A Personalized Campus Tour… From Home

Hamilton College offers real tours … from the comfort of your sofa.

By

February 22, 2021

Joe Largo, a Hamilton sophomore, on a tour

(Nancy L. Ford/Hamilton College)

Many colleges have been frustrated by their inability to hold safe, on-campus tours. They have responded with virtual tours, in which someone offers a view of the campus.

But how to personalize? At Hamilton College, tour guides are offering personalized tours using cameras that offer a live shot of whatever the tour guide wants to show. Tour guides report that they have had many questions on these tours -- about diversity, problems on campus, daily life and the tour guides' individual experiences with certain issues.

The tours can include residence halls and show various living spaces -- something they couldn't easily do safely with big groups. Joe Largo, a sophomore, said he even brought a tour into his own room once when his roommate was still sleeping.

Largo said that he tells tour takers that he never likes to take the same tour twice. He said that telling people that seems to engage the tour takers a bit more.

Scott Jaschik

Scott Jaschik, Editor, is one of the three founders of Inside Higher Ed. With Doug Lederman, he leads the editorial operations of Inside Higher Ed, overseeing news content, opinion pieces, career advice, blogs and other features. Scott is a leading voice on higher education issues, quoted regularly in publications nationwide, and publishing articles on colleges in publications such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Salon, and elsewhere. He has been a judge or screener for the National Magazine Awards, the Online Journalism Awards, the Folio Editorial Excellence Awards, and the Education Writers Association Awards. Scott served as a mentor in the community college fellowship program of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, of Teachers College, Columbia University. He is a member of the board of the Education Writers Association. From 1999-2003, Scott was editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Scott grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and graduated from Cornell University in 1985. He lives in Washington.