Since the end of my freshman year, I have been a student tour guide for my university. Yes, I'm one of those people who walks backwards while deftly avoiding sign posts and speeding students to take you around my lovely campus and tell you our students' average SAT score, how small our classes are, and why our having a rock climbing wall means you should come to our school. Over the three and a half years I've been giving tours, I've come up with a laundry list of things I desperately wish I could say to prospective parents and students, but, for what will quickly become obvious reasons, have kept to myself. Here's a few:
I LOVE it when people ask me questions.
I know when I was touring colleges as a high school senior, I never wanted to interrupt the tour guide because I thought it might be rude, or that my questions were obvious or not important or silly. Now that I'm on the other side, I LOVE those questions, no matter how silly or frivolous they might be. (You can keep the rude ones, though.) Please be aware: if you say nothing, then I have to talk for 45 minutes straight. If you say nothing, then by the end of the 45 minutes, not only will my voice be gone, but I'll be reduced to telling you things you don't care about, like which foreign presidents have visited my school. Please, PLEASE don't hesitate to ask anything that comes to mind. I will gladly tell you about what it's like to live in a forced triple, or the names of the fencing clubs on campus, or what the best restaurants in the area are. All you have to do is ask. It will make the tour better for me and for you, trust me.
The only exception to the above rule is: I HATE when people ask, 'What don't you like about your school?'
To be totally fair: this was the question I asked on every. single. tour. I took in high school. It made and makes perfect sense to me why people ask this question: as a tour guide, my job is to accentuate the positive and make you want to come to my school. In order to get the full picture, asking this question makes a ton of sense. But please understand the difficult position you are putting me in: not only are you forcing me to speak badly about an institution that I love, but what may seem like no big deal to you may offend or turn away other visitors. Prospective students aren't the only ones who take tours: alumni and professors will often come too. If I say something like 'I wish the administration gave clubs a bigger budget,' or 'there are roaches in the older buildings,' or anything like that, then I risk upsetting and angering these visitors. If you want to ask, have the courtesy to wait and approach me after the tour. Once we are speaking one-on-one, I will be more comfortable and more honest, and I will honestly tell you: "while there are things that I dislike about ---- University, I would not be here and I would especially not be giving tours if I didn't really enjoy it. However, I do sometimes feel..."
Parents: your child is leaving home in a year--possibly even less. You should not be speaking for them!
This one absolutely blows my mind, possibly because my parents taught and expected me to speak up for myself since the age of seven or so. So maybe my expectations are unreasonably high, but: I find it completely unacceptable when 17 and 18 or even 15 and 16-year-olds are unable or unwilling to speak for themselves. (The exceptions, of course, are disabilities or language barriers.) This bothers me every time it happens, but especially when I ask the student a question directly ('what are you interested in studying?') and the parents answers, or, even worse, when the student starts to speak and the parent corrects or speaks over them. You are not going to live in your child's pocket their whole life--let them grow up!
Students: the same applies to you. You are on the verge of being an adult. Act like it!
Nothing, and I mean nothing, bothers me more than an apathetic teenager. Yep, I know it sort of goes wtih the territory, but: these are teenagers about to go to college, teenagers on the verge of becoming adults. I am giving up my time for absolutely no money or benefits in order to show you around my school. The very, VERY least you can do is act interested, even if you really aren't. Trust me, even though I have a polite smile pasted on my face, if you are slouched down into your sweatshirt at the back of the group with a scowl on your face, inside I am thinking of ten different ways to disembowl you. The absolute worst in when your parents are being polite and interested and you roll your eyes at every word they say. Going to college is a privelege, not a right. So even if your parents dragged you here and you have absolutely zero interest in this school, be polite. You look like an obnoxious small child and you are impressing no one and embarrassing yourself. Grow the hell up.
Do not, I repeat, do not bring children younger than fourteen on the tour (or even to the college) unless absolutely necessary.
One of the most touching moments I've ever had on a tour was when a seven-year-old boy came with his mom and his seventeen-year-old brother on a tour. As we toured around the school, I was worried that the boy was ill, because he kept biting his lip and looking at the ground and clinging to his brother's hand. All of a sudden, as I was about to show them a freshman dorm, the little boy burst into tears and sobbed, 'I don't want you to go to college!' It turns out that the boy thought his brother was leaving for college that day, that his brother wasn't coming home with him. It was adorable and sweet, but I also felt bad for the kid, and it completely disrupted my tour. However, he was far preferable to the kids who run screaming down the hall, climb on old furniture, or the tweens who talk loudly on their cell phones throughout the tour. Parents: this is a college tour. It is assumed that the people on the tour are prospective college students. We even have special tours for younger children. Unless you absolutely could not get a babysitter, please, please leave your fourteen-and-unders home.
Moms (and, occasionally, Dads) I really appreciate it when you keep me from walking into things.
What's surprising isn't so much that there's a mom on almost every tour who warns me every time I'm about to step off a curb or into the path of a post or another person (I walk backwards,) what's surprising is the occasional tour where no one tells me before I walk into something, even though they're watching it happen. I suppose this is the Bystander Effect, where people don't say anything because they all assume someone else will. Still, though, when my back is literally seconds from colliding with a lamppost, you'd think someone would speak up!
I appreciate your interest in my life, but please remember that I am a person, not just a tour guide.
I start off every tour with a little spiel, "My name is X, I'm from X, I'm majoring in X, and I enjoy doing X." I'll also mention my internships and that I studied abroad, before going around and asking each student about themselves (if it's less than thirty people) or asking people to call out some of their interests (if it's over thirty people.) Maybe once every four or five tours, I get a person (almost always a dad, occasionally a mom or student) who has some kind of connection to one of those areas of my life (they had the same major, they're from the same city, whatever) and feels the need to talk to me about it throughout the entire tour. I don't mind chatting with prospective students and parents--in fact, I enjoy it--but not while I'm meant to be giving a tour to twenty or so other people. I once had a man who, after I told my tour group that I had done a three-week class in Guangzhou, China, felt the need to spend the whole tour telling me about a business trip he once took to Beijing. It was disruptive and made it hard for me to cover the information that everyone wanted to hear--and yet, I will take that guy any day to the people who ask the invasive and rude questions about my life. It is not appropriate or polite to question someone's religious beliefs, heritage, political affiliation, sexual orientation, or financial situation--all things I have been asked on tours. There is a line, and you should know where it is. If you don't--know that if you cross it I will calmly and coldly tell you that it's none of your business, and I will make note of your name to the Admissions Department.
Teachers: I understand that field trips are sort of like mini-vacations for you, but if you expect me to do your job, then I will take a cut of your paycheck, please.
For the most part, school groups are my absolute favorite sort of tour. The younger kids especially are super excited to see the school, and are perfectly content if I spend the whole tour telling them ghost stories, fun facts, stories about movies filmed at my school, and famous people who have visited. My absolute favorite moment ever was when a little nine-year-old girl asked me in perfect seriousness what college kids' bedtime is. Another was when a twelve-year-old boy, upon seeing a woman walk by while smoking, yelled at the top of his voice, "Smoking is BAD FOR YOU!!" You tell her, kid! But I am not a teacher, I am a tour guide, and it is not my responsibility to make certain your students behave. I have had tours where teachers wandered at the back of the group, ignoring their yelling, arguing students who are completely ignoring me. Two friends of mine, a guy and girl, once gave a tour where some teenage boys kept making blatant sexual comments about them--and the teachers ignored it. Once I took a group of rowdy fourth graders into our Student Center, only to have them run madly all over the place. One of the teachers looked at me and said, "You shouldn't let them do that." Really lady? Really? I love kids, I love showing them my school, but I flat-out refuse to be the disciplinarian for forty OOC kids. Do your job--or your school won't be invited back.
Rules are in place for a reason, and no, I am not going to bend or break them for you no matter how much you weedle or scowl at me.
You wouldn't think there would be that many rules to follow on a tour of a college, but people seem very adept at finding them and asking to break them. Specifically: I cannot show dorm bathrooms, I cannot show our gym, and and I cannot show a room in a dorm other than the one I have been assigned. The bathroom and gym rules exist to protect student privacy. I understand that other schools like to show their state-of-the art workout facilities, but I think it's good that my school refuses in order to protect student privacy. As for the dorms, we have freshmen called Dorm Buddies who sign up to show their rooms at specific times. This is to avoid putting someone in an uncomfortable situation and to ensure that every tour gets to see a room. I'm sorry you'd rather see Smith Dorm instead of Jones Dorm, but I am not going to change the rules for you no matter how pushy you become with me. If your student comes here, they will be going to a school that respects their students. Be content with that.
I have absolutely NO bearing on your student's admissions decision.
The exception, of course, is, as I said above, if a student is unusually--like way over the top--rude, then I will inform the Admissions Department, and that may negatively affect their opinion of you. But other than that, I have NO bearing on whether or not your son or daughter goes to X University. Therefore, do not feel the need to nudge your student into asking an 'intelligent' question in order to show their smarts or their interest. If you or they genuinely want to know then I will happily answer, but understand that I can pick out the questions designed to catch my attention and give me a positive impression of a student a mile away. For instance: "I am interested in study abroad. What are the chances that a double major in the honors college could study abroad?" Well, what do YOU think the chances are? Pretty good, obviously, which is why you asked. Most people aren't that blatant, but you'd be surprised just how far some will go.
Understand: if you ask about alcohol at all, in any capacity, you are putting me in an impossible position.
There's just no way I can win with this question. If I say that there is a healthy party life at my school, then I will chase away certain parents and students. If I say that there is minimal on-campus alcohol use and most students take part in other activities, I will chase away certain other parents and students. Reciting the university policy--that alcohol is only allowed in rooms where everyone is 21+--only makes people more curious. If you really must ask about alcohol--whether it's 'where are the best bars?' or 'I'm Mormon and don't drink, will I fit in?'--then please, please, please, approach me privately after the tour, and I will give you as honest an answer as I can. It's a college. Yes, people drink. Yes, people can be really stupid. No, I don't think we're a crazy party school. Oy.
The same goes for sex.
Duh.
Believe it or not, I actually enjoy doing this!
People always look amazed when they learn that I (and all the other tour guides) do this for no pay and little personal benefit. We do it becauase we love our school, and we enjoy interacting with people. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. Take that as a huge endorsement for my school--you'd be surprised how many schools either hire their tour guides or have them on work-study programs. The fact that we have people who volunteer at my school--so many people, in fact, that we actually turn people away--should be a huge sign of how much the students love going here.
Cates
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