I already knew it

But, this week, I saw it in real time. I was walking through the Holley Center, one of our academic buildings, when I noticed one of our recruiters showing a prospective student our beautiful campus.

One of the best parts of my job

One of the best parts of my job is meeting potential students. It didn’t take long for me to walk over to introduce myself to him and his grandmother. As a senior, this student was exploring colleges in the area.

Ok so, we like college football here and my first question was whether he was a Nole. He said something about “Roll Tide” and I saw his grandmother sternly look at him. I expected her to say she had always been a Seminole. However, she immediately pledged allegiance to Auburn, not Alabama.

Clearly, this conversation was not going well. So, I quickly moved from football to academics and welcomed them to one of the top public universities in the country. As of September 9, 2019, FSU is ranked by US News and World Reports as the 18th top public university in the country.

While currently attending a small private school in the area, this student has an interest in studying engineering. We engaged in a short conversation about math, his extracurricular interests, his friends and I answered a few questions about college. I could see the spark in his eyes as he talked about building things and how things work. He has developed software programs, built a building in his back yard, and has worked on numerous inventions.

As we continued to talk

I decided to call in the varsity and asked two of our engineering faculty to meet with him. Dr. Damion Dunlap and Dr. Walid Hadi were happy to spend time discussing his future. Dr. Dunlap is a mechanical engineering faculty member and Dr. Hadi is recognized for his work in electrical engineering.

The connection between the rising senior and these two talented faculty members was fascinating. I saw his interest grow as Dr. Dunlap, the advisor for our RoboBoat team, talked about the intricacies of mechanical engineering and his abilities to get involved on campus. Then, Dr. Hadi was equally engaging as he talked about the curriculum, including the circuits and power classes. He also talked about our electrical engineering students who placed nationally in the NASA rocket competition.

There was a little friendly rivalry between the professors as they urged the student to think about their individual disciplines. However, their primary focus was on what was best for the student—even if it was in a related area like computer science. For that, I am honored to have them as faculty members at FSUPC.

While I cannot be certain, my hunch is, that potential student and his grandmother walked out of our campus as Seminoles.