TORI.TIMMONS
For over two years, I have worked as a tour guide for the Campus Visit Program. Additionally, for a year, I have worked as an Admissions Representative in the Office of Admissions and as a student director of the Campus Visit Program. My experiences in these roles have been some of the most formative and enjoyable of my college career. My responsibility in these roles is to aid visitors by answering questions and sharing my experiences. My role as a student director has been particularly challenging because I had to navigate new responsibilities, lead and train the other tour guides, all while the office experienced the most turnover of professional staff in its history. Despite its challenges, my experiences in the Campus Visit Program have been incredibly valuable to me because of the person I have become through the development of leadership and people skills.
My passions and values have been cultivated by my ability to learn more about myself through consistent challenges and to continue creating new relationships. A lofty, long-term goal of mine is to change a life. I believe that helping a student make the decision about whether the University of Washington is the right fit for them is a small way I am achieving this goal. Although I do not automatically attribute every success and failure to my tour guide, I feel joyful when I remember that she is the reason I chose the University of Washington and that I can be that catalyst of change for someone else. This role also presented me with some uncomfortable situations to navigate. I quickly learned that I am easily frustrated by (unnecessary) corporate politics and that it required different skills and approaches to be an effective leader to equal peers. These discoveries have shaped my idea of an ideal work environment and have added composure and reliability to my list of core values.
Everything I have learned as a tour guide and as a student director has been important in other areas of my life. The insights I have gained are primarily that I can tackle more than I believe I can, and that I learn effectively by diving in head first. I expected to not be able to learn public speaking skills or methods for problem-solving that easily. To my surprise, I have developed these skills without realizing it, and it has made a positive impact on my academic life, my other jobs, and my pursuit of the right career. It has made class presentations and speeches easier. It has provided me with effective communication skills that I use to convey the mission and purpose of Undergraduate Women in Business to new audiences and to teach my students in a meaningful way. I hope to apply these in my career and in my pursuit of becoming a more confident, composed, and competent individual.
CAMPUS VISIT PROGRAM
2014 - 2017
TOUR GUIDE TRAINING - FEBRUARY 2016
COMPETENCIES
Through trial and error, and many different and challenging situations, I have developed some skills to aid me in approaching problems. Vital to this are communication and flexibility. This competency is crucial to school, relationships, and work. I believe that I will continue to develop skills that further my ability to tackle and solve complex problems. Particularly, in my career, I want to be in customer-centric environments and I will consistently be dealing with issues that arise when helping clients. I certainly have the internal motivation to continue pursuing the skills related to this competency because I am passionate about solving the problems that my clients and customers face. Despite my motivation, I do not always have the confidence to execute, whether it is because of my lack of expertise or the caliber of my colleagues. Problem solving has aided me as a teaching assistant, in academic group projects, and in my personal relationships. This skill has made me more resourceful and has challenged me to act in ambiguous situations. I believe that nothing is more important than this as I enter the workforce and a new chapter of life.
At the core, my roles with the Office of Admissions are about helping others. This can look like talking about what student life really looks like on campus, or providing resources for other guides to feel prepared and confident, or coaching someone through the admissions decision appeal process. This competency is one I hope to continue developing throughout my life. It represents many of my values including relationships, altruism, and compassion. My ability and desire to help others stem from my values and my passion for helping others has become a theme in my commitments and in my goals for the future. Where I hope to expand my efforts is in philanthropy. While I am involved in philanthropic efforts now, I find that I primarily am helping others in ‘job’ type roles, which means I have not yet arrived at altruism.
Through required training sessions for tour guides and conducting campus tours, I have learned how to manage a group, ask for input, and cater the experience accordingly. I am grateful that I have not yet been in a situation while facilitating either of these groups in which the group was not inclusive. We have struggled with how to talk about difficult things regarding diversity and inclusion, but I have navigated these issues by asking individuals in the group who have greater expertise to help lead those discussions. Because I value expertise, and have sought the help of others since I am not always the expert, our discussions have been productive and meaningful. At first, I found it difficult to facilitate training sessions because I could not always control how much input was being given and it was challenging to keep a group of outgoing, extraverted tour guides on track at all times. Conversely, my tours were often quieter. I would be concerned that I wasn’t getting enough input from visitors and not catering the experience enough for them. In the last two years, I have learned to ask for input in controlled settings, for example putting a time limit on the diversion from the discussion. This has helped in professional settings because I have a better understanding of the situations in which it may be appropriate to offer input, and when it is time to sit down and shut up!
In my role as student director, I am a liaison between the tour guides and the professional staff in the Office of Admissions. As a result, I have often had to advocate for the guides’ opinions and views to our program director. I have found this to be easy in terms of understanding and relaying these opinions because they are often views that I also hold. The challenging part has been finding a balance between advocating enough and knowing when to stop pushing for a certain concern. For similar reasons, the reverse has also been very challenging. Trying to remain impartial to the issues at hand has been the best way to communicate them effectively in either direction. I can imagine that business and work in general sees a lot of these situations. Learning how to navigate them better, and knowing I need more practice, was difficult but fundamentally important to both my values and my personal and professional goals.
Before my role as a student director, I was unaware of the politics at play among the professional staff. I had also never led peers who had equal or greater experience in the program. I have really struggled with how to act around my peers because I felt like I needed to remain serious or professional at all times in order to earn the respect for my authority. I was easily frustrated when things I could accomplish quickly on my own would take weeks and the approval of more and more people. I value efficiency, so this was a particularly difficult system to which I had to adapt. I still have a lot to learn with regards to navigating corporate politics and using it to my advantage, but having been exposed to power dynamics for the first time in this role, I have learned how to recognize the implicit hierarchies of power and how I can still accomplish things despite inefficiencies.
Although my experience with the Campus Visit Program has comprised much more than giving tours, that is by far my favourite part! The other most important parts of my experience have been getting students excited about the school and getting to interact with visitors. Last but not least, my fellow tour guides have been the lifeblood of this whole opportunity and I have learned so much for each individual that makes up our family. Below, I have also included one of my main projects as a Student Director of the program. Each quarter, I contact professors and create the Drop-In Class List for visitors.