Virtual college field trips offered to Green Bay high school students

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) - Starting next month, Green Bay high school students will have the chance to take virtual field trips to two local colleges.

As a high school senior pushes towards graduation, the stress of the unknown can build.

“We don’t know what the next couple of years is going to look like, but that stress is there for a student regardless of Covid or not, they’ve known their whole life in a K-12 system, so that transition to college is always a big question,” says NWTC Career Coach Megan Favela, who works with high school students at Green Bay West and Green Bay Southwest.

Amidst the pandemic, NWTC and UW-Green Bay are partnering with Green Bay Public Schools to host a series of virtual field trips to campus.

The four focus areas will be Public Safety, Health Sciences, Business, and Common College Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

“Our plan, at least at NWTC, is to have a staff member and an instructor at each area that we’re looking at and we will basically be standing there virtually explaining, and then cut to the next person and they’ll do the same thing,” explains Favela, adding that students will be able to interact with instructors.

With many colleges not hosting in-person tours right now, they’ve transitioned to virtual offerings.

And Favela says that opens up a whole new world for students by not having to drive or fly to visit a campus.

“You could tour UW-Milwaukee, Marquette and UW-Superior all in the same days and not have to go anywhere, so I do think it’s been a little easier for students to do that exploring. We’ve been really telling students, do the virtual now, figure out where you want to go, especially for seniors, if you’ve narrowed it down to a handful of options, save those in-person visits if they’re not allowing them right now to the spring and summer and then you can make your decision from there,” says Favela.

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