Tour Guides
by thepark74December 5th, 2007 at 5:13 PM
Filed under: Humor, Other Discursive Dialogue
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You see a fellow student leading a group of prospective students and their parents, around your college campus. What’s running through your mind? Shall you continue walking by and just ignore them? Or will you yell an obscenity to see the group’s reactions? Maybe you just feel the need to express yourself with a comment like “UCF rocks!” But what’s the real reasoning behind these actions that tend to cause distractions? To show that you have a voice, or does it happen to have a deeper meaning? First, this goes out those students that just continue to walk on by I can tell you that the tour guides do appreciate your actions. These students just continue on their way because they have realized that it’s just a group of people walking around. Nothing special, so they don’t feel the need to waste their time, nor effort by bothering them. Most of these students just walk around the group and do their best to avoid contact with them. Not because anyone is telling them to leave the group alone but because it’s the right thing to do. Now to those special individuals who feel inspired to do something foolish and or idiotic. What exactly are you thinking; do you desire to establish yourself as a generic disruptive college student? First off, whenever you do a disruptive action three things happen: the group and anyone around them is now looking at you; second, the tour guide has to talk over you or attempt to ignore you; and finally, the tour guide has to pause and explain to the group that not all students act in the manner that they just saw. While the tour guide is explaining away someone’s foolish actions, the parents are making their own conclusions about whether or not their child will attend this university. However, when they are making this decision they are more than likely thinking about the actions of the student that they have just seen and not on the student that happens to be leading them around campus. As you can tell, this presents the school with a bit of a problem. Undergraduate admission ambassadors, otherwise known as tour guides, see an average of twenty-eight thousand prospective students a year. Let’s say that half of that amount happened to have a tour that was interrupted. Also, half of those parents who had an interrupted tour chose not to send their children to UCF. With a current average tuition of about five thousand dollars for in-state students, the school stands to lose about thirty-five million dollars in tuition alone that year. Now when you look at it from a monetary point of view, it doesn’t seem like a funny prank or joke anymore does it. Finally, we get to those who feel the need to share their enthusiasm about UCF. First off, your actions are appreciated by most tour guides and most parents like to see students so enthused about school. Most of you tend to make your exclamations while the group is moving from one place to another. While you mean well, it tends to create mixed feelings within the group. Not because you made an outburst or anything like that, it’s simply because they don’t know you and most parents are a little frightened of college students. Their feelings of fear or intimidation are not realistic, but are usually based on the actions of the parents when they were in college. For instance, one parent decided to share with a tour guide that he used to throw water balloons at tour groups from his dorm room window. This resulted in him continually eyeing the passing students eerily, as if waiting for something to happen. Needless to say, he had many questions when the tour was over because he didn’t pay attention during the tour. Since these feelings are ingrained in the individual, and won’t be changed by the students, it’s better to just continue on your way when you see a tour group. If you do however, feel the uncontrollable urge to yell something out; try to be in plain view of the entire group. Tour groups are similar to freshman during orientation. They all are frightened and excited at the same time. Their lost without their guide, and they think about everything that they see and hear, be it good or bad. The group is usually tightly packed and trying to take in all the sights and sounds of UCF, in an hour and thirty minutes. And if you happen to interrupt their view they tend to stop where they stand and wait for someone to come show them where they have to go. Some of these group members are easily frightened by the “unknown.” Not only are the students in a new environment, their parents are beginning to realize that they have to deal with their child leaving home. Tour guides have to convince these emotional people that this school is the best option for their child. This is no easy task, even without the inconvenience that some students feel the need to produce. The point is that before anyone takes actions towards a group, they should think about how their parents would react to it. Who knows how many more students would be attending UCF if no tour was ever interrupted? Also, what could be done around the campus if we had more funding for sports, classrooms, or scholarships? These are the types of students that a tour group usually encounters. First, there are students who couldn’t care less about the tours and continue on their way. Then, there are the students who have to cause a disturbance by doing something rather rude. Finally, there are students who just feel the need to share their enthusiasm about attending UCF. Also, you have the student who happens to be leading this group around the campus; not because he or she has to, but because they want to. |
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