Busy Ambassador Life; Open House October 16, 2013

On October 16, 2013, the ambassador team kicked off its first opportunity to support the school with one of Southwest Tech’s open houses. Open houses are opportunities for prospective students and parent can come and see all that SWTC has to offer. In addition, every program sets up stations to help show prospective students what each program does. The newcomers explore the layout of the school, the programs offered, and if they’re ready, to apply for the next semester’s classes. The ambassador’s role was to give campus tours, direct guests, answer questions about multiple programs, and all together provide guest services to all who arrived. These open houses are a huge opportunity for student ambassadors to let their lights shine as leaders; this year the ambassadors were certainly up for the challenge.

The open house was scheduled for the 16^th of October, a Wednesday. In the days prior, the Southwest Tech staff, and the ambassadors were already hard at work. On Monday and Tuesday, ambassadors were helping set up signs, tables, and each program’s stations. Also, one of the most time consuming tasks was to stuff the folders that each guest would receive. Unsure of exactly how many would show up, the ambassadors spent hours stuffing hundreds of folders for the open house. A very time consuming and repetitive job, but a necessary evil to make the open house run smoothly for each guest. In addition to all of this, the ambassadors were preparing for their most important job; giving campus tours. Most of the team this year are new to giving tours and had to mentally prepare themselves for this task. The ambassadors memorized where everything was in the school and small tidbits of information about each program offered. However, when a tour was to be given, an instructor would often be in their rooms to talk more in depth to the guests about their programs; this took some needed pressure off of the ambassadors giving the tours for the first time.

The time came, and the doors opened. The open house began running and it didn’t take long for the guests to start pouring in. This year’s open house was a busy one too. Almost immediately the ambassadors were giving tours left and right all over the school. Some of which lasted anywhere from fifteen minutes to forty five minutes. The ambassador team was stationed in the main hallway so that every guest would get a chance to see them and possibly get a tour. Plus, each ambassador was required to where bright green Southwest Tech Charger shirts so they could be easily spotted for questions. As the open house ran, and the ambassadors worked, many staff members and ambassadors were called off to be a part of some local radio shows. There were two of these radio booths conducting interviews about the school at the open house. The ambassadors were handpicked to talk about their program and how Southwest Tech has influenced them. Overall, despite some nervousness, every interview went very well, giving the ambassadors a new outlet to broadcast the school and some personal publicity.

Then, after all the craziness started to die down, and the ambassadors could take a breather, the news came in of what a huge success this open house had been. In the end, over two hundred new students applied; a new school record for a single open house. With the help of the ambassadors and staff Southwest Tech will have many brand new students ready to continue their education next year.

A special thanks goes out to Jessica Helms, and Allison Carroll for all their help setting up and running this special open house with the ambassadors! Both of whom could be seen sprinting around the open house making sure everything was going to plan. Overall they, and many other staff members were great leaders in making this open house possible. Many thanks to all of you!

That is all for this update on the Student Ambassador team of Southwest Tech. Stay tuned for more day to day updates of these young leaders and how each and every one of them contributes to this great school. Thanks for reading!