Coffee, cots, and Christian community: the NGU overnight experience
Grace Turner, Staff Writer
Photos courtesy of Hannah Pearce and @raileys_perspective_
Through welcoming student hosts and an engaging event line up, North Greenville University gives prospective students a chance to get a small taste of what NGU campus life is like.
On March 26 NGU hosted their biannual overnight with students coming from as far as Hawaii to be in attendance.
The event kicked off at 4 p.m. with a welcome session for the prospective students with information and excitement about all that was to come. Next the students met their hosts for the night through a flurry of cheers and applause.
After meeting their hosts, the prospective students joined them for dinner and then they headed together to the service hosted by the Baptist Collegiate Ministry. Students got to witness what BCM is like every Thursday with music, a message and small groups.
Senior studio art major and overnight host, Laura Cervantez noted, that BCM is a great way to share the gospel with the prospective students who are not all believers. It opens the gospel conversation between students and hosts.
Following BCM, the students attended coffee house, getting to see student performers and mingle with the community on campus. Coffee house is just one of the special events selected for the campus overnight with past overnights including a concert or a fair.
At the conclusion of coffee house, students headed into dorms to stay the night and the next morning they got the opportunity to go to class with their hosts. Students were put into to classes that matched with their majors of interest giving them the opportunity to meet professors and other students they may interact with in their program.
For some prospective students the connections they make may just be for the weekend, but for others, they may turn into friends and mentors for their college experience.
Nick Long, a senior interdisciplinary studies major was a host for the event this spring, and his commitment to NGU was solidified at his overnight experience as a prospective student.
“I committed mentally at overnight,” said Long, “That’s when I was like, ‘This is where I want to go,’ so for me overnight was really big.”
Long sees how the connections from overnight can last. His overnight host was the member of the student leadership team (SLT) in his freshman dorm and then became his graduate assistant when Long stepped into an SLT position.
One of the biggest goals of the overnight experience is for prospective students to see if they like the school beyond just its classes and books. NGU wants to give students as close to an authentic experience as possible.
NGU overnight is also a special time for the student hosts. It gives students a chance to meet incoming freshmen who will be entering their program.
Even as a senior, Cervantez said it is special to see who will be coming in the future, to tell them about her department and see who will be carrying on the legacy.
