 500 clubs and student organizations. This includes things like our sports clubs, things like our diversity, international clubs, and then the fact you can see down on this screen. There is 64% of our CSU seniors, which is the maiden Co curricular activities.

And what this number is really telling the story about is the fact that students are not just getting involved to like patter, resume or to like fill time. Is that our students are finding really like lasting and meaningful involvements that they care about just as much as their degree and want to continue in an really wants, you know, plug themselves into and really have that really lasting involvement. So there are so many clubs and organizations an I am going to turn it over to the students you all to tell me a little bit about what kind of things you're involved in and what you love here on campus.

So I don't know Kayla. Do you want to start again?

Sure. So yeah, like I mentioned before, I'm part of active minds, which is a mental health advocacy club as well as the equine assisted activities and therapies club.

And these have been really cool like experiences because I've been able to kind of take stuff that I was involved in in high school and be able to do it here. It seems you which was amazing. I'm also involved off campus or with an equestrian vaulting team 'cause I was actually in equestrian vaulter, which if you don't know what that is. It's gymnastics on the back of the moving horse, so I've been able to find that as well around around in Fort cons. So yeah, those are a few things that and I just love being able to kind of bring what I.

Was involved in in high school to my college experience as well.

Hello I am involved in with the I'm involved in is the Society of women engineers so I really like that program because as a woman in engineering and many STEM fields, there's not always a lot of women around you. I found that to be partially true here at CSU, but it was really nice to find a group of women who were still going through these hard classes like I was as a first year student. They had a mentoring program so I got an upper classman mentor who.

You know, kind of help you work through the stresses of coming to a new school, coming to a new environment, having you know new classes, new technology that you've never seen before. Things like that, and then now that I am an upperclassman, I get to be a mentor to a first year student and I also get a professional mentor that works at a local engineering company in Fort Collins. So they are kind of helping me look through what classes I want to be taking later. What other things I might want to be getting into? Kind of preparing for that transition from college to the real world?

I've also been involved in club sports for three years now. It's so fun I did a lot of sports in high school, so it's really kind of nice transition. We have practice three days a week. It is an additional cost and so it varies. For club sport sports, but for me it's about $200 a semester and that helps us. We've practiced three days a week. We have tournaments where we get to travel. We have CSU jerseys. We represent the University we play against other universities and so playing. I play Ultimate Frisbee, so that's been really fun. It's fun to learn a new sport.

Personally, I really like the breaks away from school. It forces me to kind of focus my mind on something else. It still engaging, but not having to deal with physics and gravity and other sorts of complicated things that we don't like to think about sometimes.

And then I'm also a member of the Mechanical Engineering Executive Board, so we help facilitate things between students and professors, open forums, pizza nights, is what we used to do now. We're trying to figure that out. Some different things like that, so those are just my sports clubs and organizations.

Call add 1 club that I'm a part of its crew. It's a campus ministry used to be called Campus Crusade. I just knew coming into college that I wanted to take my faith to the next level and find other Christians here on campus and I didn't really know how to do that. So I started trying out different clubs and campus ministries that we have and cruise just where I found my home. I think it's really cool just just being able to meet other Christians on campus. I think another cool thing to note just about religious organizations as we obviously have way more religions represented on.

Represented on campus besides just Christianity, so that's for me, where my faith is and what I wanted to find people who are also Christians. But again, if you're not Christian, if your another religion, whatever it is, we have organizations for almost every single religion on campus, so you can find people who have similar beliefs to you right here on campus, which I think is super cool.

Alright, awesome, so I'm involved in fraternity and sorority life, and that's where I get most of my involvement through, so I right away coming to a predominantly white institution. I knew they coming from Aurora and coming from a super diverse high school that I wanted to find.

Other like minded women like me who came from similar backgrounds and similar struggles. So right away I knew that I wanted to be in a sorority, but specifically like Latina sorority or multi cultural sorority. And so I went ahead and I went to the block party like the very first day they do that. They used to do that like the first week of school they used to do it out on the lawn behind the lower student center. They still did it this year but virtually so that worked out pretty well. Still pretty cool and I went ahead and I'd like just. I went around and I introduced myself to other sororities and then I.

Like kind of found my fit and I just continued on and as been really great because not only have I been able to create or connections through my organization like on campus and other campuses across the nation, but also as well across councils and across different organizations. I was lucky enough to be able to go to a fraternity and sorority Life Leadership Conference. Actually in Indiana and its nationwide. They do too. They do one in like Indiana so central and like.

East Coast and then went out on the West coast and we got to go to the central one and I got to meet people from all across the nation. I'm still friends with some of them. I still have them on Snapchat. Even extending that pointer gratitude. Like if their organization isn't even on our campus. I even extended that gratitude of being like, hey, if you want to come to see SU and help build that community here like I'll totally help you regardless of whether they were in my organization or not. And that's just I think some of like I'm going to bring it back to like some of the Little Ramlee things that we do here on campus like.

You have each other.

I was also lucky enough to serve on the executive board for the office opportunity and sorority life through through that and so that wasn't even deeper connection in my professional skills developed in a way that I had never seen. I think back to some of the interviews that I've given some of the you know, some of the things that I was like, yeah, I was totally a professional but after being in that role and having to deal with like I got to talk to Blanche Hughes and she's so amazing. But like you know, having to carry that professional demeanor in front of her and everything, even though she was super cool.

But it really did push me to like that next level and it was amazing.

Darling, do you want to tell us who Blanche uses?

Oh no. Can I hear me?

Yeah, she's the correcting him wrong. I always bring her title, vice president of die.

Hello can you hear me?

Sorry, you totally cut out on us.

Say one more time.

No, I would. I always forget her title, VP of diversity.

She is in our she's our vice president for Student Affairs.

Yes, yeah, and she is really big fan of.

Yes, that one yeah and then I don't know.

Yeah I was gonna add into that like there also to like if that's something that you're interested in, I can also drop the link down in the chat for like office operations, right, left 'cause there's so many different types of organizations. There's faith based organizations. There's like like extracurricular like like they have like engineering and business as well or even community service base with those within a different options even.

Awesome, Yes an I know you all probably have heard this like sort of college cliche that like if you can't find a club that you like and want to join, you can start your own. It's also true at CSC. Oh, I think one of my favorite examples of that as I worked with a student a couple of years ago who was really passionate about birds and bird watching and he started the Ornithology Club on campus and they ended up getting to do some trips to China and South America.

Guys this whole like extra thing around this club. They did what working to to earn like funds to do these trips. So really like the ones that you've heard of, here are just the tip of the iceberg and we do really have that support. So if you can't find something we can make it happen. You can get creative and we've got that support and excitement surrounding different clubs and organizations. So OK, let's switch gears a little bit. I kind of alluded to this by talking about moving or doing visiting China and Central and South America.

But something else that's really popular at CSU is education abroad globally study abroad, we call it education abroad, 'cause it's not just studying right like you're in a classroom, but you're also in a new country or in a new place. And it really is this broader idea of education than just studying while you're there. So we have lots and lots and lots of ways for you to get abroad. And we have a whole office. Our education abroad office. I don't know if anybody wants to go grab that link and Drop it in for everybody.

But CSU is pretty unique and cool in that we don't limit you to where you where you can go. So we have some basically sister schools where it's a super easy kind of transfer. First semester. We have sponsored an affiliated programs. The ones that we know really well and are more than happy to help you with. And then if you find something else that you want to go, do you find a program that you're interested in.

That office can make it happen, so we have opportunities on all seven continents. You can really get out and about in the world as a CSU student, Rams abroad is a It's a pretty popular thing about one in five of our student studies abroad every year and that can range from a week long trip like Kayla talked about. She was part of alternative breaks. It's kind of like a version of education abroad. I don't know if yours was the domestic version or the international version, but so one week for like a a break.

Up to a full year if you're wanting to do a longer term kind of really diving into whatever program you're excited about, so I will kind of let you all kind of popcorn around, talk about at a broad and different experiences or friends that you have that have have gone abroad.

Yeah, I guess I can start last semester. So spring semester I had a friend who actually went abroad. I had two friends that I know that when abroad one went abroad to France. She was in the South of France which was super cool. She said it was probably the best experience of her college career. She got to go obviously live with just this cute little old French family.

She went and she spoke French, 'cause she's spent French major and she got to travel all along the French Alps an go visit the Mediterranean Sea.

Oh well, obviously taking classes and doing meeting students from literally all around the world. So it was really cool for her because she obviously went with some of her American friends. But then she also had the opportunity MIT students from different countries in Europe and students in France, and literally all over the world. So she just spoke super highly about her experience and all the things that she got to do an obviously the The Learning Environment is a little bit different in France than it is in America, which is super cool. 'cause you get that unique. They unique classroom experience, but then also you get to experience the culture and go eat cheese in France and.

You bet got things like that. So anyway, she just spoke really highly of her education abroad experience.

Another thing that we have is semester at C, so had mentioned his friend went to France, but we if you can't decide on a country you don't want to visit just one. We do have semester at sea where you like suite life on deck you you take classes on a boat, you travel around the world you can visit. I believe it's 13 different countries.

And about 12 different ports, and so you get a number of days at each port, and then you take classes while the boat moves. So you get to go out you to see a bunch of different cities, different towns, and then different countries with it we are the head school for semester at sea, so our advisors are really good with whatever study abroad trip you decide to take. Their really good about making sure that what you're doing is coming back for credit through CSU for whatever may be major. It may be elective credits. It maybe.

Other things like that, but they're really good about trying to get whatever credits you need fulfilled fulfilled. So I would definitely highly recommend going and talking to them if that's something you're interested in. Mr. C's really fun. I've heard a lot of people just rave about it because again, you do get to meet people from all sorts of different schools. We are the head school for it, so the professors that go on the boat will be likely CSU professors, but people from all over the country come on these boats to and take these classes so you could be sitting next to someone from.

California from CU Boulder from you know Washington from somewhere off the East Coast, New Jersey, New York, Florida.

So it's another really cool way to meet people, an experience all these different cultures. You go to 13 different places. I think that's really cool. I'm afraid about, so I will never do it, but.

Yeah, I don't also briefly touch on Kelsey had mentioned the alternative spring break, which is a program that I did. Unfortunately it wasn't. He will actually go on the trip however you. It's what it is. It's a volunteer based program, an you pick an area to go to as well as kind of a topic. So I was planning on going to Catalina Island in California and we were focusing around ecological restoration and kind of environmental sustainability projects in Catalina Islands, and it was really.

A really cool experience leading up to emergent gets gonna check leading up to it. We had quite a few meetings where we kind of had we opened up the conversation to seeing maybe how we think about ourselves and what our identity is, as well as diversity where we're going and what kind of impact we're going to have. Whether it's positive or even sometimes negative. And so we had to have some really cool conversations in the meeting. So it's not just the trip that you focus on, it's also leading up to the trip. So if that's something that you're interested in

it definitely recommend checking it out. Yeah, just wanted to add that.

Yeah.

So.

Yes, alternative breaks are so good and Kayla, I hope you get another chance to go on one eventually man. This pandemic has ruined a lot of things, that's for sure. The other piece on this slide there that you'll see is Toto Santos center. And that's actually a campus that we have in partnership San Antonio Santos in Mexico on the Baja California Sur Peninsula down there. So we have a lot of our students that had down there and get involved in class. Is Spanish immersion programs as well as a lot of cool research and I'm doing some really good transitions here because our next topic.

Is undergraduate research. I think that this is one of the things that makes you the most unique. Is our efforts in our focus on undergraduate's getting involved in research? So we are Carnegie Level 1 research institution, which basically just means that we have a lot of money coming to campus in the form of grants and different kinds of private donor funding to support research. And unlike some other schools that are also Carnegie Level 1.

We really, really focus on undergrads getting my hands on experience, and so you can see the numbers on there. Nearly 5300 students or more than that participate in undergraduate as undergraduate researchers. We have an opportunity called Cirque, which is celebrating undergraduate research and creativity. So that is a big research showcase in the springtime. An as a staff member. This is one of my favorite things to get to go to and walking through and seeing everybody's poster presentations.

Learning about research that they've been apart, if there's also opportunities to showcase art, another creative forms as well. So it's not just research, it's creativity that we're celebrating to you.

So there's just. I mean, there is literally just hundreds and hundreds of ways to get involved. One of my very best friends is finishing up her PhD in toxicology, so she is studying most mostly some drug development and studying osteoarthritis, and she hired a first year student her first year as a PhD researcher, and this student has stuck with her for the last four years and her student actually has gotten to be 1/3 author on a couple of her papers that have been published.

So as an undergraduate student, this this person has now has published works out there. They are applying to vet school right now, and I know I've got a couple of folks that are interested in veterinary visiting us today and her application is now like so much more bolstered because she has this research experience in these published papers. So if you are looking for forward to vet school Med School, PA, PT and any of those kind of like proposed professional programs that you need to go to grad school for.

Do you know that having that research on your resume that help set you apart in those really competitive admissions processes? So I know that you three? I'll have some research experience. I'd love to hear your your stories and what you've been up to.

OK, I'll start again. I'll start again.

Yeah, like he said, where research institution. So one of the cool things as a psych major that I've had the opportunity to do is actually participate in the studies that go along on campus. Alot of different classes require you to participate in these studies for credit, so it's super cool because obviously you get credit, so it counts toward your grade, which is great, but you also get to see what it looks like to be a participant in a research study so you can see how research is done and what different measures they take to control different variables. Things like that.

And then you obviously get once you finish the study and they they write it and all that stuff. They get this you they send it out to you and you can read what you participated in and what they found, what results they found and see if it lines up with what you feel like happened to you in the study. Things like that. Which is really awesome. Obviously like I said, it's required for a lot of classes, but if you just wanna do it for fun, you have the freedom to do that as well. It's also causes psych major throughout, mostly in your upper division classes. You have different opportunities to to design.

And run studies. So right now I'm actually working on a study in one of my classes. My research methods class about how breaks affect peoples works affect peoples work if they work harder after breaks or are lazy after breaks or if taking naps during breaks is more effective or if eating during a break is more effective. Things like that. And I actually get to design my own study and figure out all the little details about what goes into that, which is really cool.

I have similar experience being on kind of both sides of research. My first year I had a paid research position within the College of engineering, working on bringing ethics into engineering education and how do we get students to recognize their biases? Recognize, like how the things that they're going to be building are going to affect the real world.

And so that was kind of interesting because it was something that I hadn't really seen being a first year engineering student. They were just kind of like. Make sure you get this and so it's cool to watch them incorporate that into it. I worked with the Professor.

Of Engineering, but she really wanted to make these applicable to the classroom, so I worked on research. I like research online research. I worked on creating lesson plans, discussion post, things like that and incorporating teamwork into some of these things. Seeing how diversity and teams and working with others also affects that ethics. Because everyone has different ideas, different upbringings, different ways of thinking. So that was really cool because once I made those lesson plans, I actually pitched them to certain professors.

I went into first year second year engineering classes. I explained what was going on. I got to see people respond to my discussion post in real time and then collect all of that and see how it works. See how a team project worked in a classroom. Definitely refined that did not work well the first time, but we're working on it so it was really cool. It was another part of my on campus employment 'cause it was paid which was really awesome as a first year student and then on the other on the participant side. Being on a club sports team, we were asked to come in and help with the health and exercise science.

Um lab so I participated in one lab where they were testing different materials for turf. Usually it's filled with rubber, but they were trying to determine if there were other ecological or more ecological, more sustainable materials that they could use that wouldn't affect performance as much. So I was hooked up, kind of like if you've seen the behind the scenes for the movie Avatar. That's kind of what I looked like. I had all these sensors on me and I was jumping. I was running. I was cutting. I was doing all these athletic motions and they were monitoring how my muscles were responding to the different surfaces.

So it's kind of cool to see the outside of it. I also did another one just with different stretches and movements and texting or testing my flexibility. So that was a lot more long-term over about a month, but.

Both really cool opportunities being on the researcher side in the participant side.

Yemen

I have not seen in awhile. Yeah one but I can give you a little bit of insight of what the process is like. I'm currently in contact with some peas in the neuroscience field as well as cardiovascular Physiology.

Katie mentioned the ATS lab and that's health and exercise science and so that was through the Cardio Physiology Lab is through the Health Minister Science program and unfortunately, looks like they're not going to be able to be in this semester. But I'm staying in to contact and what the process kind of looks like is you, at least for me, what it looks like is. I emailed a ton of professors and peas expressing my interest. I also looked into kind of what publications they had and if this was going to be the right fit for me. I reached out. I can tell you that a lot of the professors are going to be super willing to talk with you about the research, 'cause if there's one thing they like to do it.

To talk about the research for sure. So definitely reach out and ask questions about if you have any. It's actually really cool 'cause I had one of the grad students sent me a few papers on something called endoplasmic reticulum stress, which I did not know was a thing until recently and so he said that I can ask him any questions I have on the paper and so that's one thing that I kind of have been going through currently, but I can also pull from one of my friends experiences. She's in a lab and she's doing research with.

A top ECB Wine Geneticists, which is really cool and he actually he was impressed by what she did because she spent a lot of hours in the lab and she's able to get really involved with kind of the process of research as well as starting to ask questions about. You know why does this occur or how does this happen? Things like that and so she's hopefully going to be put on a project soon. She mentioned to me and that's really cool 'cause she's really interested in that specific subject she wants to go into ECB, wine genetics.

And a little fun fact that I hear from her is that the preferred the Pi or private investigator that's doing the research he actually rides a Galaxy scooter electric scooter to the lab all the time. So if you ever see him, just know that he's in top geneticists, which is really cool. But yeah, so there's a lot of options available to you, and that's kind of what my experience has been with trying to get into a research lab. Like I said, most professors are super willing to talk with you about.

Their research, as well as potential opportunities.

I am thank you for sharing. Yeah, kill a really appreciate you talking about that process. There's a lot of different ways to get involved in research. Some students find it through the Honors College. Some students find it through. We have an offer office of undergraduate research and artistry, and they can help get paired up. And then it's also really common for folks like Kayla to do that where you find professors and you reach out to do things that you're really interested in doing. So, depending on how like kind of go getter you are and what you're really passionate about, it can be.

You know, as personalized as possible for getting that research experience and then, like Katie mentioned, sometimes it's paid. And sometimes this volunteer, but let's talk about those paid opportunities and working on campus.

So working on campus is is a great way to wanna earn earn money greatly. College is not cheap unfortunately and so getting a job on campus. Whether it is a work study job and you have like financial need and you get work study or you have an hourly paid job, there are literally thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs on this campus. Kayla Hayden and Katie and we lost early. Unfortunately, her Wi-Fi cut out on her. They are paid in plays of CSC. They're getting paid to tell you about what they're involved in at Asco.

There's opportunities to work in the dining centers in the library as a research assistant with the football team. There's internship, so there's I mean anything you can possibly think of. There are opportunities to work on campus, so I'm hoping you three can maybe talk about some of those jobs on campus and then maybe share a little bit more about like the Career Center and how helpful they are in getting those kinds of jobs and supporting you through those next steps.

I'll start this time so my favorite place on campus that also employs would have to be the rec center so the student rec center employees a number of different students for all sorts of different things. They have people working at the rock climbing wall at the outdoor programs desk. They have people working the front desk they hire student personal trainers, students to run group classes, yoga classes, and then they do have people just walking around moderating. Right now it looks like a lot of cleaning and making sure students are wearing masks and following.

Proper health guidelines and everything, but it's still an on campus job an A lot of people love it. One of my good friends is actually like the assistant supervisor. She's the highest ranking student employee at the rec center and she absolutely loves it. She loves the people. She loves the atmosphere and the nice thing about on campus employment is that you are required to turn in your class schedule and they are required to not schedule you during classes. So you know that you will never have.

Work during one of your classes, 'cause they're really like not allowed to schedule you for that, so that's kind of nice, and it's usually pretty flexible. Also, students understand that you're still students if you have three tests in one week, and you can't work your usual 10 hours that you were going to work because you need to study or so much more stressed out. Chances are a lot of students are willing to pick those shifts up for you. They're willing to help you out there willing to even sometimes your boss, sorry, this way you're great. Boss is willing to.

Let you go a little bit early if you need to use that, you try to alleviate a little bit of that stress, so I would definitely recommend on campus jobs, especially as a first year student. And even after I love my on campus job, I know exactly where I'm going to work. I know exactly what to do, but as a first year student, if you're on campus, you don't have to drive anywhere. You don't have to worry about how you're going to get there, 'cause it's just you know, a 15 minute walk away and it's really nice to also build connections at CSU, I would have never met any of these fantastic people sitting next to me if it wasn't for this job.

Yeah, and then I can go next and that's right. So I another probably one of my favorite jobs on campus that I am not involved in, but I know I want my already from freshman year was actually a barista at one of our multiple coffee shops on campus which is really cool. So if you're looking into maybe you want to be a barista, you can do that on campus. I also have a friend who she works. She kind of got to incorporate some of her high school activities such as she was in theater production team and so she works for the LLC which is our Lory Student Center on campus.

And she is like a tech person, so she runs the light for big events and currently she's around to help out with running technology for classrooms and stuff. And she actually I'm kind of jealous 'cause she got to run one of my favorite events that goes on the LSD, which is the CSD drag show which happens. Yeah, tried Resource Center. They put it on believe every semester. Correct me if I'm wrong, that's a really cool vent, but she gets to work that. So like I said, I'm a little bit jealous, but.

And then also some since I'm kind of on the topic of the student center within the student center, you can find the Career Center and this is a really great resource for you if you are looking to get that first job, whether it's on campus like a few of the ones that we've discussed or if it's off campus as well, you can go in. Stop in at anytime. We really encourage you to go as early and as often as you need and what they do, they provide services where you can meet with someone and you can discuss maybe career options you can get your resume.

Review they also have resume workshop, so it's a specific event for you to go get your resume reviewed. You can even practice interviews, so if you maybe have never done one or you just want a little bit of practice, that's another great option as well. And this is all like I said, through the Career Center. Yeah, I think that's it for me.

Hayden, do anything you want to add.

Yeah, I'll just touch. I'll just touch quickly on on campus employment. I know Katie and Caleb pretty much covered it, but I just gotta. I just want to remind you all like on campus employment. It doesn't have to feel like a job. It doesn't have to be like something you dread going to. I think one of my favorite things that I do as a student here at CSU is this job as an ambitions ambassador and giving tours when we're safe enough to do that. I think that there's just so many different career or job opportunities on campus that it doesn't just have to be like a busy, fast food job. Obviously there's dining Hall jobs, if that's what you want, but there's just so many just gotta remember.

There's great people to meet on campus, and they can revolve around something that you're really passionate about. I know for me I love meeting high school students and I love being the center of attention, so I like being a tour guide so that everyone has to listen to me. All that good stuff. And I just think it's really fun because you know, yeah, it just doesn't have to be busy work. It can be something that you're really passionate, passionate about an can push your career forward. I think a lot of the jobs on campus are really great for resumes and the opportunities you have inside those can make you look like a real good candidate for jobs in the future once you graduate.

Yeah.

Yes, uh, I like I'm so happy to hear you love your job. If anybody watching is interested in being an admissions ambassador, I'm your contact for that. So reach an L and we can talk about it when you get to see ICO. So we've talked a lot about things on campus and I think one of the great things about CSU is we are located in this amazing city called Fort Collins, Co. And so I want to talk a little about for Collins and what it's like to get off campus and to be a part of this community.

And you know, going to a school that is in a city that likes you, that we have really good relationships with the city. So people in the city like our students, students like the city. It's this really great kind of symbiotic relationship. We've really grown up together as a University Ann as a town and we do keep growing for Collins is getting bigger every year. People are finding out our secrets that it's a really amazing place. So on the screen you can see a couple of our fun facts. So we have this great place in downtown Fort Collins, also known as.

Old Town, Fort Collins. It really is kind of dislike shopping, little boutiques. There's amazing food down there and they like the little main drag down there was the inspiration for Main Street USA in Disneyland. So it's just very cute, right? Like if Disneyland was inspired by 4 columns, you know it's adorable. We also are known kind of in the in the before times right now for a ton of events and a lot of live music. A lot of Art. One of my favorite things to do when there's not a pandemic.

Is the Friday evening the 1st Friday walk? It's an art walk and you get to go walk around Old Town and see all these artists in different spaces. Not just calories but like coffee shops and restaurants. And all of these are there shops that are supporting local artists, so there's just a ton of things to do in Fort Collins, and nobody cares what I like to do in Old Town, but I would love you all to talk about what you like to do in Fort Collins and and what you do when you get off campus.

Kayla, do you want to start?

Yeah, so if you my favorite thing sitting off campus are definitely going to Horsetooth. I know that I take my dog and my roommates of course, join me, but I liked more importantly, I like to take my dog and we get actually go swimming up there, which is a ton of fun. We get a little hike in as well. Horsetooth is a really cool spot. Definitely love Old Town. I actually grew up going to Disneyland since I was about 40. I grew up 45 minutes away from Disneyland, Disneyland in Orange County, and I can.

Tell you for sure that downtown looks a whole lot or Disneyland was downtown. Disney was designed after Old Town because it reminds me a whole lot of it and I think.

One of the perks of having Old Town for sure for me is that whenever I need to get gifts for anyone, I know that I can go to Old Town because like Kelsey said, there's a ton of really cool little boutique shops and a lot of great food places as well. I'm planning on sending one my friends back home some cookies from this place called Mary's mountain cookies, which is amazing if you're ever out here, please try it. Definitely good. And then yeah, a few things. I'm also involved with off campus 'cause you're not limited to just.

On campus involvements. And so I volunteered for an animal shelter, a local animal shelter. It's called Animal Friends Alliance. They just change the name, so I'm still getting used to it, but there I get to walk dogs, which is amazing when I'm a little bit stressed. I can. I know that I can go to the shelter and get some good puppy kisses and dog walking in as well. And then I also like I mentioned before, I coach for an equestrian vaulting team out here and the head coach is actually CSC will she was in the equine science.

Program as well as the psychology program and so that was a really cool way for me to get connected with and alone and so yeah, there are a few things that I like to do off campus.

I would definitely say that one of my favorite spots is probably horsetooth. This summer was spent paddle boarding, mountain biking like trail running, hiking, swimming out there, and I just think it's such a fun place to be. I've never I've never been that close to body of water. I guess you could say that was so easily accessible so it was really kind of a new experience for me to be able to go there. Kind of whenever I wanted and just say like.

Now let's go swimming, so I definitely enjoy it. I also would say.

That Old Town is fun for just walking around, but if you're on the college budget like me, you and half the people sitting here. There are so many other just kind of really cute.

I don't want to say college friendly but not like big fancy sit down restaurants that are really fun to go to. There's some cute Mexican Cafes Cafe Mexicali. I know a bunch of people, probably know that that are just fun to look around and explore little breakfast places. Those are my favorite to go to around Fort Collins so it's not just good. Food is not only central to Old Town, it's config can be found almost anywhere. So that's been my kind of fun thing. Every weekend. My roommates and I try to pick a new restaurant.

That's just like a small kind of off the beaten path restaurant and go and sit down and try it. So it's been really fun. And then off campus. My grandparents live off the Southside of Fort Collins and I have been making them meals during the pandemic and bringing them to them. So that's been kind of fun and grocery shopping, so it's like it's not really involvement with anything else. But it's definitely something kind of fun for me and get me close to family, who I haven't really been close to you in awhile.

I'm I'm gonna go I am I good OK i'ma go rogue a little bit I know that we're supposed to talk about off campus things but I'm going to talk about something on campus that students left to do and that's going to sporting events. For those of you that don't know where a Division One school, which is super awesome, which is the highest level of athletic competition and one of the the coolest things about CSU is where one of the last universities in the country to offer no additional cost admission to every single Division One home sporting event. So any football game, basketball, game, volleyball game, whatever it is that you're interested in going to.

If it's a Division One home sporting event, you can reserve your ticket online and go to any of those. Like I said, that's obviously on campus. I know the prompt was off campus stuff, but it's something that happens on weekends and on week days, just depending on the sporting event that students love to participate in, show their ram pride, go out with friends. And yeah, it doesn't cost anything extra if you're a student at CSU and you pay your tuition fees, then you can go to any of the home sporting events. So that's one of the things that I really love doing with my friends.

I I I second that a lot. I grew up going to volleyball games. Football games are just so fun to go to the energy, the enthusiasm, the school spirit.

Love Aiden.

Well will allow you to go rogue on that answer. We did cover a lot of the really good ones too, and I know I've got California folks in here. And Kayla when you heard Katie talk about it being a body of water, I'm sure you were like sure, sure body of water. So my California folks. It's not an ocean, we call it Horsetooth Beach. It's not really a beach but it is beautiful grey powder boarding. Great way to get outside and get like some of that water fix. So just have to clarify from. I like ocean based friends in the room today.

We know it's not an ocean. Colorado is in fact fully unlocked if you're not from here, but it is nice to be, you know, like in the foothills, basically like you're practically in the mountains and in a body of water too. And actually, our next slide shows you a picture of Horsetooth as well. So this is Casey in the background, horsetooth and and some folks hang or a single person hanging out on that one. So let's kind of transition a little bit being active, right? So the idea of you know.

You're going to class and then you're gonna librarian. You're studying and you got all your involvements and see if you really.

We're really stressed alot. Having health in your mind in your body and so that is staying active. And that's also kind of a Colorado cliche as well that we're all like fitness people and I'll get an outside and taking advantage of what you can do. So there's lots of ways to be active to get some of that stress out to, you know, to be healthy and a lot of different ways, so I'll help you. I'll talk a little bit that the racks that are a little more. No Katie, you talked about it with the employment opportunities.

We have an incredible rec center on this campus. It was built my sophomore year of college and I still remember that like opening and we were all just like what is this? This is amazing. It's the most beautiful facility I've ever seen and that's included in your student fees. Is your access to the rec center and then outside of campus we have so many different types of trails. So whether you're a great mountain biker like Katie took up mountain biking this year and are really ready to kind of get after, you can get into more of like.

Hilly mountain biking trails. We also have trails just around Fort Collins, which is what I like to ride on the Puter Trail Spring Creek Trail. I like him paved or like I'm kind of flat. That's my favorite way to get out on the bike and then easy access to Horsetooth Rocky Mount National Park is practically or backyard as well. Estes Park is really nearby and then the one thing not listed on this thing is the Pooter Canyon, which is one of the most hidden gems in Fort Collins. Unfortunately, a little on fire at the moment. Also thinking about my Colorado.

Or my California folks in here today. Hope your smoke isn't too bad and nobody had any too much damage happening to their facilities. But yeah, Peter Canyon. Amazing opportunities to get on the River and float down the River in the summer or to go hiking. And I know I do. A lot of snowshoeing Backcountry skiing during this during the winter, so lots of ways to getting being active at CS go, so I don't know if you all want to touch a little bit more about what the rec center is like, how you like to stay active, those kind of pieces, Katie do you want to start?

Yeah, I can definitely start. So I love the Red Center. I love the facility. I love IT services. I just love it.

So the first thing we have that's really cool is a big climbing wall, so we have a large bouldering route surrounding a 40 foot wall. Multiple different ways you can do it. There's even like a pre ice climbing wall where you can get like fake little hooks and try your hand at ice climbing that is also included in your student fees so you don't have to pay.

More for that for a day, but you do have to go through a training class. I go there with my friends about twice a week when I can make it so it's really fun. Really good way to meet up with people, get active and it isn't buddy system thing so it works out pretty well. We also then have club and intramural sports. These are some of my favorite. You're looking at a you know December of 2018 Dodge ball Coed A League champion.

Right here, that's a pretty big deal. You'll get it when you come here. It's a big deal. We're pretty proud of it. I have my shirt, I it's big deal. So so it's really fun to participate in Intramurals. It's $10 for a semester. But after you pay that $10, you can participate in any and as many intramurals as you want. And they usually are about one night a week so you can go in. And we have internals ranging from flag football to FIFA to fantasy football 2.

Paintball which hurts a lot more than you think it does. At least it did for me to spike ball to inner tube water polo which is just.

If you're serious about it, it's really serious. If you're fun, it's just people flipping each other out of tubes in the water while pretending to play polo. It's a good time. Almost all of them are fun. Time to get together with friends, people from your haul, other things like that.

Club sports, like I mentioned, also run through the rec center. Those are at an additional cost and they range from $75 to a couple $1000 depending on the sport. So if it's something you're interested in I would definitely check it out. There's about 30 of 'em Here at CSU, ranging from logging to soccer so we have a bunch of different things. Alpine skiing, Frisbee, lot of really great opportunities there. That facility inside is really cool. We have 30 person hot tub.

Words from my college experiences and search process. Not no one else had, so that's really cool. Lap lanes, a steam room sauna. Unfortunately those are not operating right now, but fingers crossed they will.

Do you say outside of CSU opportunities as well?

Ah.

Like outside of the rec center?

And we can see if Hayden or Caleb once said anything to.

Absolutely. I think Darlene had something to you.

And I missed the rec center. Also you are looking at a. You're looking at a spring 2012 women's soccer intramural champion and I still have my shirt as well, so it is a big deal.

Who?

No, it's not. That's a full bag. It's a full Bragg, hated. How do you stay active?

Ah yeah, I think the rec center is obviously great. One of the things that Kayla or Kayla sorry Katie didn't touch on was the word. Different workout classes that we have inside the rec center. So there's a wide variety of different classes that are offered inside the rec center. I know me and my friends. We've often gone and done spin classes together. A lot of the classes we've also done like Kickboxing and Zumba classes, and I tried yoga for the first time, which is really embarrassing experience. I thought it was gonna be super easy because I played sports in high school and I thought it was literally just stretching and then I got in there and.

It turns out it's an actual workout and I had no idea.

So.

So that was that was an adventure for me, but it was a lot of fun. Some of them do cost a little bit of money, so that's just something to keep in mind, but they do offer a lot just with your rec center membership, so that's something I would look into. Great way to stay in shape with your friends. I also think camping I don't know. Obviously, Colorado is really known for its outdoors. Me and my friends love to go camping. There's a great spot about 45 minutes from campus called Red Feather right now. It's kind of on fire, so it's not really.

So.

It's not really a thing right now, but I've got up there a couple of times in the past couple of months with my friends. Just hung out, gone on hikes, seeing what we can see, go paddle boarding at some lakes up there. Things like that. So yeah, I would just encourage you if and when you get to Colorado to make sure you get out into the mountains and experience the great outdoors, I think it's one of the best things, if not the best thing that Colorado has to offer, and it be a real bummer to spend four years here and not experience all that all those things. Another note quickly just about the outdoors if you don't have any other gear.

And actually ranked you're out at the rec center at our outdoor programs desk. So if you want to go camping or rock climbing anything like that, you can rank your rate from our rec center so you don't actually have to buy the expensive gear. But you can still get out and enjoy the outdoors.

Kayla closes out. How do you stay active?

I'm, I would say I do a lot of walking which I know, but we have a lot of like local parks around. Here were my favourites is City Park so I'll take my dog walking around there. Also hiking is a big thing for me as well. I know I go up to Horsetooth quite often to walk around, go for a hike with my friends. Actually a really cool experience I had was my freshman year. It was my want to say first week of classes and my RA took us on a sunrise hike up to the top of Horsetooth Mountain.

Horsetooth rock and we got some really cool like views of the sunrise. It was really amazing. It was also really cool 'cause it was just everyone on my dorm floor and we all went and got up early there also adorable baby chipmunks that we fed a little pieces of bagel. Don't know if that was allowed but we did it anyway. So yeah, for me it's a lot of hiking. I have been to Rocky Mountain National Park as well just to kind of go see beautiful nature and as well as go for a little bit of a hike.

So yeah, that's kind of how I stay active. I have used the rec center as well. Funny story is actually my dad came out for parents weekend an I took him on a little tour of the rec center and he told me he's like I would be here every single day. If this is what my rec center had looked at like when I went to college and unfortunately I had to tell him that I had not gone yet. It was October of my freshman year so I made a pact with myself. I said I'm going to go to the rec center and so from there I kind of. I like to use the new area.

But I do have a lot of friends that take classes like Hayden and Katie. Also kind of touched on and I know I had a friend that took a yoga class as well as a oh. Gosh, I always pronounce it wrong, but copeta, it's like a Brazilian jujitsu class which is really cool. I know I didn't know they offered that until they started doing it. So yeah, I kind of used it for the gym, but there are tons of options for you to stay active off campus as well as through the rec center.

One other thing just really quick.

Is winter time activities. I'm a big skier and so while CSU doesn't have, they don't run out skis through the outdoor programs desk. We do have a number of ways you can get discounted ski passes through the CSU Alpine ski team or through a club called the CSU snow writers. And with that Snow Writers Club also comes different ways to get to those resorts and get to those ski areas. So if you are interested in that, I'm just going to drop the link in the chat.

Feel free to look up any of those. I know that we talked about, kind of like going outside a lot, but it does. It does get cold here and it does snow, so there's still ways to be active even when it is cold.

Awesome, Alright? Well we're just about that time.

So I want to kind of final words of wisdom. Here we like to finish our webinars and just by having our students explain like quickly, why do they choose to use you and why are they stayed here? We know that these are big questions and you all are figuring out like which college am I going to go to? Where am I applying to all those pieces? So sometimes hearing somebody that has a similar story to you can help you figure it out a little bit. So I would love if each of you could share your maybe a nice shortened version of why you chose Csco. And so Katie, do you want to start and then we'll go ahead and kaylin will round out.

Definitely before you do, I saw that I believe it's Christiana had a question about having multiple jobs on campus. It's definitely thing that some people do. It just depends on your schedule and what you're able to handle and what your employers are kind of looking for. So if they're looking for different coverage at different times a day, or things like that, it's definitely possible to have more than one job on campus.

OK so my CSU story. Please don't hate me for this, but originally I did not want to come to CSU. I toured it as kind of a trash school to figure out what questions I wanted to ask and what I was kind of looking for.

And Yeah, my grandparents I grew up here so I was like it's too familiar. I don't really want it. My grandparents lived up here. I've been going to volleyball games forever. I toured the vet school all the time. I did not want to come here.

And so I toured it, and I absolutely fell in love with it. I love the greenery outside, even though it was November, there was still a little bit of green little bit of fall colors and I absolutely loved my tour. I love the opportunities an ultimately that's what kind of caused me to keep pursuing things, so I would definitely say if you're interested, start pursuing things now. Start pursuing scholarships, opportunities to talk to professors with different education things and stuff like that. Start looking into it 'cause it paid off for me. I was able to get a really nice financial aid package.

Which definitely up to LA and helped with the decision an ultimately it came down to one saying that my tour guide actually had for me at the end of my second tour here, which was that you can make a big school small, but you can't make a small school big. So all of the opportunities that they have here, from jobs to research to social opportunities, to sports, to opportune iti's outside of the classroom with labs, research to then transition into careers and things like that.

As well as meeting people from so many different backgrounds in different majors, it was eventually too much for me to pass up an I just knew in my heart I belong to you, and three years later still here can't stop gushing about my love for Csus, so must have done something right.

Yeah, my store is. My story is similar ish. It's pretty cliche, but I knew that I wanted to stay in Colorado, just 'cause obviously I love the state I'm from here. I think it's a great place to live, so I ended up going on tours of a couple of different schools and just the way I fell on Csus campus with so much more special than the way I follow any other University. One of the things that we ask our tours is just to have perspective students picture themselves in the classroom learning or in the library studying or in the rec center.

Playing basketball or whatever it is that something that I did on my tour and it really just felt super homey until I felt like a great community where I could just meet great people. And that's honestly why I've stayed as well. The people that I've met at CSU or just so special to me, I think in the past two years at CSU, I have better connections with my friends then I did in four years in high school, which I think says a lot says a lot about the students that pick CSU and who you can meet. And there's a lot of different opportunities to meet people who are passionate about a lot of things, which I think is really awesome.

'cause you're not just in the high school bubble, but you're at the University with people from all over the country and all over the entire world have totally different backgrounds than you. So there's awesome learning experiences here at CSU. Based on the people as well. So yeah, I mean, that's a super short story and pretty pretty cliche, but it's just really special place for me based on the people that I've met.

Yeah, and I can share my story a little bit, so I coming from California I was pretty set on. I'm going to California school 'cause I know there was a lot of emphasis on that from where I grew up. However, once I started to hit kind of my junior and senior year, I started to really think about what do I want like where can I see myself and I thought, you know, I kind of want that out of state experience and.

I know a big factor for that was obviously cost for me, and so I looked into some different schools and I think CSC stuck out stuck out the most to me because there's were part of I think it's western undergraduate exchange and there's a scholarship, so I know we have a few California people, but it's a scholarship that reduces your tuition and so I knew that this would kind of offset that out of state cost for me personally, and so then I said, OK, I'm going to get to see you, and I toured the campus.

And I absolutely loved it. I know it was kind of cliche.

But the moment I stepped on campus, I fell in love. There was kind of a better sense of community that I felt here and something that really resonated with me. When I first heard it was that we always say Rams take care of Ramzan. I will knew that I wanted to be surrounded by people that were going to build each other up rather than kind of tear each other apart. And being a student who is coming in as I came in as a pre vet student, I'm no longer prevents student. But I am a pre Med student so both kind of competitive competitive fields.

And I think here I have felt super supported by advising as well as by professors as well as by other students. And that was the biggest thing for me as I didn't want to be in a super super competitive environment and so for me CSU was the right fit in that sense, as like kind of Hayden touched on in my story as well. Just the people here like I keep saying that, but the people who are absolutely amazing and so nice and so friendly. And yeah, so that's kind of a shorter.

Version of my CSU story.

Amazing things all for sharing. Yeah I just want to echo that idea of Rams take care of Rams. I think that's why CSU has been able to maintain at least partially on campus at the moment in a pandemic. Is we're taking care of each other were wearing masks. We are staying socially distance from each other and we're taking it the series as we can, so we're hoping that that continues and hopefully will be able to welcome you all to our campus so you can have that same kind of feeling of stepping on and feeling at home. We know it's not quite the same. Virtually and.

And we do hope to get to see you in person here soon, so stay tuned For more information about that. In the mean time, I did drop a couple links to connect with not only your admissions counselor, people like me who are professional staff members. We can help you with the application piece getting connected to places around campus etc. And then I also dropped a link to find all of our other ways to get connected with us. Virtually, you want to talk one on one with their admissions ambassadors and admissions counselor. We have lots of other webinars like this. There's just lots and lots of ways to get connected and to learn more about CSU.

And hopefully see if you can see yourself as a fit here. I know we're a couple minutes over, so thank you all so much for spending a couple additional minutes with us. Stay in touch. Let us know what questions you have. Kayla, Hayden, Katie and Arlene. I know you're kind of in the background somewhere. I miss you all. It was good to see your face is. I hope to see you all in person here as well. Soon take care of each other. Take care of yourselves. Go Ramzan. Will will see you all later.

Commands.