The Mycenaean

ECU and Wake Forest are two colleges located in North Carolina and have both created virtual tours to try and get students to attend their college. Even though the tours are very different, both of the tours do a great job at showing what is great about each of the colleges. (Photo Courtesy of Trevor Darnell)

COVID-19 has made virtual tours of colleges the new normal since in-person tours are not safe to do. Two colleges that have great virtual tours are East Carolina University and Wake Forest University. 

ECU’s virtual tour has two sections: The main tour and a tour about the student life at ECU. The main tour takes you all around the campus and stops at all the buildings around the campus. 

One of the big buildings that the tour stops at is the Flanagan Building, which houses anthropology and geology classes and the College of Education’s Mathematics, Science, and Instructional Technology Education. The tour shows you many other buildings including the Bate Building (home of the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business), and the Rivers Building (houses the College of Health and Human Performance).

A popular major at ECU is nursing. There is a Health Science building located on campus for nursing. The tour shows you a 360-picture of a simulation lab and the physical therapy lab that is located inside the building. 

The main tour also shows you some of the beautiful spots around campus including Wright Plaza and the Campus Mall. The Wright Plaza is located near the middle of campus but gives a nice spot to stop and relax during the busyness of the day. The Campus Mall is an open field on campus where students can hangout. 

The student life section of the tour is different from the main campus tour because it focuses more on the housing and other things that students can do rather than the actual campus and academics. 

ECU is a little bit different than other schools with housing, having three “neighborhoods”. The three neighborhoods are the Central Neighborhood, West End Neighborhood and College Hill Neighborhood. The tour gives students a look inside of the different buildings in each neighborhood and also what type of rooms are located in those buildings. The Umstead Residence Hall is a residence that is located at the center of campus and isn’t a part of any of the neighborhoods. 

The student life tour also shows students the student center and athletic complex at ECU and the dining halls at ECU. The two dining halls are the Croatan Dining Hall and the Todd Dining Hall. 

The next virtual tour  is the University of Wake Forest. Wake Forest’s virtual tour is different from the other virtual tours that I have gone on so far because it is just one video that talks about all of the campus. The video is only around 20 minutes long but goes over a lot of information and gives a great look at what life is like at Wake Forest. 

The first building that the tour talks about is the Scales Fine Arts Center which houses the amazing arts program at Wake Forest. The Scales Fine Arts Center has multiple theatres and other places for students to learn and practice the arts.

There are many academic buildings that are talked about during the tour including Farrell Hall (houses the School of Business at Wake Forest), and Kirby Hall (houses the departments of sociology, economics, and politics and international affairs).

The tour also takes a look at some of the other buildings and areas that are located on campus including the library, the Manchester Plaza, the Wellbeing Center (student recreation center), and the arch. At each of those places the tour talks about what is offered and for some of them the history of that area. 

The residence halls are also covered during the tour. There are five residence halls on campus: Magnolia, Dogwood, Kitchin, Taylor, and Angelou residence halls. All of the residence halls are located right near the academic buildings, dining halls, and green spaces which gives great access for students. 

Finally, the tour talks about the athletic programs, the mini campus in downtown Winston-Salem and the town of Winston-Salem. The athletics at Wake Forest are a part of Division 1 and are in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). There are a variety of sports at Wake Forest including: volleyball, mens and womens soccer, football, baseball, softball, mens and womens field hockey, and many more. Wake Forest has a facility around ten minutes outside of the main campus where some of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) classes are taught. Wake Forest is located in the city of Winston-Salem and both the university and the city do a great job at embracing the arts.

During the tour whenever they show a new area, they pull up a map of the campus and draw a path from where you were to where you are now which really helps get a sense for where everything is on campus.

Overall the tour does a great job at highlighting what makes Wake Forest unique and why students should go to it.