EWU Admissions

Blogs for Future EWU Eagles

college

Five tips for surviving your first (and second) week of school

by Leave a Comment

Swoop High Five

I graduated high school with the assumption that college would be stricter and more difficult than anything I had ever faced. I brought along my backpack with all the books for the quarter, about twenty assorted pens and pencils, and enough paper to write a novel.

I used none of that my first day. Instead, we got a syllabus with some expectations for the quarter, maybe a little homework, and often times (especially in smaller classes) we introduced ourselves to the class.

I ended the first week feeling pretty confident in my ability to get through the class. Perhaps I was a little too confident.

By the time the second week starts up, the snooze button on my phone became a huge temptation. Classes were definitely fun but hey, so is sleep.

I end up going to class on time. Because I show up, I have info on the tests that might not be in the book, my homework turned in, and I’ve built rapport with the professor by contributing to class.

First Week

My humorous advice for the first day, especially for shy people? Write down a movie and a book you enjoyed and keep it on you. I can’t remember how many times I’ve forgotten what my favorite book is the first day of class. You don’t usually need to get your books on the first day as long as you can get them before your first assignment is due. If the bookstore is packed the first day, wake up a little early and stop by the next day when it opens.

The first week is usually a good time to explore. Are there any secrets around campus? What are the different places to get dinner? The first week might be a great time to visit EPIC for some outdoor adventures.

Got your homework done for the week? Great! College homework can be more challenging than high school work, but it’s usually a lot more fun too. I’m interested in writing and design, and I’ve done projects ranging from writing short stories to designing lightbulb packaging and booklets.

Second Week

Week two can catch people buy surprise if they aren’t prepared. One myth I hear from parents, high school teachers, and other freshmen is that classes aren’t “mandatory”. I had a CPLA class where we learned tricks in class I wouldn’t have realized otherwise. If I hadn’t shown up I wouldn’t have passed the tests and I would have to retake the class!

Now that you’ve done your homework and attended class, it’s a good idea to build rapport with your class and teachers. Many classes have required group work. It’s great to already have a few classmates you’re comfortable working with.

A brief note—while you might be tempted to work with close friends that already know, make sure you’re working with people you can be certain will help your group succeed as a team!

Showing your professor that you’re interested in learning will help in the long run. Professors are people too, and they want to know they’re doing a good job at generating interest. Once you get on good terms with your professor to start out, you’ll find it easier to communicate with them outside of class.

The first classes that were inside my major was initially a little scary. I ended up in a writing class with nobody I knew. I asked my teacher questions through email and asked a few questions in person. By the end of the quarter my teacher wasn’t just another professor, she was a friend and someone willing to work with me towards my goals.

Recap

1: Write down your favorite book, movie, and a hobby before your first day.

2: Explore campus a bit and see what you can find early on. You might be too busy to explore later!

3: Finish homework.

4: Show up to class.

5: Take part in class.

These tips might sound a little basic … because they are! Here’s a little secret:

A couple years ago I was working in an early design class with some absolutely amazing students, but somehow I had a higher grade. Their work looked professional, but I was still struggling to master Photoshop despite intense effort. I remember asking my professor, “Everyone else has fantastic designs, and I feel like I’m falling behind. How are my grades higher?” My professor smiled at me and said, “It’s because you’re the one doing the homework.”

That’s such a weird secret isn’t it? Doing the work is the difference between just going to college and being academically successful.

3 Things All College Students Should Know

by Leave a Comment

We sat down with career expert Robbyn Hoffman to talk college, the real world, and choosing your first career. If you like what you read, you can schedule a meeting with Robbyn or other experts at EWU’s Career Services.

#1: Your major isn’t your career.

“There is still this kind of idea that your major equals your career for the rest of your life,” Robbyn says. Even in 2016 “Students often still think of their future employment as a linear track. This is just not true for many people.”

Degrees don’t always equal careers. You can have an English degree and work in insurance, a biology degree and work in marketing, or a history degree and work in city hall. EWU has a cool website where you can brainstorm alternative career options that are transferable from your major. It’s called  “What Can I Do With a Major In?”

“I ask them to think of their major not as what do you want for the rest of their life, but, rather, what do you want to do for your first career?” Looking at it that way tends to ease the stress, she says.

first career graphic

#2: Real experience matters just like classroom experience

“You have to get out of the classroom!” Robbyn urges. This means internships, volunteering, job shadowing.

You can find internships and jobs locally, regionally, or even with summer study abroad programs. “I’ve had students do internships as far away as Africa and Ireland. We even have students working at the state capital through the Washington Legislative Internship.”

#3: Build your resume while you work on your degree

Making a resume is often overwhelming, says Robbyn. Sometimes students say they are too busy with a full class schedule, plus working part time, but if you wait until graduation, you might end up with a rushed resume that doesn’t impress employers because it doesn’t look good or accurately say what you’ve accomplished and what you have to offer them.

Other times, students worry they don’t have anything to put on a resume. But as a student, you often have more experiences and skills than you realize. It’s all about how you frame it.

You’ll have to learn how to present your accomplishments. You’ll have to learn the standards and conventions. You’ll also have to learn time management: resume building and career networking takes a lot time. EWU’s Career Services can help you with all of this.

“It is not enough to just focus on finishing your degree. You have to have a plan in place for what comes next, for exactly what you will do when you graduate.”

Many websites help you network and can get your name and resume out there even before you graduate, and Career Services can help you identify which websites are most important for the career that matters to you.

The Takeaway

First and foremost: the EWU Career Services website is pretty awesome. You need to check it out, and you need to go back often. There is more valuable information than can be taken in in a single visit. Take the first step in landing an internship, making a resume, career networking, and making a post-graduation plan even if you are a Freshman.

EWU students unsure of your major or how to get your first internship should contact Robbyn Hoffman through Career Services.

Not an EWU student? Many of EWU’s online resources can be used by anyone, no matter where you go to school. And remember: EWU alumni have access to EWU Career Services resources for life. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle. Go Eags!

New look, new website

by 1 Comment

If you’re new to EWU Admissions, carry on as if everything is normal. But if you’ve been to the site before, you’ll notice some big changes.

  1. A new look. We’ve updated colors, fonts and images. (Lots of red! Go Eagles!) The new-look website is also made from 100% real EWU student. Whether you’re looking at the admissions website, an EWU poster in your high school or an EWU admissions piece you picked up at a college fair, every picture is of a real EWU student who volunteered to represent the university this year. That’s school pride, and it’s pretty cool.
  2. New content. You can take advantage of new content especially for transfer students, international students and returning students. We’ve even broken out the freshman student section so that there’s less confusion. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, let us know!
  3. A new way to get around. We’ve explored hundreds of college admissions websites, and most of them have one thing in common: it’s hard to find the information you’re looking for. In fact, they usually have too much information. With the new design, it’s easier for you to get where you’re going by keeping choices simple. It’s even easier on a mobile device, too.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see new content on a regular basis, and we hope the information helps you see if EWU is the right fit for you.

Thanks for browsing, intrepid college adventurer, and as you plan your future, remember that we’re never more than a click away.

Should I take classes at a school that isn't regionally accredited?

by Leave a Comment

Normally we wouldn’t tackle this sometimes prickly question in a public forum, but we’ve been seeing more applications from students who took course credits at schools without regional accreditation. In many of these situations, those credits don’t transfer to EWU.

Sometimes students wonder if it’s a for-profit versus nonprofit issue, but it’s actually much more than that. After all, we accept transfer credits from a quite a few for-profit institutions. Instead, it’s a question of accreditation.

Accreditation is the way a school shows it has high academic standards, and generally speaking, there are two types of accreditation.

  • Regional accreditation. This is the gold standard of accreditation. Schools with regional accreditation are typically non-profit universities and community colleges with a focus on academics, and it’s usually easy to transfer credits from one regionally accredited school to another. Examples include Eastern Washington University, Texas A&M, Harvard University, and Spokane Community College.
  • National accreditation. Nationally accredited schools are mostly for-profit schools with a focus on vocational, career, or technical programs. There are many groups that offer national accreditation, but they all have different focuses and different levels of stringency as to what qualifies as “high quality.”

Why doesn’t the four-year university I want to attend accept credits from nationally accredited schools?

You’ll get quite a few answers to this question, but the answers tend to look like the ones below.

  1. National accreditation agencies are typically newer and haven’t yet built a track record of success.
  2. Schools with national accreditation often offer courses that regionally accredited schools do not, which makes transferring credits complex or impossible.
  3. Some nationally accredited schools have less stringent admissions policies, and that makes it harder for regionally accredited schools to accept credits from those schools.
  4. Depending on the accreditation agency (the group that decides if a school gets accredited), national accreditation can be much less rigorous than regional accreditation.
  5. Some national accreditation agencies have conflicts of interest that make unbiased accreditation difficult to achieve.
  6. In some cases, unethical practices at for-profit institutions have hindered efforts to make national accreditation more trustworthy.

But back to my original question: should I take classes at a nationally accredited school? 

Maybe.

  • Do you want to go to graduate school?
  • Do you plan to transfer to a regionally accredited school?
  • Does your future employer have a bias against credentials from nationally accredited schools?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, you’re probably better off attending a regionally accredited school from the very first day you step into a classroom.

Moreover, students who attend nationally accredited for-profit schools tend to have higher debt levels, higher loan default rates, higher unemployment rates, lower salaries, and lower bachelor’s degree completion rates.

Remember: the State of Washington is pretty much the best state for transfer students, and EWU is one of the best transfer schools. For example, earning your AA degree at an approved community college in the state guarantees your admission to EWU and most of the state’s four-year universities. Better yet, college-level coursework at these 34 community colleges will typically transfer to EWU and any of the other four-year, public universities.

No other state has a such a robust, healthy system, so in many cases, it makes more sense to start you degree at a regionally accredited community college and transfer to a school like EWU.

 

The Olive Garden reviewer

by Leave a Comment

Palouse

Marilyn Hagerty catapulted to Internet fame for her review of the Olive Garden, and my middle-of-nowhere, small-town heart loves it.

The story, that is, not the Olive Garden. The Olive Garden is sometimes hard to love … but Marilyn—she’s something special. If you haven’t followed her story, here’s the gist of it.

For several decades, Marilyn has reviewed restaurants in Grand Forks, ND, population 66,991. With only 100 or so active restaurants in the whole town, necessity has forced her to review places like Taco Bell and Dippin’ Dots. Desperate times, desperate measures.

When her review of the Olive Garden went viral, people didn’t know what to make of it. Was it irony? Was she totally honest? Was she crazy?

Now that the full story is out, it’s clear that the snarky, hard-working 85-year-old and her friendly reviews embody the absolute best of small-town life.

Some might call it niceness. Some might call it sincerity. We might even describe it as grace or honesty or perseverance or a warm acceptance of small-town reality. Because let’s face it: small towns don’t have the same night-life that big cities do.

If you live in a small town, you know this. Having grown up in a community of less than 5,000 people, it felt like we had survived a nuclear apocalypse and all we got in exchange was a Pizza Ranch with really bad hours. But we still went, because that’s what we had … and we had fun.

Marilyn doesn’t impersonate critics in New York or Paris or someplace else, and she doesn’t come across as cynical or jaded like the food critics in those cities. That’s how her homey review of the Olive Garden captured the attention of so many people: it made people realize you can still enjoy life without living in one of the world’s top cities or pretending that you’re in some posh glamor ad.

That realization makes Eastern great, too. We get the small-town sincerity of Cheney, but we also get the large-city culture of Spokane. You actually get to choose which world you call home. You can even choose both, if you want. Few schools that can say that.

Cheney is the best of small towns, of course. It has a major university and businesses that cater to students. It’s safe. There’s free transportation for students. It has a handful of unique restaurants coupled with all the dives and fast food joints that college students love. (Speaking from experience, Taco Bell at 2 a.m. sounds way better than it turns out to be.) It’s surrounded by adventure including hiking, cycling, skiing, swimming, rafting and rock climbing.


But it’s still a small town, and it feels that way when you step into a café or stop by the grocery store. It’s kind of nice, really.

If small town friendliness isn’t for you, you can choose Spokane and the half million people in the metro area. You can have your arena shows, dozens of coffee shops, nightlife and genuinely amazing restaurants. (The best Italian in Spokane is clearly Italia Trattoria, FYI.)

But that’s the essence of Eastern: having choices. City mouse, country mouse. Small town quiet, big city hustle. It’s entirely up to you, and we love that freedom.

Making every tuition dollar count

by Leave a Comment

We just saw this in the Spokesman-Review (the regional paper for the second-largest city in Washington, which is just 15 minutes down the road), and we definitely thought it worth sharing:

Demetrius Dennis shopped carefully to find the best college education for the lowest price.

“I reviewed the departments, programs offered and cost of tuition,” said Dennis, 34. “Financing contributed at least 75 percent of the deciding factor when I chose a transfer college.”

The Lakewood, Wash., resident had already saved about $20,000 on a bachelor’s degree in journalism by attending Pierce Community College before determining Eastern Washington University offered the best value to finish his studies.

EWU “provides the most reasonable tuition-to-education ratio available in the state,” Dennis said.

You can read the whole article about the rising cost of college tuition and the challenges that today’s students and families face.

By 2018, at least 63 percent of all jobs nationally will require a postsecondary degree, which means college will be necessary for more and more workers.

As states have cut budgets, however, college has grown more expensive, forcing students to be extra savvy when they make their college decisions.

Our goal at Eastern is to make an amazing college education as affordable and accessible to as many talented people as possible, which is why we’ve had fewer and smaller tuition increases than most universities in the state.

Without sacrificing innovative programs like justice studies, psychology, dental hygiene, education or engineering, we’ve quickly become the state’s best value in education … and our students are smarter than ever. Our average incoming freshman GPA went up again this year (from 3.17 to 3.24), which means we’re attracting more and more talented students who see the incredible value in what Eastern offers.

We’re glad Demetrius compared colleges, and we hope you’re doing the same. We’d love it if everyone made their comparisons and decided that Eastern was the best place to be (because it is!), but more importantly, we want you to choose the university that’s best for you and your future.

Wherever you go, we’re here to answer any questions you have along the way.