CLA Services, Offices, and Resources (Fall Webinar Series)

Hello, welcome to our College of liberal arts web and are today we're going to be talking about services offices in resources. My name is Jessica Rencher and I am the recruitment coordinator for the College of liberal arts and to give you a little overview. The College of Liberal Arts is one of eight colleges here at CSU.

So CSU has 8 total colleges and the College of Liberal Arts is one of those eight.

No.

Me.

My role is to help prospective students access information about the campus so that you can make the best choice for yourself with deciding where you want to go to college today. I'm also joined by two of our ambassadors. One of them is Pete Wilson and hopefully we will be joined by Peyton Daily. She's going to be getting outta class and then joining us. If you want to broadcast. If you would like to share a little bit about yourself, that would be great.

Uh huh.

Yeah, absolutely you can hear me alright.

Yep, so my name is Pete Wilson. I'm a sophomore and I'm part of the College of liberal arts ambassador team. I am double majoring in both English and philosophy. Outside of that, I'm involved as an RA on campus, so I live in the dorms involved with crew. That's a Christian group and I just really enjoy hiking and just hanging out with friends.

Awesome, thank you so much Pete. So it looks like we have some people here from North Carolina today and Malaysia. So welcome. It's great to have you one other little piece of information for you. I am also a grad student so I work here and I go to school here so I love CSU. I'm going to share some slides with you and as we go along, feel free to type your questions in the chat and we will answer them as we go along.

OK, so.

Again, I'm the recruitment coordinator and here's our agenda. We're going to go over our values and overview some scholarships and then we're going to talk with Pete about his experience at CSU and the services that he's found most useful. So for my participants, if you could type in the chat, which of these best describes you? Are you a high school sophomore, junior senior, admitted to CSU or other?

When did you know that you wanted to come to CSU? What? What grade in college or high school or you?

OK.

Awesome. OK, in one more time just for our participants who are joining. Go ahead and type in the chat. Which of these best describes you? It'll help us tailor our presentation to you. It's helpful for us to know if you're just starting high school or if you're at a point where you're making decisions. Or maybe you are already at CSU.

OK, High School senior. Great good to know another question. How would you describe your college search process? Type it in the chat so has been stressful. Are you eager to get it over with? Excited to learn more all of the above or none of the above? And while you're doing that?

Was what was the process like for you? Was it a spectrum? Did you? Were you excited at first? Then was stressful? And then how would you describe it?

I was excited, definitely at 1st till like the idea of just applying for colleges is really exciting and then you get down to the nitty gritty of having to write the essay and that was no fun. I mean I read I write a lot but I just procrastinate 'cause there's a lot of school work and then get stressful.

But after you like submit everything, it becomes quite easy. You just kind of wait and just relax.

Awesome, yeah, that's what I kind of remember about the process for myself too. Like I remember my junior year like loving to go to all of the recruitment events and talk to the recruiters for colleges. And then I remember senior year is exciting to choose the colleges and then like you said, like as I was applying, it started getting stressful with deadlines and then of course it's exciting when you find out which one accepted you. OK, so we're going to keep going. It didn't see any responses on that one.

But feel free to type in your responses as we go along.

OK, so how confident are you in the value of a liberal arts degree? Are you extremely confident, very confident, somewhat unsure, or not at all?

I mean, while people are OK, awesome, very confident, great.

Pete, did you say that you are the oldest in your family?

No, I'm the I guess I'm technically the youngest by one minute. So my Twins. I have an identical twin. He's a minute older than I have a brother of Boulder who's 2 1/2 and then I have a brother works at com like Corporate Comcast, whose five years older.

OK, so did you feel like you were confident going into it with siblings who maybe had college experience? Or were you unsure?

I was confident. I mean, I come from like my family's, a very educated family. My grandpa was a professor at UT. My mom has her doctorate in psychology, so I mean like I was confident about going to college and then obviously applying for things were still kind of.

Uncomfortable still.

Yeah, so Peyton just joined us. Thank you Peyton, for jumping in and you're coming from class, right?

Yes, I am coming from class.

Well, I really appreciate you making time for this at the end of I'm sure very full day. Do you want to share a little bit about yourself and then we'll jump into the presentation.

Definitely so my name is pain daily. I am a 30 year student here at CSU. Part of the CL ambassadors team.

I'm double majoring in political science in French double minoring in Russian and Spanish. I am also part of the University Honors Program. I work as the Chief Justice for the associated students of Colorado State University, which basically functions as our student government, also vice president of the French club financial officer for the Russian club, and I do some volunteer work for the Community Literacy Center.

Awesome.

Awesome, thank you so much. It's great if you, especially with all your involvement. And same with you Pete. It'll be great to hear your perspectives so the College of liberal arts. Our goal for you is that you become an empathetic person, someone who works well with other people, a problem solver, a great writer communicator. All of those things. But to become all of those things, you need to know about the services offices in resources that we provide at CSU because you're never going to do this.

All alone and we want to really support you in your process. So what we know.

Is that 73% of employers say that it is very or somewhat difficult to find candidates who are able to be good communicators, granite critical thinking skills and interpersonal skills, and yet those are the skills that really will make you marketable.

In so here are some stats for you. The human skills that are in demand are the skills we provide in the College of liberal arts, so being a good communicator, listening skills, critical thinking skills and interpersonal skills, a lot of the other skills can be taught. But to hire someone with these skills right out of college is a huge advantage. So colleges are always looking for them.

Or I'm employers. That's what I meant. So which of the following has the greatest impact impact on job placement? Do you think, do you think it's researching jobs, applying for jobs, resume and interview preparation? Networking? No difference. So take a minute and type it in the chat.

In Apeton Peyton, what would you say has made the most difference in your searches on campus for getting involved? Or have you applied for jobs or done internships?

For me, I would say a lot of the times it's the resume and interview, like not so much interview preparation, but definitely the resume 'cause I feel like that's what gets you in the door. If you have a good resume, they're going to look at that they're going to see that and acknowledge it, and then they're going to ask you for an interview. And that gets you in the door.

Awesome.

Peyton, what would you say?

I think your audio is off.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah.

OK, awesome. I think it really depends, I think. Frankly, my resume and interview preparation has done alot. I've gone through a couple hiring processes on campus and now I do some hiring and I would say generally resumes a starting point. I've definitely taken part in some internships, but generally how people present themselves in some of those soft skills that aren't necessarily something you put on a resume is.

Something I look for a lot too.

Yeah, I would agree. I think it's a combination of all the skills. Obviously it's who you know will get your foot in the door, but then they call it your dossier, so your resume in your cover letter and your references. Those are all the things that are going to actually land you the job, so it's it's a bunch of things. So at CSU we have services to help prepare you for that application process. So the Career Center is one of many things that we offer on campus that's useful.

And huge focus is that they'll help you prepare for your application process in your interview so they do coaching. With workshops you can meet with a Career Center counselor. They'll do mock interviews, but they don't just focus on job placement. They will also help you prepare for grad school, and so they'll guide you through that process as well.

And they have mostly virtual options right now. But when our campus is operating at full capacity, we have on and off campus options. Pete and Payton, how have you used this resource so far?

I've used it mainly. It's been the one on one appointments through like I just have done one appointment for my resume to get that tailored towards specific jobs. I wanted to apply for or position so they can help you tailor it to just better match what you're pursuing.

Yeah.

Peyton about you?

I would say that I've gone to some of the career fairs.

And I've done some off campus Kerr events as well. I'd say probably the most helpful tool that I've taken part in is the one on one appointments, though 'cause it's really catered to you and what you're looking for and how you present yourself in for the opportunities that you're looking for.

Yeah, so I don't know how you all feel about this, but when I was in college I was very much about finding the job myself, doing the work myself and I really didn't take advantage of the Career Center as much as I should have until I went to grad school and grad school. My sister and brother in law were like you've got to network like you have to take advantage of this and so one day I caved and I went to a Career Center sponsored Cholera.

Like job fair and I had a great experience. It was wonderful and I turned in my resume to a ton of people and I thought it's not going to help at all like these things. Never do anything and I got a ton of calls back and it's actually the reason I landed my job as a Dean of students at AK-12 Public School in Denver. It was because I attended that college fair or that job fair that I ended up bumping into a recruiter who helped me get hired at the school and then he ended up being my mentor.

And recently he came to speak to my ambassadors because we've become really good friends. And so Pete and Peyton are ambassadors and we have team meetings every week, and I've built a really good working relationship with him and that was from going to a job fair. So I'm now huge advocate of these. I wonder how many other great connections I could have made if I had started doing this when I was in undergraduate studies.

So just a fun story there, so here's what our students do. They get their degrees from CSU and they get out there and they do incredible things. So here we have an expansive alumni network and one thing that I can tell you is that.

Rams take care of rims, and so when you apply for a job in, someone sees that you have a background as a CSU ram, they're going to be more inclined to help you if they also went here. Usually that's the case, and then if you stay local, ER, local businesses love to hire Rams. My sister was in the College of business and she got a great job at OtterBox and then also was hired at Coca Cola at one point in her career and it was just because she had connections through CSU.

And she's a great employee, and so that's something to keep in mind that as you're capitalizing and using all the resources and services and offices we have here that you'll also be building this great network with Rams. Now that's obviously one little story of my sister and how she leveraged the network. But Pete and Peyton, what would you say would be ways? Have you ever had positive experiences with a lump or?

I know you're still students, so you might not be at that point yet.

Not for me necessarily, but my older brother who works at Comcast, his mentor there as a CSU alum and it was just really easy to get that established 'cause he already had known her. And then.

She is bramp referenced and then he got the job there.

That's awesome, thank you, Peyton.

I worked in the Cultural Arts Deans office last year and so I did a lot of articles writing about a lum experiences, and so I got to interact with a lot of those alumni, and although not at the point with.

Law of really getting a job with the law firm. So really look for that more so when you're closer to graduating and your first year of Law School, I can say a lot of the conversations of how to interacting with them. They gave me a lot of good tips and you know what I should be doing now and just I really learned a lot from their experience, so that's generally been my experience with alumni.

Awesome, thanks. We also pull a lamb into our webinars, so as we go along this this semester, and especially into next semester will have some specialized webinars where we bring in alumni. Are you as a prospective student, can talk to them and see what their career path has been like?

I think that there are two resources that are going to be very helpful for you as a prospective student. In the first one is sitting right in front of you, Pete and pain. They are current students. They know what's up on campus, but the second resource sets often not that often doesn't come to mind right away is alone. You are never going to fully understand the campus. To the best of your ability until you talk to students who are walking on campus and.

Living the CSU life and then also alumni who are going to be reflecting on their experience on campus. That's how I find out about all the Hidden Gems is I talked to people who are actually on the campus and say hey what are what are the things you know that I wouldn't know from just looking at a website?

OK, so Next up the College overview I kind of talked about this a little bit, but CSU is the University and then the College of Liberal Arts is one of the 8 colleges that are.

On campus.

So we have 800 plus liberal arts students who have a second major, an obviously Pete and Peyton have really taken advantage of the educational options, and I'd love to hear more about what that's been like for the two of you, we have 26% first generation students and 2929% students of color. 75% of our students are from Colorado, so there in state students in 25%.

Our non resident students.

If you choose CSU Ann, you choose the College of liberal arts. There are going to be several disciplines that you can study. You can study arts, humanities, social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies and then under each of those are different degrees that you could earn from the College of liberal arts.

We have 13 departments, so there's a lot to choose from.

We have 19 majors, 58 concentrations in 33 miners, and so a lot of people will maybe choose to major in one thing and then minor in music or minor in a language. Those are really complementary things to have on your resume, like the languages or.

I got art in music.

When you're at CSU and if you choose the College of liberal arts, there's going to be some great facilities that you can use. We obviously have our dance studios. We have our labs in our classrooms in we have a hybrid model of learning this year so we have some on campus. About 60% of classes are on campus, in the other 40% are virtual. So what has that been like for you?

To have some of your classes on line segment some in person and then paint. And I would love to hear your thoughts.

So I had a majority of mine in person. Like you said, I'm in six classes, 5 meet in person which is really nice. I'm a person who likes to be in front of the professor. It's way easier to ask questions, things like that. One of mines a like pottery studio class and that's been fantastic because I'm still able to go into the studio and physically make the pottery and have the help of the professor. And then everything is also properly spaced so I feel safe to be in class. There's no transmissions that have happened within the classroom which is.

Really nice and it's just great to have that safe in class experience and then online has been great as well.

Awesome, thank you, Pete.

Peyton, how about for you?

I'm so this semester I have one class set is completely in person hybrid class and then three on line. So I got a pretty interesting mix this semester, but I can say that in class environment is great. Right now I am definitely more of an in person in class person. However on line a lot of the professors have found ways to make it feel more like you're in a community by.

Breakout rooms and you know there's extra events that you can go to associated with the class which has really made it feel more like a Intouch community. Even though we're uploading those safety precautions for sure.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Peyton. My sister is a freshman at CSU. She's in another college, but she wanted to get involved and she plays the flute and so she got in touch with the chair of the Department and the chair helped arrange for her to participate in a group that meets in the gardens.

We have these beautiful flower gardens outside and their hosting some of their music ensembles outside and so they've been very creative with how to still allow students to do fun things. I love that my youngest sister is getting a chance to study in another college, but still dip her toes in the College of liberal arts.

Of course, when you go to college, you're going to have to figure out what classes you need to get to your goal. So you'll sit down with an advisor and you'll outline a plan for success for you. And these advisors are called academic success coordinators, and you will get a chance to meet with them. You'll have a new student orientation when you first start, and then your first six weeks of class. You'll have a chance to check in with them, and then every semester through graduation, and then of course, by appointment.

An I would say that this is such a useful tool, just making sure you're on track, but then also if you pick up a minor or you want to they're going to be good people to go to to talk to. If there's one thing I would change about my college experience, it would be to have picked up a minor in music or picked up a minor in a language I think those would be two things that would have served me really well. I just didn't know to do that, so Peyton P. I'm really impressed with what you've taken on while you're in college.

OK.

So, um, we're going to move on to a scholarship slide, and this next one is going to be so useful as a resource. We all know funding is a big hurdle people have to overcome to figure out how to get to college. And we have a very unique opportunity.

Yep, so.

At CSU in the College of liberal arts, we award over 500,000 plus dollars in scholarship funds in 400 plus scholarships. So the one that I think is going to be most useful for you to know about today, although there are many options, is the Blake Leadership Scholars Program an I can tell you about all the details in the criteria in a second, but I would love to hear from Pete on this one because he earned to this. So if you can just share what the process was like for you and then.

Your.

So with the Blake leadership scholar, so I first applied to the scholarship and then after that I got an interview and then from there it's they provide obviously funding to help you get to college. But also they also an interactive class that you have your first semester of freshman year. So you meet with the other Blake scholar cohorts and then you talk about the different skills that are found in the liberal arts and how you might apply them to leadership. So it's a really interactive seminar. It gives you a mentor.

But you know the assistant, Dean and even meet with the Dean and also get involved with a bunch of different programs and activities within the liberal arts, along with just giving you a lot of friends.

Awesome, thank you.

Huge accomplishment, by the way. I'm so impressed that you earned that. It's a very small pool of people who are selected for it and you have to go through a really rigorous selection process. And so here are the details. So the program itself. You'll have an enhanced academic and Co curricular opportunities, internships, education, abroad, research and leadership. And then as mentioned, you'll have a faculty mentor, a cohort of students you get.

To go through college with an funding and its renewable for four years, here's the criteria that Pete went through. So one you have to be in the College of liberal arts. You have to have earned a 4.0 and have demonstrated solid character leadership in community and civic engagement. And so when you're admitted, you need to also be admitted into the Honors Program.

Peyton ankit, I know both of you have experience in the Honors Program Pete. And do you want to share a little bit about your experience?

Sure, I can do that, so I'm a first tracked first track honors student, which means I'm on the seminar path. So what that means is there's two different tracks you can take, one where you are and more you know in person kind of discussing discursive seminars and then the other track where you can do more honors option classes unless seminars. But one of the reasons I really adore the Honors program is because it gives that space for some of those more in depth.

Discussions with the smaller class sizes. So those seminars are usually around 20 different students an you really have it in depth conversations about the topic that you choose for those seminars and those range from anything. I've had seminars on.

Berkeley in the 60s too. I had a water quality seminar last semester, so they really cover a wide range of topics that you might not study otherwise, and it accounts for your all University core curriculum credits, which is an added plus and it also introduces you to a community of very diverse and studious and really just amazing people. So I've really loved the Honors program and all the opportunities it's given me to interact with such an.

Amazing community.

Thank you, Pete. Do you have anything you want to add to that?

Not a whole lot. I mean for me my favorite part is that there are seminars. So instead of the traditional tests and quizzes and a lot of that hard thing, a lot of times you just walk into class. Having completed the reading and then you just discuss for the entire hour and it's a quick way to make a lot of friends. And just like a nice relief compared to normal academic classes. So yeah, I really liked it.

Yeah.

From what I've seen from everybody I've talked to, who's in the Honors Program they the seminars are often like the highlight of the experience. So if you're interested in knowing more about the Honors Program, I'm happy to answer those questions. I'll put my email in the chat at the end an I can be a resource to you, but if you want to apply for this actual scholars program, you need to apply by February 1st and you can find out more by going to this website.

In all, the application information is there, but I can also get you in touch with my colleague cold wise and coal overseas. The whole application process for the Blake Leadership Scholars Program.

Sure, so my college search process I'm going in student in state student so that weighed really heavily on my search process. The other thing that really weighed heavily was the amazing language program here at CSU. Alot of universities don't offer a Russian program and that was the language as very interested in studying and CSU did have that program. So I think the main reasons I really chose CSU were a its proximity.

Be the Immaculate language program it has, and then see it really was the most affordable option for me as an in state student. And I think CSU really works. Maintain their land grant mission of really trying to keep its tuition costs affordable so you know it's able to provide education to the most amount of students.

So it's a little bit about how I came to CSU and then some of the really hidden gems here.

At CSU, I would really say where I started to feel at home is I connected with some of my professors and they are always happy to have you partake in their research and I've really enjoyed partaking undergraduate research. It really just goes a different lens to what you're doing and what your professors do outside of the classroom.

And then I guess some other hidden gems would be, you know, just connections with faculty. I mean, I went on a walk with Dean Withers, the Dean of the College of liberal arts the other day, and just, you know, listening to the perspectives that faculty members have and you know, just having those conversations that's been really important to me. Of course, ambassador, team, you know, has just made me feel like home as well. Being able to interact with different people have different interests that I may not have run into otherwise, just because it is a big campus.

And then I'm always going to push a CSU out there, because, you know, I spend a lot of my time here and it has really been like the biggest family I have found on campus. Just because it's a lot of people that have the same passions I do. And at the end of the day, we're all family with all discussions and debates aside, and it's just a wonderful community that I'm lucky enough to be apart of.

Yeah, for me my path. I'm also in state student but I applied for a few places and CSU was just one of them. 'cause it's in state. I ended up deciding to go here. I have a twin brother and he's really big into percussion and we have a great percussion studio within the liberal arts so he decided to come here instead of like a Boulder or Kansas because of the Great percussion studio and that heavily weighted for me and I decided I didn't want to be apart from my brother were really close so.

I decided to come here as well and then once I got here I found a lot of the Hidden Gems was honestly I guess I'm an RA so I'm pushing this. The dorm you make a lot of friends that first year just when you're living on the dorm, I still have like all the friends I have now from last year. They originally came from my doorman. From there just student involvement. I mean, I'm involved, obviously with crew, which is a religious organization, and for me that's been my main gym. There's a lot of different religious groups and then that's really nice to just meet people of a similar faith.

To discuss and just get a community, I also just the Honors Program. I have a lot of friends from there as well. From the small seminars and besides that I would say I really like the food around here. I mean we have a lot of good restaurants so it's fun to go out to eat.

Um, I'm a big food person. I don't branch out very much with coffee. I'm a big Starbucks person, so I would say food wise I love the silver girl for breakfast. Cinnamon rolls are amazing and then stopped. Burger bar is fantastic and is probably my go to place to eat.

Yeah I I got I go there alot. I really really like stuffed burger. I really like crazy Carls. I have that.

Probably a little too much for my budget, but it's worth it. It's so good. And then on campus I really like spoons. It's like a soup shop, so once a cold day I just love getting soup on big soup guy, so yeah.

I would say specifically for the first year.

Being involved, you don't have to be in every single cloud that exists, but at least finding something makes us campus feel a lot smaller. I swear I can't go anywhere now without seeing someone I know, so it feels like a very small campus now, even though there's 30,000 plus students who go here and then my other piece of advice would be.

Be realistic with first semester. It's a lot of transitioning and I'm one of those people who takes a little bit to transition and then I hit the ground running. I took on way too much my first semester I took 18 credit hours and I tried to be in all these different things and that wasn't realistic for me at a point now where I could do that, but I would say you know.

For me, I would stress that office hours, even if you don't need help, it's very useful to go to speak to them just so they know your face and they know the person behind the face a little bit. It makes class seem like better annuar, more welcoming, and then I feel like they also just like picking on you, like when you raise your hand and they're also there to help you a lot more if you just go to their office hours in general. Other thing is when applying.

CSU apply for scholarships. Even if you think it's a long shot, I mean you would be surprised at how many that they'll at least give you an interview or they'll like consider you and then. So just go for everything and then if you don't get a few but you do get a few. That's even more money. You know it's not about getting the mall, it's just about getting a few to help make college more affordable.

Just thank you so much for your time here today and letting us share our experiences. And I really do hope wherever you go, you make some of those amazing experiences yourself.