Williamsburg Heat:

Don’t underestimate the Williamsburg, Virginia summers…they can get pretty steamy! This means that giving campus tours on some July days can feel like a sauna. As summer interns in the admissions office, weekly saunas have become a part of the job description. Tours are offered from the admissions office twice a day Monday through Friday. Having been a tourguide for several years, I usually really look forward to walking around campus backwards for an hour or so, but to be honest I sometimes find myself less than thrilled to venture out in the heat during the summer. Somehow though, stepping outside away from the blaring air conditioning and into the sun has a way of lifting my spirits everytime and reminds me why I came to this college in the first place!

Tour Guiding

It’s all about the personal stories! Being a tourguide lets me tell prospective students and their families all my own little stories about William and Mary that have made my time here so far so amazing. Ok, so maybe the story about running around the sunken gardens in the pouring rain on a day classes were cancelled due to a hurricane doesn’t exactly showcase the many impressive qualities of this university, but it does point out some of the fun I have had here! Tours are about sharing the traditions of William and Mary with visitors in a way that hopefully gets them as excited about this place as I am. It’s why I love talking about opening convocation when standing on the steps of the wren building or telling the legend of the crimdell bridge before walking up to the Sadler Center terrace. The goal is to provide insight into this school so that the experience becomes very memorable for prospective students.

Beyond this, I always find that tours are not exclusively for visitors, but inevitably become an experience for me as well. Even during the summer, when there aren’t as many students on campus, I get excited about my school. Walking past the sunken gardens, touring a freshman dorm, and seeing the Sadler center not only remind me of my first visit to the campus but also bring back different memories from each year I’ve been here. By the end of the tour I find that I haven’t noticed the heat at all!