 Hi everybody, my name is Kyla and I study English and History. Hey folks, my name is Brian and I'm studying business and political science. And today, since you can't come to campus, we're going to bring campus to you. One of the first things on your mind is probably how's the food? Here at UVM we have a lot of different dining options. When you first come to campus, you'll have an unlimited dining plan. That means no matter which dining hall you are at, you can swipe in and eat as much as you'd like as many times of the day as you'd like. Once you're a sophomore or an upper class student, you can choose to have a different dining plan. This is a more point space plan where one point is like one dollar that you can spend at one of our 17 restaurants on campus. You can have a burrito or a salad and a soup when you're walking to class. And something that you should know about UVM is that we have 10,600 different students. So that means we have 10,600 different appetites. So what makes UVM food really special is that when you walk into any one of our four dining halls, all of our food is labeled with the top six outages in the country. There are spaces to prepare your own foods. And if you need any kind of accommodations, we have a team of dieticians who will help to make sure that you get a plan that makes sure that you can eat really good food any time you walk into one of our dining halls or retail locations or restaurants. We both consider ourselves to be foodies and believe us when we say the food here is really good. Something that you should also know is that UVM participates in a real food challenge. So that means that we've made a commitment to have at least 25% of our food be local, sustainable, and fair. We actually surpass that goal and keep surpassing every goal that we make. So our new goal is going to be 27% in the next coming months. Now we're in a place where I've spent a lot of time in for the past four years the Office of the Student Government Association. So you may be thinking student government like my high school student government and I have a response for that, no. Student government here at UVM is an advocacy organization that represents our 10,600 undergraduate students but also oversees a budget of almost $3 million. And we use that to fund student opportunities, our 215 student clubs, our club sports. You know, we're an organization that has a lot of power on campus and we utilize our connections with administration to help facilitate our projects. I've spent my past four years in student government as a senator and my first week at UVM I picked up a packet to run, collected 150 signatures on campus and went to university wide election and have now deemed the title of Relic of Senate for being there for such a long time. I've loved my time in student government and if there's anything I would share to a prospective or admitted student join a club in your first semester, that's how you find your tribe. That's how you'll make UVM feel like a smaller place for you and we have over 200 of them for you to join. So now we're in the offices of Student Life which houses a lot of really amazing programs here on our campus. One of those is the offices of fraternity and sorority life. Now here at UVM about 8% of our students participate in fraternity and sorority life. Now that's around 800 of the around 10,000 undergraduate student body. So if you want to participate in it, you can. If you don't want to, you don't have to. There's no social pressure to join because there's so many other amazing programs for you to get involved in. One of those programs is UVM board. If you're ever board on campus, you go to UVM board and it'll show you all of the amazing programs going on, on campus or off. There's also cast the movies where you get free movie tickets to go down to the Roxy Cinemas in downtown Burlington. There are so many great programs. Another one is the Spring Fest and Winter Fest which are week long events that go on on our campus where there's giveaways and free food and contests and at the very end there's a really awesome concert outside if it's warm enough or inside in the winter. Welcome to one of my favorite places on campus. This is UVM's Career Center. So the Career Center is really important because this is a place that helps you to find your vision of success and map out the steps to get there. So maybe after your first semester you're going to be looking for an internship. UVM has this really cool platform called UVM Handshake. Think of this as like LinkedIn just for UVM students that lists over 4,000 internships in Burlington but also all across the country. Something that I love about UVM is their really strong alumni network and we have over 120,000 active alumni across the country. Many of them have signed up on this really cool platform called UVM Connect and this is where they self-preference how to help UVM students. So it may be during winter break you might meet up with an alumni of UVM to shadow them at their job or they're posting internships or actual jobs for UVM students to apply for. Or they're in town and they just want to have coffee with UVM students. This is a really great way that our UVM alumni are giving back to students and helping to use their experiences for the benefit of the students that are currently here. The UVM Career Center also provides pre-professional advising. So that might be for pre-bed, pre-health, pre-med students. You can come on over here and meet with a career counselor. And what does this all mean? It means that 93% of our students are employed in their field of study or in graduate school six months after graduating at UVM. And a big part of that is because of the help and the support and the resources that we have here at the UVM Career Center. So this spot right behind me you see is the Diversity and Equity Unity Lounge and it stands as the coming together for identity centers that we have here at UVM. Those are our Mosaic Center for Students of Color, which supports students of color here on campus. Our Women's Center, which advances gender equity at the University of Vermont. Our Interfaith Center, which helps to support faith and spirituality here on campus. And our newly named Prism Center for Students who are part of the Gender and Sexuality Spectrum. And I love this place here on campus because all of these four identity centers serve as safe spaces and advocacy organizations for these students. More than that, every student is also welcome to participate in any one of their events. And this is something that's really important to me because I'm the first one to go to college with my family and I'm also a Latino student. And these two identities are at the forefront of who I am. I love being the pride of the two immigrants. I love my Dominican heritage and I love that in just a month I'm going to be getting two degrees for me and my family. And throughout my college search process I toured so many different schools and I was looking for a place that had genuine community. And genuine community for me just means that students from all different walks of life and different backgrounds and different spaces can all come together to support each other and celebrate one another's degree of individuality. So you heard me say it, for me it's that I'm the first one to go to college with my family and a Latino student. For you it may be that you've been skiing or stormboarding to see where two, or that maybe you speak multiple languages, or maybe that, you know, your favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's is half baked. Whatever it is, make sure you're going to a school that you have a community to fall back on because that's something that I found here at UVM. Play outside. There are lots of different clubs and organizations that will get you outside into Vermont's amazing environment. The largest of those is our outing club. Now everybody is in the outing club even if you don't want to participate in the outing club. They'll take you out on all different kinds of treks and adventures in the wilderness, hiking, mountain biking, canoeing, all different kinds of stuff. And when it gets cold our ski and snowboarding club is one of the best. About 27% of our student body participates in the ski and snowboarding club. They'll take you up to the greatest mountains and take you back. It's a really great way to get involved. Even if you're not an outdoor pro like myself, there's a lot of different beginner programs that will get you the gear and a lesson and all that kind of stuff so you'll feel confident and able to participate with all those outdoor activities as well. Something that both Kyla and I can definitely agree on is that being a UVM student means that the state of Vermont is your backyard. And not only are UVM students always looking to go outside and explore their backyard, but always thinking about how to save it and preserve it for the catamounts that come after us. So sustainability here at the University of Vermont is a huge part of being a UVM student. Every single student is required to take a sustainability class and this could be anything. This could be in sociology or environmental studies or in business. There's so many options that our students have to explore while they're here at the University. We also have students called eco reps and they promote sustainable behaviors in our residential halls and within our community. So things like composting are a really big activity that our students participate in in our residential halls. And within all of our buildings here on campus, the majority of them are LEED certified. And LEED just stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. This is just a certification system that we use to rate the sustainability of our buildings. We spent a lot of time in our student center and fun fact it was actually one of the first student centers in the country to get LEED gold certification. So whether or not you're really passionate about sustainability, it's still really important to consider in your college search process because it will intersect with the things that you're really interested in and really passionate about. And as a community, UVM has only 10,000 students. The Burlington community is 40,000. So when you put those two numbers together, you see that UVM students were a pretty big population of the Burlington community. Anything that we can do to preserve our environment has an immediate impact on Burlington, the state of Vermont, and our community as a whole. This is the main student undergraduate library here at UVM. This is where you're going to spend most of your time when you have to study, do a group project, find a research paper, proposal, kind of stuff like that. This first floor, all the tables and chairs are available for you to use. However, if you wanted a quieter space to study, you can head up to the second floor, which is a whisper floor, and above that is a silent floor. I know it looks quiet right now, but usually this area of the library is full of people doing group work and collaborative projects so it can get a little bit louder. There's a lot of resources on this floor that are really important to mention. Right over here, we have our circulation and reserve desk. That's where you can check out a book. But of course, some of our professors will choose to put their textbooks on reserve, which means you can come and rent that textbook for a couple of hours free of charge. Now, not all professors will do this, so check your syllabus when you come to UVM and see if your professors are doing that. Down that way is a reference desk. Our reference librarians here at UVM are fantastic. If you have to do any kind of research paper, project proposal, any kind of thing where you have to be doing active research, the research librarians are your best starting point. They can show you all the information that you're going to need. We also have two really great tutoring centers available in the library. On the floor below us is our writing center. The writing center is where students who are selected to become writing center tutors have to go through classes and training in order to tutor you in any form of writing that you might come across. That could be an English paper all the way to a lab report and everything in between. I still go there as an English major even though I'm a senior English major because your writing can always improve. It's a really fantastic resource. We also have student tutoring. You are elected to have one hour per week per class of peer tutoring. So that's a student who's done really well in the class that you're in and that professor has elected them to be a tutor. You can go to them with any questions you might have and get collaborative help on any kind of projects. Here at UVM, the safety and health of our students is the number one priority. We have a lot of different safety measures in place to keep you safe while you're on campus. Before any of that comes into place first, there are two online modules that you have to complete which focus on education and prevention first. Once those are completed, you can come to campus no problem. You're going to be given a cat card which is like your universal student ID that will get you into the building that you live in and the floor that you live on and you also have a room key. So that's a three level security feature inside of every one of our residential buildings. We also have what are called blue lights. If you've ever taken a campus tour before, I'm sure you've seen blue lights. They are emergency and awareness programs. So if there is anything going on on the campus you are feeling unsafe. You hit that red button on the blue light and it will connect you with UVM campus police and the UVM police officer will be dispatched to your location in a very short amount of time. Now these are for emergencies only. If you have one blue light, you should be able to see at least one more blue light during the day and two to three blue lights at night. The UVM police force is a really awesome force as well that can help you with any kind of situation you're in if you're ever feeling unsafe. We also have the cat alert program which is a timely awareness program. If there's anything going on on the campus that you need to be made aware of you're going to be given a text message, an email and a phone call all at the same time to inform you of whatever is going on. Your parents and loved ones can also sign up for these cat alerts as well to keep you informed and keep you safe on UVM's campus. So you're probably wondering how's housing like on UVM's campus? Some things that you should know is that housing on campus is required for your first two years. And then we find that about 30% of our juniors and seniors choose to remain on campus because it's guaranteed for all four. But for you and your time on campus here at UVM you won't be picking your residential hall. Instead you'll be picking your residential learning community. These are nine interest-based communities that get students from different backgrounds and different majors to live together under common interests. So for you it may be that you love music or that you love art or maybe you love theater. You can be a part of arts and creativity. Maybe you're interested in exploring the Vermont outdoors. You can be a part of outdoor experience. Maybe you're interested in living under healthy brains, healthy bodies. You can live in the wellness environment. This is really great because it gets you to meet people from all across campus and ensures that you have an immediate community here at UVM. Something that I love about UVM is that we really are a school that prides herself in providing an education that is accessible to everyone. And an office that really helps to bolster this on campus is our Student Accessibility Services Office. So if you need any kind of accommodation on campus they will help you to ensure that you have that in your classes or in your life here at UVM. So for students who may need like a peer note taker in their classes you can get an anonymous peer note taker in one of your classes to help support you in your academic learning. Or maybe it's that your heart of hearing and need close captioning for all the videos or audio-visual content played in a class. Student Accessibility Services will provide those services for you. Maybe you're a student who does much better in exams when you're in your own private testing space. They will help you to arrange those accommodations too. And it's really great because it ensures that all of our students come into UVM with the same amount of equity so that you can be successful in both of your academic and extracurricular pursuits. Something that's also not really talked about a lot in the college experience is mental health on campus. College is a lot of fun. There's so many new experiences and so many new opportunities but it's also very stressful. And a part of your health that is often not discussed is your mental health. And something that UVM does really good at, really awesome at is making sure students are taking care of their mental health. So our living well space and our student center has free massages every single day. On Fridays they have therapy dogs. During finals week and the week before finals week they arrange a ton of distress events. And they're really a space to ensure that students are taking that step back so that way they can be present for themselves, for their friends, for their teachers and for everything that they're a part of. And the last thing that I think is really awesome about UVM is that we also provide counseling for all of our students and that's free counseling through our counseling psychiatric services. Going to counseling isn't just for negative events in your life. I go to counseling just to talk to someone and that's a very normalized activity here on this campus where students are accessing mental health resources and they're also talking and sharing their experiences with the people in their lives. So mental health isn't a taboo topic at UVM. It's something that we see as a part of your overall health and something that is definitely okay to talk about on campus. I really love to talk about on campus is study abroad. The national average of students who study abroad is between 5 and 7 percent but here at UVM around 40 percent of our students can study abroad at some point in their collegiate careers. Now you can go for as long as you want or for as little time as you want. You can go for an entire year, a semester or do what I did and take summer study abroad experiences. So what I did, one summer I spent two weeks in London for an English class and then this past summer I spent two weeks in Ireland for a history class. So there's a lot of different ways for you to study abroad. There's a lot of different angles you could take it from depending on how much time you want to go for, the area you want to go for, all that kind of different stuff. The Office of International Education will really help you figure out which program is best for you and which area of the world is best for you to study. The really the world is at your fingertips when you're studying in college and I really recommend taking advantage of it. Happy to day folks. Thanks for coming on our virtual tour. We just wanted to leave you with a quick story of why we both chose to come to UVM. So I'm a local student. I grew up pretty much in the shadow of the campus and I did not want to come to UVM as a senior in high school but I quickly realized that UVM offered everything that I could possibly want in an institution. It had the amazing educational opportunities. It had the outdoor availabilities and it also had the amazing downtown Burlington city area that really just made it a really fantastic place to study and be a young person for my college years. So it has been the best choice I could have made. I love being from here and I love representing UVM. I'm on the other side. I grew up right outside of New York City. I'm a huge city boy and I've come to find that Burlington is my second home. One piece of advice from my guidance counselor gave to me when I was touring college was to go to a school where you can see yourself coming back to at the end of your four years. I was on campus at the end of my tour and I could see myself having coffee with my professors at our student center. Burlington sunsets are beautiful. I could see myself watching those for four years and more and more than anything I could see myself coming back here just as happy as I was as a current student. So I've absolutely loved my time here and I'm so excited. We're so excited for all of you and hope that you can find a home in UVM like we have too.