Today we have a special guest post from our very own Michelle Kowalsky who is the International Recruiter for Western New England College. Let's see what she had to say about her experience abroad...Hello from Tokyo, Japan! My name is Michelle Kowalsky and I am the international recruiter for the WNEC. In the past seven weeks, I have been on a total of 23 flights, attended approximately 15 fairs, and visited a large number of secondary schools as well as colleges. My travels have taken me to Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Jakarta, Singapore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Taipei, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, and Tokyo. In all of these cities, I have spoken with a number of great students who are interested in all that Western New England College has to offer. Unfortunately, there has not been a lot of time to explore these wonderful places, but I have had some amazing food and seen some amazing sights such as the Krishna Temple in India, Boat Quay and Clarke Quay in Singapore, Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi, Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and Deoksugung Palace in Seoul.
As part of our ten year strategic plan at Western New England, we are looking to internationalize the campus both by increasing our international population on campus as well as increasing the opportunities for our students to study abroad. This is the second year that I have traveled abroad to recruit students and I look forward to many more trips in the future! To learn more about our admission requirements for international students visit our the International page at www.wnec.edu/internationalstudents. You can also learn more about our study abroad programs by visiting www.wnec.edu/studyabroad. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures I have taken along the way!
On Friday, I returned from a four day trip to New Jersey. This was my first time visiting the Garden State since I was a kid so it was certainly an adjustment (especially with the driving). I spoke with a lot of nice students and parents over the course of my stay. Many students whom I spoke with had similar questions about Western New England that I was happy to answer. One current WNEC news event that seems to generate a lot of interest is the new academic building. I am happy to report that our new building will be ready for classes beginning in January 2011! The building will hold all pharmacy, science, and psychology classes. It looks beautiful from the outside (I have yet to go inside). One of the best parts of this new building which I believe is a great aspect of Western New England as well, is that the constructors of the building actually took input from WNEC students and faculty in regards to what they wanted in their new building. So quite literally this new academic building is a result of what the current Western New England community wanted. You can see the amazing progress of the construction of this building online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEaaRmNUncg
In the midst of my travel I was able to take a quick shot of the scenery as I was driving through the Ipswich, MA area (thankfully, it wasn't raining that day, unlike the rest of this past week). Enjoy the long Columbus Day weekend!
It has been a very hectic past few weeks! Travel has been insane with college fairs every single night this week in addition to the four high school visits each day! The rental car is still feeling the effects of the travel, but so far so good. I have met a lot of great students so far this fall. Everyone has come prepared to the college fairs and high school visits with great questions. I have primarily been in the North Shore MA area (staying at my parents house for the past two weeks). I was able to visit my old high school which brought back a lot of great memories from the days when I was a student. I remember how stressful the college search is but here are a few tips to make things a little more manageable...1. Try bringing a label w/ all of your contact information, school, and year of graduation to each college fair. This will save you time because you will be able to slap down the label on college inquiry cards rather than filling out each school's card.2. Attempt to get a list of the schools that will be at a college fair in advance so you can do some background research on which schools you would like to target. This again will save you time and will help make the college fair a little less overwhelming.3. Be aware of college visits to your high school by regularly checking with your guidance or career office. Schools are traveling to see you and if you are interested in a school keep checking with those offices to see when they will be in the area. If you want to know when WNEC will be at your high school, visit our website at this link: http://www1.wnec.edu/admissions/events
