As we close out the summer and welcome the start of a new semester, it’s a time for reflection. (And I’m hoping it’s almost time for some cooler weather, please Boston?!) The closing of summer means we wrap up summer projects and plan for the fall, which normally entails booking flights, cars, and hotels all over the world to visit high schools to speak with prospective students and counselors. This transition in 2020 is obviously different. But this isn’t a post to lament the loss of our travel this fall, but rather to reflect on the season we’re leaving, and the season that lies (virtually) ahead.
At the ending of the summer, we say goodbye to our incredible summer interns. I hope many of you got a chance to meet them through virtual student panels, guided tours, blogs, and social media posts. I think I laughed my hardest this summer when I moderated the student panels as the students discussed the best boba tea in Boston, and I was most inspired this summer when I heard them discuss the campus culture of activism and support for one another. I was enthused hearing about their research projects, relationships with professors, friendships with classmates, and involvement in extracurricular activities.
To Indigo, Kamille, Chris, Kamar, Harrison, Becky, Haitong, Curry, and Ria—thank you for sharing your stories, your experiences, your hard work, and your humor with all of us in the Admissions Office. Thank you for website translations, blog writing and editing, social media take-overs, Instagram Live week, student panels and tours, audio recordings, and a thousand other things I didn’t know about. Every interaction I had with you all energized me in my own work!
So where now? This brings me to the title of my blog, “Definitely, the people.”
Because when I’m asked in the fall (or really any time of the year), while I’m on the road, in high schools, in auditoriums, in big information sessions, why Tufts is unique/special/worth-applying-to, that’s my answer.
Definitely, the people.
I’m sure you ask this question at other colleges, (“Why [insert school]?”), and I’m sure “Definitely, the people,” is a common response. But that doesn’t take away from just how incredible the people are at Tufts. That is reaffirmed for me time and time again with each group of student interns, all of my coworkers, and other student workers in our office like tour guides, student fellows, the Diversity Admissions Council, and the groups I work most closely with, the Student Communications Group and bloggers.
They. Are. All. Awesome.
So with the fall “travel season” approaching, I reflect on the fun, thought-provoking, inspiring conversations, emails, instant messages I’ve had with the summer interns and my fellow co-workers, and I feel, emphatically, that “definitely, the people” is the right answer to “Why Tufts?”