My Best Tour Moment So Far
I am in love with giving tours at Vanderbilt. Being able to brag about how amazing our school is without it being considered bragging? Count me in! It’s one of the most rewarding organizations I’ve ever been a part of, and each weekly tour comes with its own magical moments and memorable encounters. My most recent tour, however, ended with the best moment I’ve had so far.
I was co-leading with another guide since we had a lot that day (it’s so hilarious to me that there are always too many guides who want to give a tour on any given day, does that show our enthusiasm for our school or what…So, I was co-leading which was awesome because we were filling in stories to back up the facts each other were giving at each stop. It was so much fun! But tours always are. I got to tell one of my all time favorite stories while we were in Featheringhill, the engineering building. I’ll include it here so you can get the full picture:
- There once was an engineering student here at Vandy who loved it. However, he was beginning to struggle in his classes. He wasn’t getting as good of grades as he had expected for himself, and decided that, although he loved it, he would have to pursue something else in order to succeed. He went to his professor, Professor Jacobs, and told him that he was dropping out of engineering. Professor Jacobs’ response: “No way. I see your potential, I see your passion and I’m not letting you give up. We will work together and you will be fine. We’ve got this”. So, that engineering student ended up doing pretty well…really well actually. He went on to become a very successful engineer and made a ton of money. He then donated a lot of it back to Vanderbilt, under two conditions: that he remain anonymous and that they build an auditorium and name it the “Jacobs Believed in Me Auditorium”. After I tell the story, I point out the auditorium as we walk by and I get the chills every time.
So coming back to the point of this blog post, it was after this tour that I had my best tour guide moment. We finish the tour and an international prospective student from China comes over to me. He tells me that he’s been on this tour four times and that this was by far the “most fun” one. Lastly, he said that he has now decided to apply to Vanderbilt. AHHH!!! I’m pretty sure I jumped up and down in excitement and drew a lot of attention to us. But it truly was the best feeling ever. This is why we give tours! The fact that I was able to convey how incredible Vanderbilt is to someone else makes me so, so happy. I’m sure I’ll have great moments on tours to come, but so far that one takes the cake.
