Potter College offers student shadowing
November 13, 2012
For prospective students and students trying to decide their major, Potter College of Arts and Letters may have an answer.
This year, Potter College has a new program called “Day in the Life of a Potter College Topper.”
The program gives students a chance to shadow Dean’s Council Students — the Potter College ambassadorial group — or Potter College students and see what a day at WKU is like.
Students who participate in the program can expect to attend a class with the student they shadow, meet faculty and current students and tour the college according to Potter College’s website.
Jennifer Markin, coordinator of student services at Potter College, said the idea for this program started with the Potter College’s Dean’s Council.
“The Dean’s Council Students for Potter College has always given tours to students,” Markin said. “It was loosely organized, kind of when people had their own initiative to contact us.”
Markin said she encourages Dean’s Council to be honest with students so they get an accurate perception of what it means to be a WKU student.
“We’re not a glossy magazine,” Markin said. “This is meant to be a real experience for students.”
One student Markin has received emails from is Lebanon Junction junior Justin Hawkins, currently attending Elizabethtown Community and Technical College.
Hawkins said in an email that not long after getting in touch with Markin she recommended he take the tour.
“As a declared broadcasting major who will be entering Potter College, I felt taking the tour would give me a better idea of what I was getting myself into,” Hawkins said. “Seeing Potter College first-hand showed me how much the school had to offer — which is a lot.”
He said when he arrived to take the tour he was curious about the difference between a film and broadcasting major.
“By the end of the tour I had every question I could possibly think of answered,” Hawkins said.
Markin said the program doesn’t have a set quantity goal, they just want to establish a connection.
“Anyone can print a pretty brochure, but we want you to know exactly what we do whether you go to WKU or somewhere else,” she said. “And understanding what you’re committing to, I think, is huge with retention.”
Luke Jean, recruitment chair for Dean’s Council Students, said a transfer student told him the reason he transferred to WKU was because of the tour.
“We want to make tours more specialized to what students are interested in instead of general admissions tours,” Jean said. Jean said they encourage prospective students to ask questions they really want answers to.
“We usually send their parents to Java City to get coffee or something so that students can ask the questions they really want to know without being pressured by parents to ask studious questions,” he said.
Jean said he hopes students who participate get a personal connection to campus like he did when he first came to WKU.
