Watauga Residential College - Information Session

Hey Aaron.

Hey, how are you?

OK, I was just letting you know I went ahead and got on.

Some.

It's good.

A little worried about my Wi-Fi, it's been struggling all week, but I had my family get of- all anything with Wi-Fi, so hopefully it works.

Oh boy.

I'll turn off my hotspot and hopefully that'll help.

Hum.

Awesome.

Well, if it looks like you might not be hearing me or you drop off, you know you can, I'll I'll try to pick up. But yeah, it seems like refreshing does work pretty well, even though will pause it. You you then have to re broadcast and everything so.

Well, hopefully that works.

It'll be interesting to see if we get much attendance.

Yeah.

More just don't know.

Do you know how many people are like doing open house right now?

Why don't I have not heard any reports from additions on?

How many years sitting in on things or what they're doing so?

I just don't know.

You live way out in the country, or is your Wi-Fi just walking right now?

It's just monkey. I live in North Raleigh, so it should be good, but it's not.

We're pretty fortunate we've got the highest speed the Sky best to get you so.

Why?

Yeah, well.

That's really helpful. Do you live way out in the country dinner?

Yeah yeah well yeah wait you know where Foscoe is?

He

It's on, it's on its South of boom, uh, out by hound ears.

Awesome.

If you go to the River to the falls that are out on 105, that's near where we live.

OK, cool.

But we do everything on Wi-Fi. We stream television, I mean so.

That's awesome.

You can hear the TV, can you?

Again.

OK, Connie's got it low but.

What I was gonna ask, what's your major? Don't know you told Maine.

Sorry about that, man.

Yeah, you got back on. Well I was gonna ask. I know you told me what's your major?

Right now it's psychology with a concentration in natural Sciences and I have a minor in medical humanitarian.

Medical Humanities.

Google.

We have a minor and medical humanities.

That's cool, I didn't know that.

Who?

Yeah, I really like it, that's that's definitely one of the programs that drew me to app. I was looking at the different degree, like the different programs study and I was like.

Something really interesting.

Looks good.

What do you take for them?

So the first course that you have to take or one of the question is required one is medical ethics. And so I took that this semester and then I took Gerontology last semester and then I have other classes that I have to take. But it's mostly just choice.

Looking.

Cool.

Now we've got lots of participants.

Oh wow, no.

Good.

Well, let me welcome everybody. My name is Clark Mattix on the director of the Watauga residential college. Were glad to see so many participants here. Uh, I got one of our rising sophomores, helping us a Aaron Darnell and I'm gonna let her and just introduce herself real quickly.

When I'm there and I'm like you said I'm a rising sophomore with Hagen and um, I'm majoring in psychology with a focus and natural Sciences and minoring in medical humanities. But yeah, I'm just really excited to tell you guys about Watauga. It's a really great community. Your app.

You will do if you have. If this is the first session you've dropped in On is, will tell you a little bit about Watauga through the slides. I Aaron's gonna help moderate questions so feel free to type in a question and show it. She and I will answer those as we go along, but let's get started. Will try to will stick to time and make sure that we're finished by 10:30.

So a few things about Watauga. Uh, we are a way of meeting about half of your general education requirements. We call that you. You can meet 21 out of your 44 general education requirements through Watauga. We call that our core experience, but we're also a four year program so you can live in the Living Learning Center for four years. You can be a leader for the incoming 1st and 2nd year.

4 ounces we have a minor that includes a senior seminar, and So what we try to do in Watauga is we really try to emphasize how living and learning work together in a very unique way.

A word very diverse community. We have students from all different backgrounds, all different economic groups. We have students from different ways of thinking about the world and we value that kind of diversity in Watauga, where an interdisciplinary program and that's different from some of the other programs that you might investigate.

We what that means is that what we do is, we emphasize the way in which one field of thought interacts with another errands minor, which she might tell you a little bit about his medical humanities, and that's a good example of an interdisciplinary program. And then we are a selective program. You do have to apply to Watauga, we take 130 students every year. We have about 300 total living in Living Learning Center.

But then you can also continue your Watauga classes if you decide to live off campus. and I see we're getting a couple of questions. So the first question is if you're accepted to the program, are you guaranteed housing for all four years? In the answer to that is yes, that if you want to live in Living Learning Center all four years, you can do that. Another question is, would it be difficult coming into Watauga's in early college student with my associate?

The degree already completed.

We do have students do that. What it does mean is that the classes that we require we require 12 credit hours in the first year and that those classes would be electives. But a lot of students do do that. That's just kind of a choice you make. We are academic, advisor will help you manage those classes. What organs do take first year seminar, but they take it as part of the six hour class?

In our fall semester where you take first year seminar, an RC 1000 together. So if you come to Watauga you wouldn't sign up for a separate first year seminar. These are great questions and I'm trying to get to him as we get him in. We do have cellular biology students in Watauga. I don't know how many Aaron do you know off hand? How many in the first year class?

I know of at least two up and actually that is one of the majors that I'm probably going to switch to, so it's definitely workable to be in cell biology major.

Good good.

The acceptance rate for Watauga berries, really, it just depends upon how many students we have applying this year. We had about 700 students apply uhm.

And as I say, we take an incoming class of about 130 so that just varies year by year.

The move in date, uh this year, is going to be the same as, uhm, uh, the the general student population. We have moved in earlier in the past. I hopefully will be able to get that back, but right now will move in on Wednesday. And that's one of the two days when the rest of campus is moving in. Another person is asking what majors are accepted. We accept all.

Different majors in Watauga uh, so we have all different majors represented. Aaron, would you like to talk a little bit about the different majors in your class and some of your friends?

Absolutely. So I know. Coming in we had quite a bit of nursing students, so there's a lot of nursing students. There's English students. There's some theater majors. There's all kinds of stem programs, such as cell biology, environmental studies, all kinds of programs. There's a music education major. There's just all kinds of majors in Watauga. I think we have a really great representation of.

The different types of major scared up.

And that is one of the things that you know. Depending upon the major.

Your requirements might be more restricted than some other students but our academic advisor Holly Ambler is terrific at helping you manage your schedule make sure that you're taking the courses that you need to take um one person ask is there an additional cost for the program for the first year we ask that you pay $125 fee and what that covers are all kinds of different activities that the class does together.

It covers everything from trail day to a fall ball. One of our student events to a spring, uh, our spring celebration, which unfortunately we weren't able to do this year. But that pays for all kinds of different student in class events. It may cover class trips if you take those that kind of thing.

Somebody is asking when when do you apply for Watauga? You normally apply in the fall semester of the year before you come, so if you're a current junior you would apply at the beginning of at the beginning of your senior year. In high school. Aaron, do you remember exactly when you applied?

No.

I applied uhm, I think in November of my senior year with the rest in scholarship applications.

Hum, we do, uh, we will leave our application open every year until our class is composed, so we're even accepting applications right now. If you are coming to Apple action in the fall of this coming year, we are still accepting applications because we still have a few spots of available. The difference between Watauga in the rest of college is a good example and I'll talk a little bit about that.

Sure thing, yeah, so um, when I was applying to ad uhm, I got a little nervous about how big the school is in general. And so I was looking for something. A community that an intentional community where I could come in. I knew people and that I could have that connection with them and also during high school I took a petagas seminar class and I really liked that kind of style and it's very similar to the interdisciplinary seminar approach that would.

Order has come, so I was definitely excited about the classes that will toggle is offering, so those are just two of the reasons why I chose to apply to Otago.

I think just what you said, like um students at value learning. Do the best in Watauga and they get the most out of it. I think one of the things is I'm a very I like science. I like having those right answers. So being in Watauga's help me open up my perspective and see that not all answers are going to be straightforward and right away that you have to think about them in that.

Sometimes, instead of answers you find more questions and that's something that I really value that is come out of my classes.

Sure, so like I said before, it's a It's a lot of seminar and you really get to know the people in your class. You have open discussions with them and the faculty really let's you figure it out on your own, and so they're there to guide the conversation and they're there to learn along with you. But it's a lot of you talking out the different text you read, the different.

Um medias that you experience and talk about what that means for what you're talking about in the conference, which is really cool.

Absolutely so, um, one thing that's really unique about witch saga that I love is the amount of leadership opportunities that you're offered, even starting as soon as your first year. Like Clark said, I, I'm started helping with recruiting only how we extend to being a freshman here app. And so that's just unmatched anywhere. None of my friends at any other University have been able to have these types of leadership opportunities so early on. And their college careers.

And that's one thing that I think makes fataga so special. Personally, just having these leadership opportunities and these different roles within Watauga has really helped me.

Next year I'm going to be appear advisor for Watauga, which is really a really cool program that only with saga has, which is really awesome Ann. Just there's so many different types of opportunities with recruiting or anything like that and like you said, the student government Association or adding on new things next year and our house system within Watauga has lots of leadership opportunities so there's just so many really amazing opportunities within Chaga.

Yeah, so um, it throughout this whole thing or throughout the whole year. They scheduled different community service events that you can go on on the weekends. Disjoin whenever you want. One of the really amazing things was trail day. I found that that really helped connect me to the rest of the community and really helped integrate into the community. Know people right off the bat before classes even started, so that was a really amazing thing. But yeah, there's there's so many community service opportunities throughout Watauga.

And you get to do it with the people that you are living and learning with, which is really awesome.

I don't think so, um, but we're really excited that you guys decided to listen to what we talk is all about and let us know if you have any questions but the really amazing program and I've been really happy with everything here at Watauga, and I love it.

Yeah.

Yeah, so um. In the else there is a laundry room on the bottom floor and um, that just like all the other residence halls in it's open for everybody that lives in the LLC. And it's really convenient. Which is really nice. And yeah.

Anything else I need to talk about that?

It is.

Absolutely so, uh, my favorite thing about living in the Living Learning Center is that you can go anywhere and you're gonna run into somebody that you take classes with. And then it is in Watauga, which is really awesome. I love just going downstairs to like print something and running into people from my class and talking for hours and that kind of thing. And it's just really. It's a great community to have right there, right outside your door and just being able to go to the classrooms and study with people or.

Work on things together and or just hang out and talk. It's really nice to have that community right there, right outside your door and you don't have to go anywhere for it.

By everybody.

I hope I didn't miss impressions.

Yeah.

Hey.

I was worried when get through the slideshow out last week. There's a lot of.

Yeah, they were they were.

Now that's way more questions that I've ever had anything.

Yeah, I like this online thing. Nobody could ask questions.

Yeah.

I was worried I was trying to remember like what questions we had already answered, so I want to improve like those and ash so confused.

Sleep trying to listen to you. Also answer the questions also proving that.

And this is really cool. It worked out a lot better than I thought it would and I only got a couple times.

Yeah.

Awesome.

I am.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Now this is awesome. Let me know if you need any help in the future.

Talk to you later bye.