Everything you should know about planning a visit to a College Campus Aug 07 '01    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet The Bottom Line Always make sure to ask questions, and write down all the information you can get. Coming to college is not easy for anyone. But, one of the things that you can do to alleviate the process is to make sure you know where to go. When I say "where to go", I mean that you need to make sure you know the campus buildings and where they are located on the campus itself. While you live out your college career, you will visit just about every building on campus at least once. So, you want to make sure that when you are making that first visit to campus, that you try and visit all of the main buildings that you will be frequenting throughout the year. Make sure that you know what buildings your classes are in, where you go to pay for tuition, where you need to pay for housing and/or dining, where the library is, where a close computer lab is, and most of all, where you are going to be able to eat. By making sure you know where to go before you actually attend the college, you will save yourself a lot of time. Not only that, but you will be one of the few people that actually knows where everything is. Being able to help someone find a building makes you look a lot better than if you did not. Most of the people trying to find a building are labeled as freshman right away, but if you can avoid all of the questions when you actually get there, you can elude the stereotypes. An extremely important part about visiting the college campus, is meeting with an advisor. Whether it be during the summer time, or in mid-semester, all colleges have advisors readily available to answer questions about anything you might be curious. Some suggestions in this department are that you find out if you are enrolled in the proper classes, that you are planned out for what classes you will need to graduate, and when you will be able to take certain classes. Some classes actually need you to be certified in order to receive a grade in. So, by making sure that you are taking the right courses in the right order, you save yourself the grief of wasting your own time. Another great thing that you can do if you are making a campus visit, is seeing where, or figuring out where, you are going to live. If you already know where you have been assigned to live, what you can do is ask for a tour of the Hall where you will be staying. There will show you the room, and you can figure out just how you want to set up the room when you get to campus. This will help you when deciding what is needed when packing, and exactly how much stuff that you will be able to bring with you to college. Sometimes we have things that turn out to be too big, like dressers or a homemade bed, and by taking measurements of your room, you can determine if it is likely to fit. The worst experience is bringing something all the way to college, and then to discover that you cannot find a place for it in your room. When you get to the campus you want to figure out the driving routes to necessary stuff within the city or town as well. Knowing where the grocery stores are, where the fast food restaurants are, and even where the bowling alley is can be extremely helpful. At the same time, I highly recommend stopping by the campus bookstore. Often new college students are shocked by just how expensive college textbooks are when they have to purchase them for the first time. You can go and price your books, and determine ahead of time whether you are going to need the assistance of a parent in paying for them. This helped me out, because my books went way over $300.00 the first semester, and if I had not known that ahead of time I never would have been able to afford them. A suggestion is to have a notebook with you at all rimes when going around the campus. Write down everything that may seem even remotely important at the time. Later on, you will forget half of the information that you have learned, but if you have written in down you will have that as a back up to your own mind. Getting a campus map for this can be a step in the right direction as well. Setting up a campus tour is really easy to do as well. By calling ahead to your school of choice, they can tell you when they will be offering tours of the campus. Then you just coordinate your schedule to make it to one of the tours and you can be shown all of the important aspects of the campus. At Washington State University, I know that they offer personal tours at no extra charge to a potential student. I am sure that other college campuses offer this benefit as well. I highly recommend that any new and incoming student take a look at their campus before they decide to arrive. The benefits are endless, and the negatives are non-existent. By making sure you are ahead in the game, you will save yourself a lot of time during the year. This is especially useful if you are applying for Financial Aid. You can get all of the paper work out of the way before you even arrive. This is beneficial, because the lines can get quite long during the year. So, take a tour, learn the routes, and you can be a knowledgeable student before classes even start.

Read all comments (1)|Write your own comment

Write an essay on this topic.

Ads by Google Tour Your Future SchoolFind what college is a best fit, college advisor at your service!www.educationalexcellence.info/ Florida College Trip3 Day Florida College Campus Tour June 11th to June 13th, 2012 - $469www.collegecampustrips.com/ Prepare a Will- LegalZoomMake a Will at Home with Family. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed!www.legalzoom.com/Wills Campus Visit InfoGet Info On Campus Visit Access 10 Search Engines At Once.www.info.com/CampusVisit Campus VisitGet Campus Visit Find Campus Visitwww.ask.com/Campus+Visit