“Girl with the red sweater,” said the professor as he pinpointed me out of a classroom of college students.
I quickly glanced around the religious studies class I was in to see if anyone else had on a red sweater. After all, I was just an overnight stay student from Schenectady High School.
I was a bit frightened and then Brianne, my student guide, spoke up and said I was just an overnight-stay student. The professor apologized but told me that if I wanted to answer the question I could.
It was at that point of the class that I felt like a college student and that I could easily adjust to college.
Many students in their senior year of high school go and visit colleges trying to decide what college is right for them. The best thing to do in order to make a decision is to have an overnight stay at the colleges you are looking to apply to. When you have an overnight stay you get to feel what it is like to go to the college and experience a college student’s daily life at the school. In the end you might just come back from your visit and realize that the college you visited is the college for you.
During my stay at The College of Saint Rose, I experienced the dorm rooms and noticed that dorms are all the same. Each person in a dorm usually has a roommate and your room has two beds, two desks, two dressers and two closets for the students. The walls of the dorms are all white with no color and seem boring.
The roommates also have to decide who will bring the television, fan, mini fridge and microwave. Brianne told me that usually the person who brings the mini fridge brings the fan and the other roommate brings the other two items. Along with these four items, students need to bring personal items, bins to store stuff under your bed and a computer and printer.
Why Saint Rose?
I met a group of students while on the college visit and overall they all wanted to know why I chose Saint Rose.
I told them that Saint Rose was one of the colleges that I have always planned on going to. After my visit, I realized what I really liked about Saint Rose was how comfortable I was in the college’s setting.
I especially was comfortable in Professor Johnston’s Religious Studies class, where I learned about rituals.
Professor Johnston chuckled when speaking on rituals and how a child becomes an adult. He said “a child becomes an adult when they are financially stable, hold down a job, and when their parents tell them it’s time to move out.”
His chuckle made me laugh and I realized that his class was what made my visit so comfortable. Unlike high school teachers who speak to students like they need to get everything done, professors like Professor Johnston really just wanted you to learn and he did it in a creative way. It was at that point that I realized what college should be all about.
In the end, all it took was a chuckle.
Sarah Williams is a 12th grader at Schenectady High School.
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