Presidential Scholarship Information Session #2

Oh yeah, you can mute now and then we'll introduce y'all.

All right, welcome everyone. It looks like we've got a bunch of people who are walking on right now, so we'll go ahead and get started right on time. And then anybody who joins a little bit later can go ahead and join us then.

Do a little bit of insight into who all is here tonight. My name is Laura Weiss from I am an academic advisor as well as the coordinator of new student experiences within the Honors College, and I have a couple of roles within the Honors College. So first I am an academic advisor, so for any students who are part of the Honors College, have questions about classes and all sorts of things they could come and see me. I also help manage the honors portion of new student orientation, so if you decide to attend.

Georgia State and you are a member of the Honors College. You'll be hearing from me a whole lot next summer, and then I also helped manage the presidential scholarship process, so everything from opening up the application to the Faculty Committee to Scholarship Day, where students will interview a kind of manage that whole cycle there, as well as awarding scholars their funds. So there's a few other folks with me here today. I'm going to give them a moment, too.

Introduce themselves so Brian looks like your screen went out. There you are.

I'm here, I was moving things fine trying to figure out the best angle of clothes that's more appealing to the eye. Uhm, I'm Ryan McLaughlin. I'm the assistant director of honors recruitment for the Honors College at Georgia State University. Very happy to meet you all tonight.

And we also have some current scholars with us today, so I'll give them a moment to introduce themselves and who they are at the end of this session or not, even really at the end, for a good portion of this session. But laughs, we're going to have a Q&A with these scholars so you can.

Ask them all sorts of questions that you have on your mind. Everything from why did you attend Georgia State? So where is the best place on campus to get some food and all sorts of different things? So Naomi, do you want to go first since you first on the list?

Sure thing, uhm hey everybody, my name is Naomi Garcia Hector I am a freshman here on campus and I'm a public policy major from Tampa, FL.

How you guys my name is Sarah Santiago. I'm a biomedical science and enterprise major on the pre dental track and I'm a sophomore here and I'm from Swanee Georgia.

I'm so sorry, Sarah. I think I pulled your major off of the wrong list from when you first came to Georgia, and you know, I knew that, so I apologize.

No, no worries.

And it just goes to show that changing your major is totally normal.

Vera

Hi everyone, my name is Veda Balaji. I'm a third year here at Georgia State and I'm majoring in neuroscience and I'm minoring in history that's changed so many times, so I got a little lost for a second. And I'm from Marietta, GA.

Awesome, thank you guys. So to give everyone a little bit of an idea of everything that we're going to go over today. First, we're going to spend a little time talking about the Honors College because that is where the presidential scholarship lives. And so all of our scholars are also on. Our students were being able above an overview of the presidential scholarship itself. Talk about the application process and deadlines. We really try to make the process as simple as.

Possible so that you know what to expect. We don't try to make this a shadowy process at all. I'm going to give you lots of tips to strengthen your application, and then we're going to end with our Q&A with current scholars. So when we did this last week, we spent about 1/2 an hour just going over the PowerPoint presentation, and then we spent about an hour or just taking people's questions and answering them. And so if you have any questions, will go through the PowerPoint first, but then feel free to let them fly.

So our scholars can answer or myself or Ryan can answer all of your questions. So first we're going to spend a lot of time talking about the Honors College and this is where I'm gonna hand it over to Ryan so he can talk about this a little bit.

Yes, OK, so let's talk about the honors experience and what the Honors College provides. Everybody defines honors in different manners. Your school system is probably going to define it differently than anybody else's school system in here, and so the way that we see honors as we see it as an opportunity to provide a highly selective small college that combines all the programs and opportunities at a large public research university in the heart of Atlanta provides. We are considered a Tier 1 institution and basically that means we have the highest rating or tear of active research.

Activity that you can have when it comes to United States research institutions. So that is a very important factor to keep in mind that is something that makes us stand out because the Honors College takes that big old campus and shrinks it down to a more sizable factor. Our student body in the Honors College is about 17150 compared to the main student body of the downtown campus being about 28,000. We take the top five to 7% of every incoming class, and our 2021 first year profile 21 group. We had 300.

In 74 students who refers to your students, they had an average GPA between 3.93 and 4.1 average class rank of 12% and 194. High schools represented. Another thing to add in here too is they also had an average of between 6 to 8 dual enrollment AP or IB courses. Now keep in mind that these are not minimums and this information varies year to year VE. This class is different than Naomi's class is just different from Sarah's class and so the things that sort of kind of created.

Those guidelines and admission standards can vary year to year, but know that we look at GPA. That's a big part that we look at. We look at the rigor of your academic record, so we are looking at you know what kind of courses did you take throughout your high school experience? And of course, we're weighing that accordingly. So if you go to a school that does not offer a ton of EPI, we're not gonna hold that against you.

So it is truly a case by case basis per student couple benefits of the Honors College include priority registration. Specialized academic advising a computer lab with discounted printing, enhance library privileges and merit based scholarships. After your first year.

We also have dedicated honors college internship opportunities, dedicated research opportunities as well as scholarship and fellowship mentoring from one of our offices in the Honors College. This includes intimate discussion based classes, so you're not just going to be, you know, doing the standard material. You will be kind of learning in a different manner, learning how to apply the information in a different way. We have an honor student organization with Sarah Santiago is part of UM, and that organization helps put on different events on campus. For honor students always.

For them to really get to know each other, and I do applaud them because during the COVID year they were very creative with some of the things that they did in order to sort of keep everything together and keep people in contact. And then you have your own dedicated space for the Honors College, which is on the second floor of Centennial Hall. It's a beautiful little space for y'all to just be able to sit down and study and relax, decompress. There's a little kitchen in there. We don't have an open flame 'cause we love y'all, but not that much and not enough to trust you to cook, but you want to bring your lunch. You wanna eat it up in there? You wanna sit down and study in that area you can all kinds of things.

Just be able to sort of wind down and spend your time and a nap pod really cool now pot up there. First place on campus. Ever have one? So yeah, there you go.

This is a list of outcomes you'll see for some of our students, so of course graduate opportunities all over the country. Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, New York University, Harvard, Georgetown, Yale. Also, students coming right back home here to Georgia State job opportunities, Apple, CDC, Google, etc and National Scholarship fellowship opportunities like the Marshall Fulbright. Well, excuse me, I'm sorry. The Marshall, the Fulbright Goldwater things that nature we don't expect you to know, what those things are coming in. You know we have an office that will help you with that, so the history who?

Was our first ever Marshall Scholar here at Georgia State University. Came through the Honors College and it was because of the help of that office that she was able to learn how to interview for that scholarship. Learn how to help with her essay writing and she is in the United Kingdom studying biochemistry. PhD in biochemistry for free because of that scholarship and awards. So I'm pretty sure all three of these students up here will also, if they have not already earned one of these scholarships. We have very talented and very bright students and so we're very proud of the work that they have done.

Tell.

Awesome, thank you Ryan. All right. So we're going to talk a little bit now about the presidential scholarship and the eligibility benefits things of that nature. And so first and foremost.

Who can get award the presidential scholarship? You must be an incoming first year student who is planning to attend the Georgia State Atlanta campus for the first time in fall of 2022. Right Summer 2022 is allowed, but just know that the scholarship won't apply until the fall. So if you're planning on attending Georgia State in the spring, you would not be eligible for the presidential scholarship. And you must not be a transition, transfer or graduate student or current student.

At Georgia State, this is a recruitment scholarship and so we are trying to use the scholarship to recruit some of the best and brightest students, so you must not already be here. Some scholarship benefits so there is a really large peer scholar community of students who are alumni, alums, presidential scholars who have passed who are now going on to do really amazing and great things. We're actually having an alumni event next month which is really, really exciting.

So there's lots of opportunities for different community connection connections and mentoring from those folks. There's also an Honors 1000 course that all of our incoming first year presidential scholars will take in their first semester at Georgia State and they receive mentoring from our interim Dean Dr. Sarah Cook, who teaches that course and so it's a really wonderful opportunity. Because how many other students are able to say that in their first semester, they're able to take a course.

With the Dean of the Honors College, every fault there is also a Full breakfast with the university president and our new President, Dr. Blake just came on board with us in August I believe, and so he is all super excited. So I always meet our students and kind of get to know our presidential scholars. And again, how many other universities are you able to meet the President of the university? Especially? It's such a large university like Georgia State rate off of the bat you know rate?

When you get into the university.

So obviously there is the value and that is probably one of the biggest things that has drawn everyone here. So what does the scholarship cover so presidential scholarship covers the costs of tuition. Now if you are an in state student and you are awarded hope or Zell, it's not like you can double stack tuition awards or anything like that. That's not necessarily in the spirit of the program. You get your tuition covered by hope or Zell and the presidential scholarship will cover the.

Difference between hope and full tuition, but it's not like you get stacked tuition awards there. If you're out of state or international, we do cover the cost of your tuition. We also cover for everyone the cost of mandatory student fees, which are over $1000 each year. And we also cover the costs of housing at the university Commons rate of a four bedroom, 2 bath private room. When it comes to the cost of housing in your first year, you're required to live.

In the Honors College living Learning fee, after that you can go off campus, but you still just get the cost of housing for the university Commons. So if you are savvy and you're able to find a place that is a little bit cheaper, then you are able to save a little bit of money there.

Students also get a yearly living expense stipend of $2000, so they can use that towards books, food, different things of that nature and I got a question just now that's relevant to this slide is a scholarship only for students who have a Social Security number, so we accept all students who are in state out-of-state international. We are not looking at that as long as this is going to be your first time in college and you're attending Georgia State.

On the Atlantic campus, we are happy to have you.

And feel like there was something else I was going to mention, but it slipped my mind, but I'm sure if it applies to you, someone will ask that question and I'll be able to answer it then just kind of moving on another aspect of the scholarship value. Is that a one time $2500 stipend for a credit bearing study abroad and also the opportunity to compete for a paid university assistantship and what those are. Those are opportunities for students to work on campus and work in an academic.

Department to research, do some sort of work that is relevant towards the the work that you are hopefully hoping to do in the future, and this doesn't have to be. You know, only for science majors or something like this. This is for art majors. Music majors, all sorts of different majors, and you're able to not only get paid but also get this really great experience so the word can total up to $32,000 per year depending on whether or not you are in state or out of state, and your UAP participation. And so it is a pretty significant.

Aboard as far as the finances go up, one question is where I be able to stay at home. At 10. The Honors College during the first year. If you're a presidential scholar, you are required to live on campus or first year because we want to make sure that you are able to engage with the university community and really be able to get the most of your experiences and so that is.

You know part of the requirements of the program, and after that, though if you'd like to live at home, you certainly kind. But that first year we do require on campus living.

Requirements to maintain the scholarships. So in order to continually receive your presidential scholarship, you must maintain at least a 3.5 GPA. You have to be a full time student, so that means 12 credit hours or more. You have to meet yearly with Doctor Cook, our interim Dean and you also have to attend some required events so we have different events all throughout the course of the year. Like our Founders lecture induction, different things like that. We actually at the end of the month are also.

I think a congressman, congresswoman Kima Williams, who is going to be visiting the Honors College, and so our presidential scholars are going to be able to meet her, which is pretty exciting. And then, I've already mentioned living in the living learning community during your first year.

Right so.

How do you get this wonderful award? So we're going to kind of go through it again. We want to make this as simple and easy to understand. We're not trying to trick anyone here or anything like that, so there are a couple of application components.

First off, if you're applying for the presidential scholarship, you also have to apply to the university and those two things go hand in hand, so you need to make sure that you submit your common application to Georgia State by the priority deadline, which is November 15th.

Also have to complete your presidential scholarship application, which, if you go to the Honors College page, when you go for the look for the presidential scholarship, there we have a link to the application and it's open right now you can go and you can start an essay. You can start an application and start your essays. There are five total essays that you have to complete their 300 words each.

And when it comes to the essays this year, we've kind of changed it up. And it's a little different than any previous years. So there's one essay that everyone is required to complete. And then there are six essays that you were given, and you must choose four of them to complete. Now don't go thinking, oh I'll do all of the six essays and I'll get bonus points. Our faculty committee. They do not want to read any extra essays, so they have been instructed that after they read the first four.

There to stop square those and move on to the next person. So definitely please answer the essay questions that you feel like are going to be the best essays that you can provide us, because that was the whole point of giving students options. This year is to kind of provide a little flexibility. You know if there's a question we ask that you feel like I don't really have that experience, then you can focus on some of the other essay questions.

You're also required to have one letter of recommendation, and the application must be submitted online. You must submit it on time. It is due November 15th at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, so make sure you check your time zone and then we have a list of the deadlines here as well. So presidential application common app do November 15th on the same day we tried to make it super simple and to make things a little bit easier as well is you know in case folks here about the presidential scholarship.

Probably your recommendation letter is actually not do until a week after the application deadline, so your recommender has until November 22nd at 11:59 PM Eastern Standard Time, and everyone who is here right now knows about the scholarship well in advance. It's about a month until the application is due. It's about six weeks until your recommender has to submit their letters. So if you have not already asked your recommender, it's about time to begin doing that, so you give them time.

To write a really strong letter for you so that they don't submit it late or anything along those lines, it's your responsibility to make sure that your recommender can get it in on time.

As far as the timeline, so once you all submit your applications, what happens next? So we spend a long time November through February reviewing them all and reading all of your essays and going through all the applications we actually have about 30 faculty members that are part of a committee, and they all read your essays and your essays get read multiple times and then in mid February that's almost select 40 folks to be invited to scholarship day and Scholarship Day is where.

People interview for the presidential scholarship. So scholarship day for everyone located in the US is going to be March 4th and sometime in early March if we have international candidates who are invited, will have a virtual scholarship day as well.

Sometime in late March we will select seven to 10 presidential scholars and notify them, and then we'll let other folks know if they're selected as alternates and such so that everybody will know their status.

What is scholarship day? So scholarship day as a sensually, you'll have a welcome from Doctor Sarah Cook will have some other keynote speakers. We have a Q&A with current scholars so you can ask them all sorts of different questions and everything that you may not be thinking about right now. But it might be really relevant to you sometime in March when you're really trying to make your college decisions, you'll have an interview with our faculty members and we will also have a luncheon with remarks by President Blake.

And an optional tour of the Honors College at the end. If you haven't had the opportunity to see the Honors College, and so if you are in an international student, then we will essentially have the same thing, just without the luncheon and tour at the end. For our international candidates.

So I see lots of questions that are popping in here. We've just got a few more slides left though, so we're going to get through all that and then we can go to the questions because some of these might be really good questions for our students to answer.

Uh, but keep them coming so we can just have a Bank of them that we can go through. UM, application tips. So as far as the essay, I cannot say this enough. Please write your essays in some sort of a cloud based system. Do not write them directly into the text boxes in the application, because if that page refreshes and it happens every year to a student where they try to write it directly in the boxes, page refreshes and then you lose everything that you were working on. So write them in something like Google Doc which you know.

If something happens to your laptop, I've had people say the dogs tail was swishing and a glass of water got spilled all over my laptop or my laptop just stopped working. All sorts of things write them somewhere where you're going to be able to access them from anywhere where they're going to be automatically saved so that you always have them.

Outline your answers. Try not to repeat yourself. Try to think of your application as a real estate and you want to make the most of your real estate of the space that you have. And so if you're spending time talking about the same things over and over, then you're not making the most use of your of your time. You're not making the best case for why you're the best candidate and one year telling us about yourself. Make sure the show don't tell you know. Don't tell us how you're a great leader, but show us how your great leader so.

Give us a story of a time when you were a great leader or something along those lines, right? Give us that evidence that kind of sets the scene and helps us understand kind of puts us right there with you.

Always refer back to the question being asked. Sometimes students can get done a little bit of a tangent when they're answering these essay questions, and so just always with regular questions. Am I still answering this question, or if I kind of taken a left turn here and be specific? So when you kind of look at your essays, are these answers that can be said by any student, or are they really unique to your story and to you? And so sometimes students will say the kind of things that they think that we want to hear.

And then that kind of comes off as very cans and things that a lot of students are saying. But make sure that this is your story, that it's unique to you and not anyone else.

Make sure you also provide depth. I know that can be hard in 300 words, but when it comes to that, you know sometimes it's a little better rather than trying to talk about 10 different things within 300 words, it is not as good as maybe just talking about one or two and going really deeply into those stories so that we can get a really good understanding of who you are.

Use the whole word count if you're only putting in a couple of sentences for these essays you are not spending the same amount of time making a case for why you're the greatest candidate and if someone else is using all that space, they are making a much stronger case for why they're a good candidate. So usable word count, but be careful, it doesn't cut off. That has sometimes happen to students where they write it in Word docs or Google Docs. They don't check the word count and they just copy and paste it in and then some of it gets.

Play stuff at the end. So just make sure you double check that.

But also don't use the whole word count, just in adding and fluff. Make sure there's substance there and then you know something we were talking about last week when we had our first information session. Is that one of our current presidential scholars mentioned how he went back and read his essays from when he submitted them. And you know, he felt like it was a very awkward thing to read because he was almost bragging about himself and sometimes scholarship essays are tough.

Right, because you do kind of have to brag about yourself, you have to sell yourself in a way and so think about your biggest biggest accomplishments and think about how you can work those in. Because really, we want to hear about you. These are why we've asked these questions. So please, you know, take the time to tell us about yourself. And I know talking about yourself can sometimes be a little uncomfortable, but that's what we're asking you to do. We want to get to know you and who you are.

This first bullet point is a really good hint for everyone here on how to tackle that first essay question. Do some research so the very first question that we ask is what excites you about the Honors College. It's a good idea to spend a little bit of time on the Honors College website and so know what we offer, but also don't just regurgitate back to us what we offer. 'cause we know that. What do we offer that excites you? So kind of take all that information in process it reflect it and then kind of.

Talk to us about that, uhm?

Your answers are not set in stone forever, so this kind of call back to Sarah. Apologize again, when I put biology on as a major, that's what my sheet still said, or 'cause I haven't updated it yet.

Sarah changed from biology to Bio Med just because you are thinking that you might want to go in One Direction. Right now it doesn't mean that we're going to hold you to that forever. We know you might change your mind's there was a presidential scholar who recently graduated and she told me a story about how when she went to scholarship day, her application was all about how she went to be a biology major. But she didn't want to be a biology major anymore, but scholarship day, she continued, decided she wanted to be a biology major because she thought she had to and she bombed us it.

It was fine. She wound up still getting the scholarship, but don't feel like just because he said. Now you want to be one particular major or you want to go in one particular particular direction that we're holding you to that we understand you're going to grow. You're going to learn you're going to change and that's OK even from now to March if you're invited to scholarship day to interview.

Be authentic and yourself proofread. Have multiple people read it and double check spelling and grammar. You know we're not looking for you to be the next great writer or anything like that, but spend a little bit of time on it just polishing it up and seek feedback from trusted sources that can be a high school counselor that can be a teacher and anyone that you are going to know that you're going to get constructive criticism.

Back, yes you can give it to family. You can give it to friends, but if there's type of people that are just going to look at it and go Oh my God, you're so smart is so great.

That's all nice. We all need validation every once in awhile, but this is the time to get some really good constructive criticism because you don't want the first time that you get criticism about your essay to be when the committee is in the room reviewing it, you want to get that well beforehand so that you have that time to come.

To make it better to improve it and to take those steps to do that. Alright, so letters of recommendation when it comes to the letter of recommendations. Pick someone who knows you really well and maybe in multiple capacities so they can talk about you from a variety of talk about a variety of your characteristics rather than just kind of from one perspective.

Make sure that this is not someone who is a family member. We won't accept letters from family members. Someone who is a, you know, maybe a coach, guidance counselor, teacher, mentor or something along those lines met a good question a couple weeks ago to the our inbox about a close family friend and that can kind of be a little iffy. It really depends, you know, is that someone who's a close family friend and they've just kind of seeing you grown up? Or is that someone who's a close family?

Friend who has really been a mentor to you in some way. So really think about that. Kind of how that comes off because you want the committee to kind of feel like you're able to form professional relationships on your own, and so you know if you have questions about that you want to ask us about that. You can always email us and we can kind of give you guidance on a case by case basis.

Ask your recommender to gear it towards the presidential scholarship. We often get questions and I see one in the chat right now about that is the presidential scholarship recommendation letter different than the one required for the GSA application so it can be the same letter you do have to submit it for the presidential scholarship so that it's in the presidential scholarship application file, and it can be the same letter. But presidential scholarship is a competitive award.

And so I encourage you to sit down with your recommender and say, hey, this is what I'm applying for. It's this competitive award at Georgia State. It provides this this and this. You know I would love for you. To you know, maybe talk about XY and Z in my letter, who really gear it towards the presidential? Give them your resume, your essay drafts, the scholarship information, everything that they need to write you a really strong letter and.

Think of the letter not as just a check box. I got the letter of recommendation and I'm good, but think of it as an extension of your application because it really is and think of it as additional real estate. So if you're talking about X Y&Z in your essays.

Maybe have your recommender write about a B&C so that we get a wide holistic view of you as a candidate.

Ask really early. Four weeks is optimal. You'll have six weeks if you're listening to me right now, so give them a good amount of time or five weeks. I should say, give them a good amount of time so they can write you a strong letter and they're not rushing right at the last second when they submit their letter.

You will get an automatic confirmation email from us through our application system, so if you have not gotten a confirmation email from us then they likely have not submitted their letter, but just make sure you're in communication with them about that, so you kind of know where they're at in the process and then send them a letter at the end.

Whether you get the scholarship or not, they're helping you to take that next step to they're helping you to be successful and so send them a thank you note for that.

General tips take your time on the application. We are not going to look at any of the applications prior to November 15th. We're just going to wait for them all to come in and then once we have a big old pool then that's when we start sifting through them. So there's really no brownie points for submitting early.

Also, don't wait until the last second because especially if you wait and every year it happens, I'm always up until midnight that day that the application closes and it never fails. That at 12:01 I get an email saying I was just trying to submit and it wouldn't let me submit because maybe the website was going a little slow. Maybe people's wife I was being funky. I always encourage teens trying to submit your application at least a couple days before the application application closes. That way if you have Wi-Fi issues, if you have computer.

Issues if you have, you know anything like that. You give yourself that time to resolve it to get to a Starbucks to use their Wi-Fi. Whatever you need to do.

Check your time zone. We're going to be expecting it to be submitted by November 15th.

11:59 PM Eastern Time Zone, so if you're located elsewhere, just make sure you calculate that correctly because we will not accept late applications once the application system closes, it closes and it's not like we can turn it on for individual people, it's either on or off for everyone, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to U.S. presidential scholars at gsu.edu we are happy to answer any questions. Speaking of which, if you have questions, now is the time to drop them.

Into the chat, because we're going to spend a little bit of time.

Asking our current presidential scholars if they have.

Any sorts of questions that you have for them and so just to remind you all who are scholars are. We've got Naomi, Sarah, and Beta, so we do have a couple of questions that we'll go through.

How many students are selected annually for the presidential scholarship? So next year we're expecting to select seven to 10, so again, it is a competitive award. But even getting a you know invited to scholarship day. The 40 folks I get invited to scholars should say that is an accomplishment in and of itself, and would I always tell students to is just apply.

The worst thing you're going to get is in now, but you're going to have all of the practice and experience of applying for an award like this. And everyone here. I know that they've probably learned a whole bunch through the presidential scholarship process application process Veda. You are also a Beckman scholar now. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and kind of talk about you? Know, maybe how you saw your presidential scholarship experience, application and everything.

Sure.

You know how you approached it coming up in your Beckman scholarship application?

Sure, so uhm, so the Beckman scholarship at the Honors College is super new. I think. I think this was the first year they did it and it's basically a research scholarship. They pair you with a mentor and you are an active scholar for a year and a half and you get to do research at a lab. So I'm doing. I'm currently conducting psych research. We're doing. We're learning about social anxiety and how it impacts.

Decision making and the process for applying for that was a series of essays as well as a couple of interviews which is pretty similar to how I got the presidential scholarship. I started out with those essays and then we did an group interview and an individual interview and.

It it it's very similar and it was very beneficial for practice because it kind of gets you in that setting of like.

This is I'm supposed to. I'm supposed to be professional, but also try to connect with my interviewer. Uhm, I'm trying to make sure that they know exactly who I am.

Without leaving anything out, you know you want everyone you want your interview to interviewer to know exactly who you are, what you do, what makes you different from everyone else, and so that interview for the presidential scholarship definitely prepared me for that, because that's that. I was like, Laura said before I was selling myself, I was trying to make sure everyone knew like who I was and what I had achieved and and that definitely helped prepare me for my current Beckman scholarship as well so.

And probably future awards.

Oh yeah.

Alright, so we only have two questions, kind of in our bank right now. If you all have questions please throw them into the trial and they don't have to just be about the presidential scholarship. I mean, these are current Georgia State students current honors students. If you have questions about the Honors College or about what it's like to live on campus or where is the best place to go and grab pizza and answers? Roses or any sort of thing like that that you just want to know about life as a Georgia State student please?

Go ahead and drop it into the question bike.

Alright, so we have a couple of just eligibility questions that will get through. So are there any eligibility restrictions based on your major for the scholarship? Absolutely not. You can be whatever major that you want as long as we offer it at Georgia State on the Atlantic campus. So we have students who are music who are bio Med who are computer science, who all any number of majors. So you can major in anything.

Was wondering what the average SAT score is for a recipient of the scholarship. So for the presidential scholarship, we're actually not even going to be looking at S80 scores, so last year the university went test optional because of the pandemic, and so it was a great opportunity for us to just kind of dropped that altogether, because obviously, you know, S80 scores don't necessarily tell the whole picture of candidates and so.

We are looking at your academics to, you know, make sure that you're meeting university minimums and things of that nature and making sure that you you know have taken enough rigor as offered by your high school. You know if you've had a bunch of AP courses that you were able to take.

You took a whole bunch of them. That's obviously going to speak very well to your experience in high school. If you didn't have a whole lot of those opportunities, that's OK. Again, we take it like Ryan was saying earlier. We take it on a case by case basis, but we're certainly, you know, not looking at an S80 scored number or anything like that.

A question for you also at Georgia State, how big is the library?

All.

Do any of you spend enough time there?

I do.

It is ginormous.

Yeah, I think it's pretty. It's pretty big and I do spend a lot of time there on a on my least busy weeks. I'm probably there one or two times a week, but sometimes I find myself there quite often, but there's kind of two parts of the library library, North and South, but I believe North is one. Yeah, it has like 5 levels, which is where it's like computer areas there. Study rooms that you can rent out to the group projects with your friends where you have to. You don't have to worry as much about being quiet around other people. There's lots of.

Little nooks that are just cute little quiet. Studying places. There's a terrace which is kind of new and it's really Pretty Little patio on the second floor I believe, which is a nice place as well. And then I do believe that.

In the coming years they are planning on knocking down what is currently a parking garage and making it into. I believe it's going to be like study comments, so kind of an expansion of the library and just different studying areas so it's big but going to be getting bigger.

And then.

Bill.

And it does get, uhm. I think this is how it works in a lot of universities. But it does get quieter the higher you go in the library. And I'm someone who needs complete silence when I'm studying, so that's something that I really like to take advantage of.

And then we also personally I prefer studying at the library just because I know it's. It's a beautiful building, so you can also go study there. The 5th and 6th floor are the library spaces where you can study, and they're open pretty late, so that's also another great.

City option.

Awesome, thank you guys. So I think this one is for Veda. What's your favorite part of studying neuroscience at Georgia State?

And we can go for everyone you know what's your favorite part of studying at Georgia State?

Yeah, uhm. So studying neuroscience and specific. I absolutely love people. That's kind of where my interest in neuroscience came from, because neuroscience is just like you're studying why people work the way they work and why the brain works the way it works and what is the basis for certain.

Or logical disorders or conditions or things like that. So that's kind of where that started.

And so I guess my favorite part about studying neuroscience, UM?

I would probably be conducting research for the Beckman scholarships that I was talking about previously. I were currently doing.

Like I said before, we're currently doing work on social anxiety and how social anxiety impacts decision making, so we're bringing in human participants, which is so cool to me because I prefer working with humans over animals, but it's so exciting to like have someone come in and get ready for having an MRI done. We get to give them brain scans. It's super cool research, and I feel like I'm learning a lot. So research.

No need Sir. Do you wanna talk about your favorite parts of studying at George Tape?

Well, I uh, I guess I'll go first it it's hard to pick a favorite. There are really a ton of things that I like about this school, but I do have to say that one of the things that it's personally my favorite is the fact that the campus resides within the City of Atlanta. Just because there are so many opportunities and events open to us. Literally every single day. There's never a dull moment. I say that every day. There's always something going on in this city, and so that's really awesome. I think it just it makes the experience.

I think I really enjoy the the atmosphere that Georgia State has. Its nobody is competing against each other. Everybody just really genuinely wants to help one another succeed. And I I really.

That's that's that was important to me. 'cause I'm not a very competitive person. I didn't want to compete. I feel like I was competing against a lot of people, so it was. It's it's. It was really important to me that the atmosphere was a place where you're working together with people. You're supporting your peers and you're rooting for each other success, not praying on their downfall. So that was really important for me. And what I really enjoy budget to see.

So another question we had is what is the best part of the Honors College housing and did you all get roommates at random?

Definitely for me. When I was a freshman last year, it was certainly interesting to be on campus during the pandemic, but the views from the LLC floors are beautiful. You have a great view of the city, beautiful sunsets. It's it's stunning and you can't. You can't really get that in another university. Such a beautiful view of the city. So definitely definitely that.

I am I made some of my first friends at Georgia State in one of my honors classes and it was really nice to have them be one floor above me or one for floor below me. I could just like go to their dorm like very easily and whenever I wanted, I mean obviously if they were home, UM.

And.

I didn't get all of my roommates at random. I actually met one of my roommates, UM, at the Scholar scholarship day.

Presidential scholarship so uhm.

Pull

So I don't think all of them are and I it really really depends on what you're looking for.

But I would highly highly recommend living and staying at the owners LLC.

Yes, I definitely will say. As far as I am a freshman, so this is my seventh week on campus and all the time. I'll just be in the elevator and be like you look familiar in this class and it's just an easy way to start conversation. Because you see people around who are in your classes. And as far as the roommate thing goes, none of my roommates were random. You do have the option of using. There is like an interface. I think it's called my college roomie that Georgia State uses where you can meet people. Some people also just use Instagram. That's personally how I found.

Most of my roommates and like they are honestly my best friends, and it feels like they say all the time that we feel like we've known each other for years, but it's only been two months here, so it's pretty cool. I would say take your time, try and find people who have similar interests because they it can end up being super cool living with some of your closest friends.

I see.

Another thing that I wanted to add on real quick is that because you are in the university Commons, which is mostly upperclassmen, you do get a kitchen like it's a full blown kitchen like 4 burners and oven. A dishwasher like a full size fridge so you can. You don't have to buy a meal plan. You can cook your own food, but you can also tell that meal plan two and then also you only have to share a bathroom with one other person which is super great. Personally I really enjoy only having to share with one another.

Person.

So those are huge benefits as well. And then personally I chose also to find all of my roommates and none of mine were random, and now one of the one of the girls that I found on my roommate. She's now my best friend, so it's definitely a wonderful time to make friends and like be able to spend a lot of time and create those connections.

Alright, so we've got one student here who is hitting some hard hitting questions.

What is your least favorite part of Georgia State and what made this school your final choice?

Uhm, I guess I can start on this one, so I just said previously that I love being in the city and Atlanta. You know, have being our campus, but it has its ups and downs at the end of the day. It's not a regular college campus and so you do have to operate like you're living in a city. And I do like that, but there are some days I'm like, geez, I wish I could just be on campus all the time and not have to worry about anything else and just go looking like I got somewhere and not.

It's like the see everybody on the street that isn't just students, but at the same time it really is just up to you and what you like at the end of the day, I personally enjoyed that and it's very few times where I'm like. Oh, it's a little annoying about certain situations, so it really it's just a personal preference. And then there was a second part of the question. I don't remember what.

Uh, well, let me go back to it. What made the school your final choice?

Uhm, well, obviously the scholarship was a big part of it, but ultimately, once I did start to hone in on Georgia State and look at all the details, I love that it was in a city I absolutely adored. The diversity at this school and just the environment and all the things that I heard about the university. So that was kind of what checked off the boxes for me.

I think personally my least favorite aspect is that a lot of students here are commuters, so they come and go. So unfortunately I might make a super great connection with somebody in my class, but then they go home after they want to rush. They want to be rush hour so so that's that's the I think that my least favorite part, I guess, is that there will be super great people on campus, but they're only here for that class, so that's that's unfortunate. Reality is that we are like there are a ton of people that commute to Georgia State.

And and then, what made Georgia State my final choice? I was kinda down between tech and Georgia State, but truly was the atmosphere Georgia State, where I didn't really feel comfortable at Georgia Tech. It didn't feel like people would be there supporting me and like and helping uplift me. It kind of felt like it would have been a competition which if that's what you like or if that's if you completely don't feel the way that I do totally get it. But that's personally why I chose Georgia State.

I'm so I know I'm going last, but I really and this sounds so cheesy, but I really can't think of anything I don't like about your distance.

Just because like they only said like it hits all the boxes for me, but I do. I think I could take this opportunity to talk about something that people worry about when coming to Georgia State, which is the safety aspect.

And I really like to talk about this because I myself I'm like Soo obviously super concerned about my safety. My friend safety and you know it is an urban campus and we're downtown in Atlanta. UM, but I don't like I. I feel super safe here. We've got five police departments that are taking care of us and.

I mean, whenever people ask that question, I kind of like to talk about, you know it's all about like who you are as a person. Do you like that city environment? Are you willing to, you know, be aware of your surroundings and keep trying. It's just a life skill, you know and.

I don't, I don't know. I I think that that kind of touches on like some things that people worry about when they're coming to Georgia State. UM, so that half answered the question.

Because I really love Georgia State and I can't really think of a lot of like bad things about it and then, what's the other part of it? What made?

Well, maybe it's your final choice.

Uhm oh for for me to add on to what Naomi and Sarah said. UM it was also the way that like when I was interacting with the Honors College advisors. Laura, I'm 100% adding you.

I was in like honestly, I was super confused with what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I half of me really wanted to go out of state and just escape Georgia, whatever that even meant and the other half of me knew that like Georgia State was the best opportunity for me to take advantage of, especially with the scholarship and so the Honors College advisors Laura in specific, actually very much helped ground me. And that was a big part of my decision.

Like if I knew that I had people at the Honors College to help guide me through my problems and my stresses and things like that like I knew I could count on someone for four years of my life. I didn't have that anywhere else, especially, you know you're on the phone with universities for hours on end on hold because they won't answer your questions. I didn't get that at Georgia State. I had my answers, question and answers my questions answered.

That's impossible, wow. I just totally mixed that up, but that is that was a huge part of why I decided on GSU.

No, I I really do have to emphasize that part later, because you know, I'm a freshman, so I'm not that far out from the whole application process, just a little over a year ago I was where you guys are standing and I have to say no. Other university is going to be as responsive or give you this community of support. The way that Georgia State did, and I don't know why it didn't even come to my mind to say that because I remember sitting at the dinner table with my family and we were just like it. At some point there wasn't. There weren't choices and.

The Georgia State, because it was giving things that the other universities weren't giving that were so important. So yes, that is definitely a huge thing and a big thing to consider.

To add on to what they said agreement. Definitely that is such like a huge factor is that like when you become a presidential scholar, you you are not that not special treatment but you are like you are a set of students. That is like you're different from not different. I don't know how to word it, but you do get certain opportunities that other students don't have.

Access to I don't know how to word this, but but in other schools you kind of just. You can get easily lost in like a sea of other students, whereas here you are. You're a priority. You are important and you are like you matter.

Oh, I think you guys all right. One other question that we have is do any of you commute to Georgia State? And I only I know you're living on campus right now, Sir. I think you're also on campus right now, right? Right? But beta, I think you were off campus for a little bit last year, right?

Yes, so for.

For a semester this was fall 2020 2020 is it 2021? Yeah, OK. So fall 2020 last fall I've got no sense of time anymore. Fall 2021 No 2020. I did commute. Not that that's important to any of you guys at the time that I did and was it was that all to the question I had. I have commuted it was it wasn't as.

Difficult as it might be if your classes are all going to be in person. My classes at that time were all online, so the only reason I was commuting was for my university assistantship, which is basically like a research.

A internship through GSU up. So I was commuting for that twice a week and it was not as bad as I thought it would be. So commuting is fine as long as you.

You know live on campus for the first year.

OK, so one question that I did want to ask you about is what sort of UM experiences do you get to have in your university assistantships? 'cause we've kind of touched on that a little bit, but some folks might be a little bit unsure of what that can really look like. So do you want to talk about your assistantships a little bit?

Yeah, I was hesitating on whether to elaborate on what a university assistantship was.

Go for it. Please elaborate though.

So a university assistantship is a program that they offer at the Honors College, where if you apply and get in your paired with department at GSU, and you're able to work with the professor or work with.

Some type of administration something like that, so I am currently doing my UAP and you get paid. That's that's an important part. You get paid, I think 1042 an hour for eight hours every week on average and so I'm doing my UAP at the criminal justice and Criminology Department and I'm doing it with Doctor Francis Chen. We're conducting research on criminal offenders.

And sexual assault victims and how stressors in day-to-day lives can impact these individuals and what causes them to either be more vulnerable to crime or more vulnerable to committing crime or offending. It's super interesting work. I absolutely love it and it kind of did spark my interest in going to law school. Even though I'm a neuroscience major that gets confusing and and so.

So I highly recommend you apes, because they're extremely enlightening and they help kind of ground you on what you.

Might want to do as a long term career.

Definitely. I would also say as far as you were saying, data about the flexibility. It's a little bit different than a regular even regular student assistant job on campus. Or if you were to have a job off campus, I know. So I worked with the university advancement team at state and the donor communications and Engagement section, and so it's just been really helpful to know that they know that academics have to come first, and so you know right now we're doing midterms and things are a little crazy and busy, and they understand that.

So I'm maxxing out at about 8 hours right now, as in these next couple of weeks when things calm down a little bit, I might pick up a few more hours here and there. So there is that flexibility. And so that's what kind of makes it, in my opinion, a little nicer than just what you might get a regular job.

Uhm, I worked with Doctor Sarah Brosnan at the Comparative Economics and Behavior Behaviors Behavioral Studies Lab at the Language Research Center, and so it's a psychology lab and we they do observation ull studies on capuchin monkeys. So over the summer I got to go see monkeys and that was super fun.

But but kind of like you know, saying they're super understanding about your school, especially this semester. I'm taking dreaded organic chemistry and I explained this to my.

Research.

Instructor and she was like, totally understand, let's cut back for the first couple weeks on hours so you can get adjusted.

So you can, you know, manage that workload, so they're definitely and they're super kind people. Personally my UAP professor is.

And they're able to work with you, and you're able to gain skills that a lot of people aren't able to have access to as an undergraduate. And you're getting paid for it. Most people volunteered to be in the positions, like in order to work in labs, so this is a great opportunity to get to be able to experience different lab settings and see if research is something that you'd like to pursue to pursue a masters or professional degree.

Awesome, thank you guys. Reminder. Keep putting your questions in chat if you have any. So one question that I want to ask you all. We've spent a lot of time talking about research and you APS and the application process and everything like that. Can you talk a little bit about like just what campus life is like like outside of class outside of your UA? PS, What does that look like for you all at Georgia State?

Well, I will say one of the best things that I have been doing classes. It's taking advantage of the awesome food scene here before I came to college, I had never tried pho and I had for the first time at a place called Dua on Broad Street, which is like a very famous street right by one of the learning like the classroom buildings here on campus. And I eat there almost every Monday now between my class and going to work.

It's my little like time for me and so yeah, there's a bunch of different places. There's a place called Blossom Tree. It's amazing food. I've yet to try everything on Broad Street, but I'm slowly making my way down the street so there's just a really. There's a lot of awesome food and just little things to do. Eat grab coffee during or between classes so there are places that you can kind of just sit in, chill and go with friends. Or sometimes these first couple of weeks as I was trying to meet people, I just grab something classic like hey you want to grab?

Coffee and just sit in Group coffee and make new friends. So there's lots of places for that type of thing.

The food scene is incredible. I can't rip about it enough personally. My favorite place to go get food is sweet Auburn Market, which is super close by and there's a ton of restaurants within speed Auburn market. There is Oh my God, which is a place that has grateful also.

And there's tons of different.

View cast view Carol Bistro, probably saying that completely wrong Afro dish. Anyways, tons of food places within there as well, and then being able to like grab stuff really quickly between class. I think a lot of college campuses don't have the same level of like.

Like diversity of food options that you have, and they're all mostly small businesses as well, which is such a great thing to support.

So that's definitely a great aspect, and then also because you are in the city, you can take Marta, go up to Midtown watching movie at movie at Landmark Theater. Go to Piedmont Park, go to Centennial Olympic or if you are out of state and you haven't been to or you're in state and you haven't been to like Coca Cola world or the aquarium. It's like not even a mile from here and you can just walk. So it's just it's so great to be like really in the heart of the city and so close to so many great opportunities and fun things to do too.

I absolutely agree. I love. I love the food scene here and I love the Atlanta touristy places and I I've got a lot of hate for this, but my favorite absolute favorite place to go is the Coca Cola Museum. Because they've got that like world of Coke area. And I just think it's so fun to try all the different sodas. I I'm not even a soda fan. I just love that place so much.

Comma and for the food scene. I'd say there's tuckeri on broad that one's a good one. There's just so many different options, and for someone that's a foodie like me, so ideal to go here.

But to add on to that I'd say.

GSU is in such an ideal area? Uh, we're in Atlanta. There are the job market. It's right there if you're in.

If you're planning on majoring in Biochem Neuroscience or anything premed like or premed esque, UM Grady is right there for internship opportunities for people to talk to to help you to help mentor you. UM and same thing goes in the other direction. If you're thinking about film music, the

film and movie scene is coming to Atlanta because it's cheaper to film here. I see people filming so often on Georgia State campus, and so that's definitely something that I would take advantage of. If you're interested in that kind of thing and and for me, I've been able to do.

Internships because I live in Atlanta and so last spring I was able to do an internship with the GBI which is the Georgia Bureau of Investigation which is kind of like the FBI but for Georgia and and I was slowly able to do that because I lived in Atlanta and I was close to the office and it was just super convenient so the location of GSU is very ideal for.

Getting a head start on some resume, building opportunities and some internships and just getting some more mentor mentorship and things like that.

Adding on.

I also wanted to sorry if there I thought you were just about this, like as well, uhm I want to add that. As far as living on campus and the things that like the dorms will host on their own, I've gone to a lot of different events like specifically here in university Commons. There's actually one tonight that I will go to if I can get my work done in time. They're showing like a scary movie in the courtyard, but there's always a kind of different things. I've been a carnival in the courtyard and there is free food. Georgia State.

Loves new events with free food, which is awesome for if it's I'm always there. If there's free food so there's lots of different things to do and that is kind of a plus of living on campus because you'll just be walking the costs and see flyer. Oh, I want to go to that. I want to go to this so it's easy to find things to fill your day with.

Kind of tying back to what beta said. I can't remember who told me but this, but I think it might have actually been.

Clayton anyways.

They were able to get an internship position with CNN simply because the person that decided to employ them. They got two papers on their desk and they needed somebody in like 10 minutes and one person goes to Georgia State and the other person goes to UGA. Who's going to be closer to the CNN building in Atlanta? It's going to be the person that goes to Georgia State, so it's kind of those things were just tying back to another example of what data was saying. We're like you are in a place where there's so many opportunities anytime.

I guess we Auburn market around lunchtime. There's just a ton of nurses and doctors coming down from Grady for their lunch break. You know, you kind of really see people living their lives.

Since you're not really isolated from anywhere else and then time out in what Naomi said, we have pin which is. I think it's pinned gsu.edu where you can. It's the Panther involvement network. You can literally say, oh I'm free tomorrow night. Let me look at what events are so I can get some free food.

People, and yeah, there's just tons of events constantly going on if you want to not be bored, you will not be bored. You have nothing to worry about going here.

Sarah, do you wanna take this moment to plug?

Oh yes.

So I'm VP of the Honor student organization and we've had been planning a lot of fun events. We're trying to boost engagement, so we recently had a senior Q&A panel where we had our lovely senior officers field some questions from underclassmen, and a lot of them were able to get some of their like burning questions like who do I ask these questions too? Like how do you balance work and work life and school life kind of things. So we were able to do that and then also we have.

Boba nights or boba evenings? I guess we just swing by get Boba chat with us, meet other people, and then what else is there last year when among us was big? We had a huge virtual among us game and it went super well. It was super fun to play and a bunch of people were able to meet people that they otherwise wouldn't have because everybody, mostly everybody, was on an online last year. So tons of great opportunities for you guys to meet people or to learn things.

So yeah, definitely come by, stop by and so.

Uhm, event.

What's the HSL handle?

GSUHS, so we finally got the original handle.

Oh yeah, awesome.

Yeah.

Make sure it's a follow them on Instagram if you want to come to Georgia State and be an honor student so you can catch all of their really fun events. They post a lot of really great stuff there, so we have one question in the chat. That is, I don't think this applies to any of y'all, so I might have to kind of twist it to apply, but have any of you studied abroad? And I don't think any of you have had the opportunity since last 18 months have been kind of funky for the entire world, so I'll switch it around and say.

Uhm, talk a little bit about where you all would like to study abroad. If you'd like to study abroad and what kind of opportunities that you have, maybe done a little research on at Georgia State.

So I actually attended one of their question and answer sessions that the study abroad department I guess holds and the guy who was running it was super helpful. He was able to answer a ton of my questions and he had studied abroad in Mexico and it was for spring break and he got a 3 hour Spanish credit and I was like that sounds great to me.

So there's only a ton of opportunities where I think.

If you look them up, there's like a list of all the different city abroad opportunities, like it tells you the city and the country in which professor is like the main person of it and then kind of like a little bit of a description on like what you might be doing or what it entails. So there's tons of options to study abroad and the city. Broad Department is super helpful in helping you either apply to scholarships or figure out the application process or get a passport or get your vaccination vaccinations and check before you travel.

So it's definitely totally feasible. You can make it work within your personal budget and also hopefully within your.

Four years here at Georgia State.

Bob, I think we should. We could also use this time to promote our London experience.

Uhm, which is an exclusive study abroad opportunity for the Honors College that we restarted this fall on the London experience allows typically 15 students to go to the United Kingdom for 10 weeks during the summer time and they have a plethora of opportunities that they can interview for in the process and earn and those opportunities are typically paid opportunities, so it's a fun little experience that the only person here would have been able to possibly even maybe be eligible, but other things all apart.

Is I think better, but if I'm doing my math correctly, I think that might have been the end of your first year when COVID hit. So even if you wanted to, you would not have had the chance. So that is something that we are hoping to bring back in full swing very, very soon. Like I said, we kind of launched our our rebirth of it with our Guinea pig. Adrian's over there now.

But it's it's an experience that's exclusive to us. So on top of what they mentioned was study abroad. That is something that you could look forward to as a Georgia State student honor student. And I did have a question for y'all and I hope you didn't answer it. One of the times where several of my children bust into the closet. But could you tell us about one of your favorite classes that you've taken with the Honors College?

Uhm, this is actually so.

I would probably say my U.S. government class. Uhm, no. I am like personally really interested in law and legal studies, so that could be completely boring to other people. But one of the best parts of the cost is that it is pretty small. It's like maybe 20 people and we get to sit and like almost a circle style and it's just a seminar every single day where a lot of what we learn is less of just a teacher droning on. And being like this is, you know.

It's just discussion and we read and we do our things on our own and then we get to come to class and have debates and have arguments about you know, different court cases and how should this be and how should that be in learning about how things came to be in our government. And I know as a public policy major I'm just sucking that up. But even if that's not of interest to you and a lot of the different honor sections of courses, you're going to have those smaller, the smaller classes and that more discussion based do it, which I feel like really enhances the.

The whole learning process and just the environment that you get to learn in.

Yeah, I completely agree I. I mean like I said before, I'm majoring in neuroscience and I'm minoring in history and and my uap's in criminal justice and I'm kind of all over the place. But one of my favorite classes at the Honors College or that was an honor section in specific or not, under section Honors Seminar. I'm so sorry.

Was an English literature class and it honestly was solely because it was so. Discussion based and I absolutely loved to talk a lot, and so I definitely took advantage of that and I was able to talk and talk and talk. UM and I I remember like in in our classroom. Like Naomi mentioned, the.

Desks are the desks, and the chairs are all oriented, so it's like circle style. You're all face, you're facing all of the other students in the class, and we had a nice smart board projector thing in the room. We didn't have to use it once because it was so discussion based. We were talking the entire time we were discussing what we had read previously. It was. It's just such an ideal class to me, and of course the small class sizes. So you actually get a chance to say what you want to say without.

Uhm, class time being over because there are too many people in the class. So yes, my English lit class solely because of the format of it.

I think my freshman year, all of my classes were completely online, so my one in person class with Doctor Cook was my my personal favorite class. 'cause it was so fun to get to know. Doctor Cook as a person and be in that class 'cause it's not really a class because you have a say in how it's structured and assignments you get to do. Besides kind of your like assigned reading, but it was really cool. We got to work on like publishing a like a paper together on a review of reviews. So that was super interesting. I don't think.

I would have been able to have that kind of class if I wasn't a presidential scholar. I would have never had that kind of class format or like interaction with the professor like that. And then besides that I'm actually really enjoying. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually enjoying organic chemistry.

I know, I know, it's crazy, but uhm, the my professor is wonderful. Doctor Kumar. I love her. She's so nice and she's so helpful. So yeah, the professors here genuinely want to help you. Most of them I haven't really heard too many bad experiences, but they genuinely want to help you learning succeed, which I can't. I don't think I can say the same for other universities.

But yeah, it's it's those are probably my two favorite classes.

It's kind of a follow up to that same question. One question that we always get from students from prospective students is are honors college classes harder?

So can y'all answer that question?

Uhm, I think it's very relative to what you're going to consider hard, but at least for my experience with a few honors courses that I do have right now, it's nothing crazy. You're not expected to like jump through hoops to get a good grade in these classes. I think a lot of times it simply is that we get to sit there and have these great intellectual conversations, and that we're expected to. Sometimes, you know, be able to do a lot of the reading and like like looking at the basic things.

On our own, bringing that prior knowledge to class and then we can all talk about it and growing it together. So I wouldn't say that it's inherently harder, but again, that's just my experience from seven weeks here. So you guys might have other things to say.

I think, UM, you're definitely right. It is all relative, and for me personally my heart is class. So far has been a class that wasn't an honors class, which obviously that could defer between people. But and I kind of touched on this before, but there's two kind of types of classes you can take at the Honors College. There's an honor section which is like.

You're you're an honor student. In a big lecture, you could be an honor student in a big lecture, and you do maybe an extra project here. An extra essay here, or something of that sort. And then there's honor seminars. Which are, you know, those small class sizes. They can vary on topic, and there are a little more, I guess niche, so they're very like specific kinds of classes, delving into very specific topics.

And so that's kind of like the main differences between classes, and the reason I am highlighting this is because I personally find it really easy to be in one of those discussion based classes. I find it like personally I work well in that environment. I learn better because for some reason like talking out loud and saying things out loud really helps me retain information. UM.

And also in like in that same boat my honors section classes where you're doing you know that extra project or extra activity on those are extremely helpful because you know you are. You're kind of choosing to do this thing that's providing you more information about a subject. So for example, I'm taking a clinical neuroscience class right now, and clinical neuroscience is basically the study of.

A neurological disorders and diagnosing them and like what's going on in the brain with these disorders. So things like ADHD, Alzheimer's, that kind of stuff and our my the honors section requirement was to make a presentation on one of these disorders. So I chose narcolepsy. I know a lot about narcolepsy now and I would love to talk about it for hours on end and so that's kind of just one of the the benefits like.

You're you're learning so much more than you would if you weren't in the honor section, or if you didn't take an honor seminar and these are things that will help you in life. Connect with others, like maybe one day when I'm.

In law school or a practicing law, I might meet someone with narcolepsy and I can help them better because I know all about it right now and.

Who knows, like their super enriching experiences. I know I talked forever on that, but I hope that was informative.

So I think.

Not to be too repetitive, but it is definitely relative. I think most some of my honors sections that I've taken. It's just like an extra final project assignment kind of thing, but it's always an enriching process and I got to learn stuff. So I like. I took an honor section of an of a U S government class and now I know so much about the US laws for organic farming.

Because that's the topic that I chose in pesticide use, so I know a lot about that randomly, whereas I personally I'm not taking it but the honor section of my organic chemistry class. They are given harder quiz questions. I believe it's not harder but more challenging, but they do get assignments since there are smaller section of the class that are more enriching, so it's kind of like a tradeoff where like although it is a slightly more challenging class which might be good, that might be.

May be the rigor you need to prepare for, like the end cap.

But you also get more one on one individual attention because you are in a smaller section within that class, so they have like extra assignments that kind of boost their understanding, and they're able to do a lot of scientific writing and boost those skills. So it kind of depends on which kind of class you're taking, but most of them is just like an extra assignment. Or maybe your questions are slightly different, slightly more challenging, but it's. It's not like a.

Regular honors, you know there's not a huge discrepancy between it.

Alright, so maybe I will make this be our last question unless we get any last minute ones in the next minute or So what sort of advice would you leave all of the candidates here this evening with as they kind of begin tackling their application and going through the presidential scholarship process. What do you maybe wish that you knew when you were applying for the presidential scholarship?

I think the main thing is to be really genuine and honest in your answers, because once you're in that in person, face to face interview, they can kind of tell if you're just you've just been writing about this thing that you don't actually really care about. You know when you're passionate about something that shows when you're talking to another person, like they can tell that you really, strongly care about something, or you're genuinely a really great person. So don't try and pretend to be something that you're not. Don't feel like you have to force yourself to be like a Nobel Peace Prize.

Winner and you have all of these nonprofits, and you're also you also run an orphanage you know, don't don't, don't go crazy. You know it's OK. Just be genuine to who you are because I think once you go to the interview that really shows that you're able to have natural responses and meaningful responses that can show the people that are interviewing you, that you're a great candidate for this scholarship.

Definitely yeah, just to add to what Sarah said. Just I honestly had to remind myself through the whole process that I know myself best and I know my strengths are and you know, right on those things, the things that make you awesome, you know what they are and you know what you want to bring to the table on how you're going to be able to put your best foot forward. So like you said, do write about those things because there's a good chance like that's what they want to hear about the things that you write. And they might ask you about you know who you are and the things that you've done and your accomplishments. So through writing about them.

Inherently, you're going to be practicing for an interview where you're also going to be talking about yourself and the more time that you've spent looking at your resume or looking at hey, these are things I've done. These are the things that I'm proud of and that I want to talk about with my interviewers. Then you're going to be ready, for that's what you've been working on for the past month or however long, well, really. Your entire life you've been working on this, but even building up you, but just be yourself and try not to be too nervous. I mean, I know it's it happens. I was plenty nervous too.

But once you get in there, you're going to be fine.

Uhm?

So I'm gonna I've said this before, and other sessions. Apparently I didn't even remember this, but were you reminded me the other day? My piece of advice is a little specific to the application, so when you're doing those essays and you're editing them and you're asking people to read them, whether it's like a parent or a friend or something like that, I'd also recommend asking people that you don't necessarily know and that like they don't necessarily know.

You very well. So for example on my essays and on a lot of my essays. Actually for all a bunch of different opportunities.

Uhm, I've asked my mom's coworker to read over them and tell me like what she thought, because I don't know her very well and she doesn't know me like perfectly like she knows who I am. But she doesn't know all the little nitty gritty details about me. Like you know, my parents might so definitely ask those kinds of people for advice and come for help on, you know, reading those essays to get kind of an outside perspective.

Uhm, and I'd that's just advice. For anytime you're applying for something, but it definitely applies here when you're writing those essays, because it can be a little daunting and you should get an outside perspective.

Yes, and I do wanna add as far as the taxi writing goes. Like Laura's been saying you're here now so you have a decent chunk of time to get things done. But inevitably you're going to be busy and you're gonna have school and college applications. And I remember that time. It's like a million and one things going on in your head. So just try to plan and carve out a little bit of time for yourself to work on these things, whether it be every other day. Once a day you sit down for an hour or a couple times a week, you know how you work best, you know, just pick out a time.

Or, you know, you might have a little bit of time to get something done at work on it, because ultimately.

Well, I find if I'm trying to write other things at once, I just have writers block and then I get frustrated and it's just a downhill spiral but just leave yourself time and work on it. Stuff, come back and you'll come up with ideas.

Alright, looks like we're getting a couple last minute questions in here. So one question that I'll just cover real quick is do any other honors college students receive any money towards expenses? For example, students who are not accepted as a presidential scholar, so you know apply by November 15th? That is the priority deadline to get your application into Georgia State. And that is the best way to be eligible for other scholarships and awards.

That are offered to Georgia State students so the Office of Admissions also has funding for students different scholarships, but applying early, it's the best way to be eligible for those. And so, since we also have the priority.

UM deadline for honors college students that if you want to be considered for the Honors College, apply by November 15th as well, you know getting those things in getting in early is the best way to try and get those awards. So a lot of our honors college students do have awards from the Office of Admissions. And one more question that we have here for all of you is.

Did any of you bring a car to campus? Do you recommend it?

Uhm, I've done. I've been on campus without a car and I've been on campus with the car and come.

I really don't see any difference. I'm gonna be honest. UM, because you can walk anywhere you have to drive to class. UM, you don't have to drive to food places. So if you wanted to hang out with your friends in a place that wasn't your dorm, you could do that very easily on Georgia State's campus. The reason I did eventually get a car on campus was because I had to drive to my internship and so for opportunities like that, where it's too much.

To walk UM, like I had to go on the Interstate. UM, then I would recommend a car, but again, that's relative and it very much depends on what you're doing that semester. But you don't need one so you don't pay money for a parking pass.

Definitely agree with that. You don't need a car. I don't think I vibe with driving in Atlanta.

It's it's a little crazy, but it's definitely doable. You get used to it, but I personally haven't had a car last year or this year.

There's plenty of public transportation you can walk, or if you really want to get groceries and you just can't, you can't muster the desire to. I guess walk there to Publix. There's AmazonFresh. I think Walmart has delivery now, so there's ways that you can get around those things.

Who is also.

OK Laura, you want me to answer some of these last minute ones.

Rodney King.

Yeah, let's just go ahead and answer these last ones I can answer the one how many presidential scholars are currently at Georgia State. We currently have 31 better in the program. Fine, you want to take the next step.

Yes, so one question was if you aren't accepted into the Honors College, could you still be accepted into the main college? Yes, and on top of that you can also apply to join the Honors College pretty much anytime while you're at Georgia State, with the exception of. Of course, if you're getting ready to graduate so you know there are ways to join. We put an application on our website March 1st to May 1st for students who aren't accepted as first year students and want to join later, so that's always an opportunity in a possibility. And then the last question.

Students are notified about honors college acceptance beginning in mid to late December and then we will generally release two or three more rounds of decisions during the spring semester. While I have the floor, if you don't mind Laura, I'm also putting in the chat the link to our visit page on our website. We are going to have an honors college Open House event on November the 9th, so those of you who are curious to learn more about the Honors College. Seeing the residence halls on taking a tour of campus, taking it or the Honors College.

Facility as well as doing a little mini fair where you get to hear from different departments. At Georgia State. We'd love to have you. It is going to be from about 8:30 to 1:30.

Uhm, so you can go on the website in the chat and register there.

I am also just going to drop the link to the presidential scholarship page. I'm sure you all have seen this page, but hopefully this session has convinced you to be a presidential scholarship applicants. So if you've not started your application, please go ahead and begin your application. You can start it and then return to it later on. That's absolutely no problem, and if you do have any questions beyond this evening, hopefully you were able to get a whole lot of questions answered and a lot of really great.

Information and thank you to our students for providing a while that really great student insight.

Uhm?

But if you have any further questions or you have questions that are really unique to you as an applicant that you wanted to ask, feel free to give us a shout at presidential scholars at gsu.edu. We're more than happy to answer all of your questions, but until then, remember application deadline is November 15th for both your common app and your presidential scholar scholarship application, and we are so looking forward to reading your essays and learning all about you. And so we hope that.

We will see applications from all of you and we hope that you will choose Georgia State and the Honors College is the place that you want to call home for the four years of your undergrad. So thank you all so much for our our panelists for Brian and thank you all for attending this evening. We hope it was a good time. Have a wonderful evening everyone.

Bye, thank you for your time.

Bye.

Just hit your broadcast later.

You yeah, you can go ahead and exit.

Bye guys.