In my spare time as a Northeastern student, you can often find me working in the Admissions Visitor Center or walking (sometimes backwards) in a big loop around our 72-acre campus. For an hour each week, I spew fun facts about classes, co-op and campus life to prospective families visiting Northeastern. This is because––yup, you guessed it––I am a campus tour guide.
The role of a tour guide typically consists of sharing anecdotes about the friends you made freshman year or answering questions about your co-op, and after a while, us Ambassadors start to develop a bank of good answers to questions we hear on a regular basis.
Amongst the sea of “how many students are typically in a class?” and “how’s the security around here?” questions, we sometimes get bombarded with a question or comment that makes us stumble over our own backwards-walking feet. My fellow Ambassadors and I have compile this list of the best (and worst) things we’ve experienced on tour to give you a little taste of a day in the life of a Northeastern Husky Ambassador…
“A mom was very concerned about the average number of bathroom stalls in each girls bathroom on campus. We were passing a woman’s bathroom, so I told her that unfortunately I didn’t know how many there were, but she was welcome to count.”
– Victoria, second-year tour guide
“I once was asked what the wildlife was like on campus, and when I answered saying there were the typical birds and squirrels, the parent pointed out a wild turkey running around outside of Stetson East. The turkey was being chased by three NUPD officers, it was a pretty funny sight.”
– Katelyn, third-year tour guide
“Right after Northeastern cut our football team, we simply stopped mentioning anything about football on tours and avoided bringing it up. When I took one tour group into Marino and started talking about how we have 17 Division 1 teams, a Dad raised his hand and asked ‘do you have a football team?’ and when I responded with a simple ‘no,’ he gave me a strange look which was followed by a really awkward pause in my little athletics speech.. Not my smoothest moment as a tour guide.”
– Ally, third-year tour guide
“It was my last tour of the semester, and my dad was in Boston to bring me home for break. I was on tour with just this guy and his daughter, and when we got to the bookstore, I realized it was closing, and I knew my dad wanted to stop there before we went home. As I was talking to the father and daughter, I realized my dad was already in the bookstore. I went back to giving my tour, but before we left, my dad walked out and greeted us. He ended up introducing himself to the family and talked to this girl’s dad all the way back to the Visitor Center, leaving me to give this girl a one-on-one tour. It was funny though because we were both so embarrassed that our dad’s were doing this while on tour.”
– Conor, third-year tour guide
“I was once asked by a visiting high school class if we had toga parties here. I guess they had been watching Animal House… Also, a mom once asked me about the drug scene on campus, but prefaced it by saying, ‘don’t worry, I’m a cool mom.’”
– Hana, third-year tour guide
“I was giving a tour to about twenty-five people, and there was a particular father and son that kept looking at me funny and asking weird questions. At one point, when I asked if anyone had any questions, the dad asked, ‘umm yeah, are you single?’ I was flabbergasted! As everyone was looking at me nervously with smirks and raised eyebrows, he had the guts to say, ‘can my son have your number?’ I think I turned every shade of red.”
– Lauren, third-year tour guide
“I was asked about the drinking scene on campus by a dad who used the language, ‘does it drizzle, rain or pour?’ regarding to the amount of alcohol on campus… Awkward.”
– Anonymous
“I had a dog on tour once and it was really awkward to tell the woman she couldn’t bring the dog inside. She wasn’t too happy about it, but really, a dog? It wasn’t a seeing-eye dog. I also had a mom that had another son on campus for orientation, but he didn’t know she was on campus for a tour. She wanted to make sure we weren’t going to his residence hall so that he wouldn’t see her.”
– Ryan, third-year tour guide
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