Youth Ambassadors Trip Report: A Visit to University of Washington
This Youth Ambassadors trip is written by Stephanie Amaro, a student at Sedro-Woolley High School. In this post she shares her experience of learning about future opportunities during their visit to University of Washington.
“After parking the bus on the University of Washington (UW) campus – which was a struggle – we set off for the Ocean Science Building. There we learned a lot about the University, like how UW is the largest environmentally-focused college in North America and how the Environmental and Resource Management programs get funded with about 155 million dollars. Barbara Owen, an Undergraduate Student Services Specialist in the College of the Environment, then gave us a presentation about the University and the majors in the College of the Environment.
With the help of undergraduate students in the UW Student Ambassador group, we learned about college life, such as dorm rooms, fraternities and sororities, and how many classes you need to take to graduate. Then we played a quick game of zip – zap – zop; a team building game with Isadora, a UW staff member, and learned how people with different backgrounds got into the University of Washington. The grad students in the Rising SEAS program gave us some truths and lies about themselves, and with our great detective skills we had to find out which were true or false. We realized even with different backgrounds and stories we can still end up at the same place.
Walking to get lunch, we had a campus tour and learned that the University will get a new greenhouse and some of the minors will turn to majors – like marine biology. We ate at the Husky Union Building on campus. As we all ate pizza and breadsticks, thanks to North Cascades Institute, we headed on to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture where, sadly, our group tour was canceled, but still we enjoyed a self-guided tour of the museum. The top floor of the museum had lots of exhibits about dinosaurs and volcanoes, and we learned about the history of Washington State, like how it used to be all under ice before because of glaciers. The downstairs area had lots of exhibits about culture. There were artifacts from China, Korea, Mexico and Thailand.
While making our way back onto the bus after the visiting the museum, we got to hear “Nature Nuggets” from our Naturalists, which were facts about the University. Unexpectedly there wasn’t much traffic in Seattle when driving back… I think I can speak for all the Youth Ambassadors when I say the trip was very fun and I can’t wait for the next one!”
– Stephanie Amaro, 2018 Youth Ambassador participant