College Monster Shadow Program

I'm in the midst of starting up a college shadow program for current senior students. For more information, you can email me at nathanyan@berkeley.edu

Preliminary information so far:
Email:

Hi all,

It's midway through March, and for a lot of this year's high school seniors, the college acceptance letters are just rolling in. As I'm sure most all of you remember from last year (or previous years), actually picking a college after that can be a harrowing feeling, especially when most students really don't know much about colleges outside of program descriptions, national rankings, and a surface tour of the campus.

I'm thinking of starting a college shadowing program, similar to what high schools sometimes offer, and a bit like some college overnight stay programs - essentially the high school student gets to follow around someone already in college, go to classes and experience studies and social life and living over there. Westmoor's spring break is April 9-13, and for most colleges I've looked at so far, most of us are still in/back in school during that time. For students who don't have their spring breaks planned out yet, it might be a good time to visit campuses, and we can have college hosts take students around to the classes, dormitories, dining commons, etc. to show them how college life is like at that particular school.

If you're interested in doing this, you can email me back, or visit:
http://collegemonster.wikispaces.com/Shadow+Program
http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2255893676

And yes, I'm looking for people from community colleges too - the vast majority of students from Westmoor actually go here rather than a UC or CSU, and it'd be good for a lot of students who ponder going all 4 years or doing a 2-year transfer.

I also sent this out to some teachers and a few senior students, mainly to see what ideas you had - any feedback or suggestion at all would be great.

-Nathan Yan
nathanyan@berkeley.edu

Wikispace site:

We're currently in the process of planning out a shadowing program for current high school seniors. As college admissions letters are rolling in throughout March, high school students will have the next month or so to decide where they want to go, and as I'm sure many of you remember from last year, it's not always an easy or clear-cut decision.

For myself at least, one of the hardest things about choosing a college last year was not having any real feel at all for how it was actually like to live and study there. Going into the choosing process, most students can easily find out all about the strength of programs and national rankings, and take a tour around to look at all the buildings on campus, but there's really very little in the way of providing prospective students with an actual glimpse into the real college experience. That's the broad, overall goal of this program, to provide students with a firsthand experience at prospective colleges, to help them decide which college they really want to go to.

In pursuit of that goal, this project aims to set up former Westmoor students as "college hosts" that students can shadow. College students who were interested could put themselves on a list, and high school students who wanted to check out a particular college could look up who was available at that college and contact them to make arrangements for shadowing. The college host could then show the high school student, or student(s) around, take them to classes, out to dining commons, social events, and possibly even stay overnight* (see below). Being former Westmoor students, there's the added bonus of having the same perspective in hindsight - we've gone through similar classes and education, and can more accurately advise on how well such-and-such class prepared for college courses.

Westmoor High School has its Spring Break over April 9 - 13. After a quick sampling of a few neighborhood colleges, it seems that many of us, if not most, will be in school during that week, which means that it would be the perfect opportunity for seniors who have nothing to do to visit at colleges.

The whole idea/project/plan is still in the works, but right now the plan is to get a list of the college students interested, and possibly get high school students to organize via a Westmoor liaison. We can work out some kind of activity outline if you'd all like that, but as the different college campuses, and even us individual students, are extremely diverse, I think it's best for everyone to decide on their own what exactly they want to do - the idea is to just give the student(s) a comprehensive experience of what they can expect at that college. My original idea was actually for an overnight stay program, which would really give students a comprehensive idea of how dorm or apartment life was like, but after talking with a few people, I think I agree that it's too complicated and messy of an idea to tackle, at least this year. However, it's still on the table, if anyone is interested in, or wants to talk about, the idea, but for now it looks like college hosts will be sort of a day-long tour guide session for prospective students.

If you have any questions or ideas, you can contact me at nathanyan@berkeley.edu.