Interview Questions for students:
Would you say your high school culture viewed college positively?
Have any older siblings gone to college?
Was the general atmosphere of your hometown positive towards the idea of college?
Did friends encourage you to not attend college?
Was your family supportive in your decision to attend college?
If yes: Were they a major influence in your attendance of Western?
If no: What pushed you forward in pursuing a bachelor’s degree?
Did you high school have any programs that influenced your pursuit of a bachelor’s degree?
How has the financial aspect of college impacted your college experience thus far?
Interview Questions for Administrative Faculty:
Does Western provide outreach programs to high schools that reaches out to a diverse background of students to help them in their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree?
If yes: How much of an impact has this made on attendance at Western?
If no: How might one go about improving this, so more people look into Western as a potential place to go in pursuit of their Bachelor's degree?
How much financial aid (e.g. scholarships) does Western provide to its students incoming and current?
With these financial aid programs, how many students actually receive these benefits that apply?
Do you believe Western is doing all that it can to help students in the most financially stable way that benefits both the university and the student?
Do you think the different cultural programs Western has is enough to attract all different types of backgrounds to attend here?
Would you say your high school culture viewed college positively?
-My high school viewed college as something of an achievement, so I would say yes. Those that were pursuing college were super excited about moving from our small town into the big city, or across the country or wherever.
Have any older siblings gone to college?
-I'm the oldest sibling, so no.
Was the general atmosphere of your hometown positive towards the idea of college?
-In general yes. They promoted the PSAT's through our school and beyond high school and all that. However, a large portion of my small town was individuals who worked union/labor jobs. Because of this, a good majority of those who I graduated with went straight into working for a construction company instead of attending college.
Did friends encourage you to not attend college?
-I had friends that suggested I postpone attending college for a year, but this was because I had the opportunity to move to Europe for a year as part of a gap-year scholarship. Otherwise yes, my friends did encourage me to go to college.
Was your family supportive in your decision to attend college?
-Yes. I'm a first generation (soon to be) college graduate, which was important for my dad's side of the family. My mom's side expected me to go to college rather than encouraging it.
If yes: Were they a major influence in your attendance of Western?
-No, they had no influence on my decision to attend Western.
Did you high school have any programs that influenced your pursuit of a bachelor’s degree?
-We didn't have programs necessarily, but we did have PSAT's and college prep classes, which were helpful for those that knew they wanted to pursue a college degree.
How has the financial aspect of college impacted your college experience thus far?
-It's made it slightly more difficult. Since I'm an independent, I have to work 40 hours a week in order to cover my regular expenses. This has made it so I have much less free time than I'd like, but I still find time to do the things I want to do.
Would you say your high school culture viewed college positively?
- It was viewed in a neutral light. It was more like an option than something that was advocated for. A few of the teachers would encourage us to expand our knowledge and open our minds by going to college, but it wasn't advertised or pushed for all that much.
Have any older siblings gone to college?
- No, I'm the oldest.
Was the general atmosphere of your hometown positive towards the idea of college?
- It was slightly negative. The majority of people either went to community college, enlisted in the military only to come back, or just went right in to the workforce without moving out of the county or town they grew up it. The atmosphere denotes that people should stick around, even though there aren't many opportunities to expand your horizons.
Did friends encourage you to not attend college?
- No, all my friends encouraged me to get out of our little hick-town and see what the world had to offer.
Was your family supportive in your decision to attend college?
- Yes, although they wish I had attended the local community college to save money.
If yes: Were they a major influence in your attendance of Western?
-Yes. My dad got a teaching degree here and he's a fantastic teacher. I want to be a teacher as well, so knowing the quality of teachers Western produces was a big deciding factor.
If no: What pushed you forward in pursuing a bachelor’s degree?
Did you high school have any programs that influenced your pursuit of a bachelor’s degree?
- They had a class called 'Education Bootcamp', where you were basically a glorified TA in a classroom between the grades of Preschool and about 8th grade. I think you could do high school too, but no one did. I took the class and worked in the Preschool and Kindergarten classrooms, and was able to teach a few small group lessons. It exposed me to what teaching was like, and assured me that teaching was the career I wanted to pursue.
How has the financial aspect of college impacted your college experience thus far?
- I started out the school year working about 15 hours a week and am now working about 20, because my parents are already paying for my schooling, and I want to be able to pay for food, gas and rent by myself, because they have 2 kids at home still, and I want to minimize their financial burden as much as I can. I think working while going to school has motivated me to work harder, and my grades seem to agree, as last quarter I only took 13 credits and my grades ended up being abnormally low, but now that I'm taking 17 credits, my grades are in the A-B range.