College & Careers: Beyond the campus tour

Navigating college requirements is tough, especially when you’re still a high school student.

Yet many high schoolers find themselves trying to decipher their options for dual enrollment, Advanced Placement and other college-credit programs.

Crossing the campus at the university where I teach, I often pass groups of bored-looking high school students taking a tour with their over-interested parents. My school has outstanding student tour guides, but I find it unnerving that many of those visiting high school seniors and juniors will choose a school based only on a carefully designed tour of the campus’ high points.

Figuring out if a college is the right choice isn’t easy, so here are some suggestions for how to dig deeper than the guided tour and get the most out of a visit.

College-bound students can visit with representatives from 121 colleges during the Omaha Area College Fair. The fair is Sunday, Sept. 29, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Sapp Fieldhouse at 60th and Dodge Streets. Admission is free. Free parking is available in lots or garages.

The college fair is sponsored by the EducationQuest Foundation in partnership with Omaha-area school counselors and the Nebraska Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. If you have questions about the college fair, contact Joan Jurek of EducationQuest at 888-357-6300 or visit EducationQuest.org.

Kylie Black isn't sure where she’d be without the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Success Academy.

“I genuinely don’t know if I would’ve stayed in college,” she said. “Either my first semester or at the end of last year, I probably would have dropped out, just because (college) is really overwhelming.”

College offers a rare opportunity: a chance for a new identity.

Finding new friends to help you be who you want to be — not who you were — is part of how those identities are formed.

After navigating the move-in routes, unpacking the car, squishing everything into the elevator and saying goodbye to Mom and Dad, many freshmen find themselves with a much more daunting task ahead of them: making friends and fitting in.

While new environments can be intimidating at first, upperclassmen have braved the first few awkward weeks and learned how to make the most of the endless opportunities that college offers. Here’s what area students would say to freshmen about making friends during their first year.

After saying goodbye to your college student on move-in day, one of the hardest things to come to grips with at home is the yawning lack of information.

You’re excluded from your student’s experience in a new, jarring way, and no one will invite you in except your student — and that’s only if they want to. That doesn’t mean you disappear from their lives; far from it. But it does mean you play a different role.

Buying college textbooks can be a dizzying experience.

First, there’s the sticker shock. Textbooks are expensive, and the bill for a semester’s worth of books can easily rival that of a decent laptop.

In the Elkhorn Public Schools, college conversations start as early as eighth grade.

Martha Dowd, a counselor at Elkhorn High School, said the conversation usually revolves around foreign language credits needed for college admissions, but it can be a shock to some.

Sarah Petersen wasn’t sure what to expect when she visited the University of Nebraska at Kearney for the first time.

The Omaha native didn’t know much about UNK or the community, except that it was 2½ hours from home, in a part of the state that was unfamiliar to her.