Middle school students
tour MSUB
LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff
Students from Lewis and Clark Middle School tour the
campus of Montana State University Billings on Friday. The tour for 260
students is part of a Graduation Matters grant program. Julie Hrubes, of New
Student Services at the university, was conducting the tour.
Montana State University Billings has its
first verbal commitment from a Lewis and Clark Middle School student.
Julie Hrubes, of
New Student Services at MSUB, led her tour of eighth-graders through the MSUB
Bookstore on Friday afternoon, pointing out the textbooks, the apparel and the
convenience store.
"Yes, it's
got the all-you-can-pump-cheese machine for your nachos," she told the
group.
"All-you-can-pump
cheese?" exclaimed one of the students. "I'm coming here!"
The Lewis and
Clark students toured most of the MSUB campus as part of the state's Graduation
Matters initiative. School District 2 recently received a $5,000 Graduation
Matters grant from the Montana Office of Public Instruction aimed
specifically at middle school students.
Part of the grant
is being used to transport SD2 middle school students to the campuses of MSUB,
City College or Rocky Mountain College. On campus, the students tour the
facilities and learn about college life and what post-secondary education
opportunities are available to them.
Eventually, every
eighth-grader in the district will get a chance to tour a local college.
"I like
it," said Emma Webber, a Lewis and Clark eighth grader.
She and classmate
Mikayla Stowe both plan to attend college and enjoyed seeing the dorms, lecture
halls and the fieldhouse.
"I've wanted
to see this college 'cause my parents went here," Mikayla said.
Still, it wasn't
quite enough to convince them to attend MSUB. Both want to try living a little
farther from home. Although both acknowledged that would be more expensive.
Teacher Sheila
Gay accompanied the group. When they returned to class in the afternoon she
planned to assign her students write a paragraph about what they learned on the
tour.
Mostly, she said,
the students come back surprised at all that's available to college students —
everything from the various classes to rec room offerings.
She also noticed
over the last three or four years her students have begun to pay more attention
to the college option as the economy has gotten shaky.
"A lot of
them are more like, 'What do I need to do to get to college,'" she
said.
Hrubes explained
that in many ways college is completely different from high school — or middle
school for that matter.
Students don't
attend the same classes every day. Students get to chose what time they'll take
their classes and the classes get smaller the further along students get in
their major.
Standing in the
psychology 101 lecture hall, one of the Lewis and Clark students asked if the
teachers make you take notes.
"No one
makes you do anything in college," Hrubes said.
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