Harper College will be closed Monday, May 26, in observance of Memorial Day.
Harper College student Adin Rehberger remembers the excitement of visiting campus when he was in grade school. As a tour guide, Adin enjoys telling young students about his Harper experience.
Kailey Sohn has gotten pretty good at walking backwards. On a recent Friday morning, the 21-year-old Harper College student is backpedaling alongside a construction site, her gaze focused on the 22 fourth-graders on her campus tour, making sure they stay safely together.
When Kailey hears some of the kids, who attend Euclid Elementary School in Mount Prospect, singing as they round an orange barrier, she asks, “Are you practicing a song from chorus?” The young students stop just long enough to tell her yes. More join in while others pepper their tour guide with questions about when she was in fourth grade.
As she shares her memories, Kailey turns her head just enough to make sure she’s still on the walkway to Harper’s Avanté Center. Because Kailey is also from Mount Prospect and attended Euclid, the group has been asking about teachers that she remembers. They’re clearly excited to connect with a college student who also knows their school.
Not too many years ago, Kailey was just like them – a fourth-grader from Euclid Elementary eagerly following a Harper student as they led her class to activities and points of interest on the Palatine campus. She remembers being impressed at how big Harper was and playing games in language classrooms. And Kailey said that the tours (she also came in eighth grade) helped her decide to become a Harper student after high school.
“I knew Harper from personal experience, and I had a rapport with this school,” said Kailey, who is studying early childhood education. “Once I enrolled, some of the memories from the tour came back to me.”
Because Kailey Sohn once went to Euclid Elementary School, the Harper student was able to make a special connection with the fourth-graders on her school tour.
Harper’s school tours leave a lasting impression on elementary and middle school students, said Community Relations Manager Amie Granger, which is by design. The idea behind these tours is to allow young kids to have positive experiences on a college campus and begin to see themselves as future college students.
“The overall goal is to have students understand that college is possible for them,” Amie said. “This is not an admissions goal. It’s not about Harper; it’s about having an experience on a college campus that is accessible to them.”
The tour program began a little more than a decade ago. In the 11 years since, the tours have included more than 28,000 young students, growing from 300 annual visitors to nearly 4,000.
On most Fridays during the fall and spring semesters, Amie’s team coordinates tours with schools in Harper’s district. Classes spanning fourth to eighth grade arrive for a large group presentation helmed by energetic Outreach Specialist Paige Coe. After giving a brief overview of how college is different from grade school, she encourages the kids to ask questions of a volunteer panel of Harper student tour guides. They eagerly comply:
“How many classes do you take?”
“What time do you wake up?”
“Do the classes get harder?”
Every student who asks a question receives a Harper T-shirt. Then, individual classes split from the big group to follow student tour guides to a variety of buildings on campus for a range of activities led by Harper faculty, staff and student aides – from demonstrations in the HVAC lab to interactive presentations about AI to games in the Health and Recreation Center. Between stops, the guides make sure to route past points of interest. Some of the spots always draw a reaction (“There’s a Starbucks on campus!?”) while others depend on the kids’ specific interests.
Because Ariana Alarcon is studying biology, she shared some of her experiences in Harper's science labs with her tour group.
While leading a tour for a separate class from Euclid Elementary, Harper student Ariana Alarcon learned that some of the fourth-graders were particularly drawn to science. On the way to the group’s next activity, she improvised a detour past Harper’s zoology and anatomy labs.
“Do any of you know what a cadaver is?” asked Ariana, who is set to graduate with an Associate in Science degree in molecular and cellular biology. When she gave the answer and explained how cadavers help anatomy students at Harper, a spontaneous discussion bloomed.
“My dad said he’s going to donate his body to science,” volunteered one student. “My mom wants to be a tree when she dies,” chirped another one.
“You never know what we might talk about on a Harper tour,” Ariana shrugged and laughed, before encouraging the students to settle down before leading them to a computer lab in Building Y.
Ariana, 20 from Wheeling, remembers being surprised at how modern Harper looked and felt when she visited in fifth grade. Having seen how stodgy college usually looked on TV, she was impressed not just by the campus, but by getting to tour the metal fabrication and graphic design labs. Now she gets to bring students to those locations and witness their wide-eyed reactions.
“I get to explore areas of campus that I would have never seen,” she said about her experience as a tour guide. “And I love kids. I don’t otherwise work with them or volunteer with them, so it’s a great opportunity.”
Kailey Sohn (from left), Adin Rehberger and Ariana Alarcon all visited Harper as elementary school students because of the school tour program. Not only did all three become Harper students, they each volunteered to become tour guides.
Adin Rehberger also enjoys the chance to work with kids. The 19-year-old, who will graduate in May with an Associate in Applied Science degree in fire science technology, said that being a tour guide has increased his confidence.
“After helping to lead more than a dozen tours at Harper, being a tour guide has helped me get better at starting conversations and not be so timid,” said the Palatine resident, who also visited Harper on school tours as a youngster. “I was in their positions once. I want to give back and give as good of a tour as I got.”
That seemed to be the case on a recent Friday, when one Euclid Elementary fourth-grader asked what was going to happen after lunch.
“You go home,” Adin smiled.
“Awwww,” replied a group of kids, not ready for their tour to end.
After answering questions about what he does in his free time and the many Harper students who work on campus, it was Adin’s turn to ask questions on the group’s way to lunch:
“Does anyone have siblings at Harper?”
“What do you think you want to be when you grow up?”
“Do you know Harper College’s full name?”
They passed a bust of the college’s namesake, William Rainey Harper, on their way to Building A to get pre-ordered sandwiches from the campus Subway. Sitting at long tables, conversations erupted among the fourth-graders about what they saw that morning.
“This group was wonderful, but I find that if I’m ever having trouble connecting with the kids, I just ask about them and what they’re into,” Adin confided between bites. “They’ll tell you.”
So, what does Adin remember from when he was one of the kids visiting Harper on a tour?
“Funny enough, I was one of the students who asked a question – and I got a T-shirt! I still have it,” he said, grinning. “I remember thinking about how vast the college was, but also how open the student guides were. Now, that inspires me to give the younger students an honest answer about my experience.”