Tag archives: college
You’ve probably noticed that the column looks a little bit different in 2022, huh? Well, I’d like you to know that the team behind the Dear Montecito column – that is, me and my caffeine persona – appreciate your continued readership as we find our voice. The truth is that shifts in identity have a […]
The next time you drive to campus, you’ll discover beautiful new kiosks featuring sandstone, greenery, and vine-covered trellises. Westmont has widened each entrance and designed the kiosks to better protect the campus. “We’ve always had an open campus, and anyone who wanted to visit could make their way up the hill,” says Doug Jones, vice […]
A 2007 study from the Community College Journal of Research and Practice noted that 87% of students surveyed were experiencing moderate to high levels of stress. To cope, students reported enjoying exercise and talking to friends, but cited that they would often use alcohol, cigarettes, and hard drugs to self-medicate. Given our understanding of the […]
The air smells like printer ink and young people around the country are biting their nails. It’s that time of the year again: Admissions Season. If there’s one thing I have learned from studying abroad, it’s that Americans truly have some cultural quirks. One of those cute little oddities is the way we handle college […]
The Westmont Downtown semester program has become an important link between the college and the Santa Barbara community. With the acquisition last summer of a second building on Anapamu Street in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara, Westmont has the opportunity to extend its reach even further. Rick Ostrander has assumed the new position of […]
Marianne D’Emidio-Caston, who served the local education community for more than three decades, received the Westmont Education Department’s 2021-22 Excellence in Education Award. D’Emidio-Caston, who most recently directed student teaching at Antioch University Santa Barbara, spoke to Westmont education students, encouraging them to find a trusted, long-term professional partner to “grow with and, more generally, […]
It’s December and all around you everybody is caroling and decking the halls and eggnogging and generally getting into the holiday spirit. But not you. You have a high school senior and that can mean only one thing: Your house is filled with the loud, desperate angst of a teenager going through the final agonizing […]
“Engineering is so hard you have to have fun,” said Dan Jensen, director of Westmont engineering, as small, remote-control cars zipped along the road in front of Kerrwood Hall. On December 6, students in Jensen’s Machine Design course raced their foot-long RC cars on a short, figure-eight racetrack as part of their coursework. A few […]
It’s midnight on the night before my son’s college applications are due and we’re huddled in his room editing his supplemental essays for 12 different colleges. Did I mention I was also eating an entire chocolate cream pie? I thought we had started far enough in advance to get these done early, but no, I […]
Grounding oneself into the realm of Advanced Placement courses, heightened expectations, and overloaded schedules while beginning the search for one’s passions is not simple, to say the least. I’m in the middle of my junior year of high school and the looming idea of college that was always in the back of my mind has […]
MIT’s earth, atmospheric sciences department just cancelled a lecturer on climate because the speaker, at another venue and on a different subject, expressed an opinion arguing that universities are too obsessed with “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI “which threatens to derail their primary mission: the production and dissemination of knowledge.” That cancellation actually proved […]
Don’t you wish there was a cute, little dog like Toto who could just pull back a curtain and reveal the secret to how this confusing, murky college admissions process works? So you could see that the smoke and mirrors and prestidigitations involved weren’t so scary and intimidating after all. That lurking behind the collegiate […]
When my kid was 10 months old, I walked into my neighborhood bank and asked to speak to my banker, “Roge.” No “r” on the end of that, just “Roge.” I asked “Roge” how much money I would need to save to send this pipsqueak to college in 17 years. “Roge” started banging away at […]
Recent college and university annual rankings continue to affirm Westmont as one of the top Christian liberal arts colleges in the nation. Payscale’s 2021 Best Universities and Colleges by Salary Potential shows that mid-career Westmont alumni, including those with a graduate degree, earn a median income of $127,700 after more than 10 years in the […]
With great appreciation, Westmont announces two major gifts totaling more than $15 million, the two largest cash gifts in college history. In late August, Westmont received $8.2 million from Ed and Mollie Miller, the largest single gift ever. It supports the Paul Raymond Miller Scholarship Endowment, named in honor of Ed’s father and originally established […]
Imagine a kid. He’s your son, and he has big plans. He wants to attend college, launch a startup, and make it big. He wants to change the world. He’s always been like this. He always aims high, and he usually succeeds, even when the odds are stacked against him, which they always seem to […]
About 410 new students, who include 58 new transfers, begin their journey at Westmont Thursday, August 26, moving into residence halls and enjoying several days of welcoming activities during Orientation. “This class has persisted through the pandemic and arrives with high energy and optimism to live and learn in person in real community,” says Irene […]
Westmont College and Young Life Southwestern Division have awarded full scholarships to Arath Gomez of Santa Barbara, Destiny Mitchell of Victorville, and Serena Nohmeh of Reseda. Young Life Urban Leadership Scholarships provide funding for each student to attend Westmont for four years. This joint effort encourages students who have benefited from Young Life to remain […]
Years ago, after graduating from college, I went through a six-month period where I suffered from blood-curdling, ghastly nightmares — where I dreamed that I hadn’t really gotten my diploma after all. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, covers tangled on the floor, breathing heavy at 2 am, convinced I’d forgotten to do something […]
Amid a global pandemic and dire nursing shortage, Westmont’s proposed Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) arrives just in time to meet a great need not only in the Santa Barbara community, but also in California. The program, run in partnership with Cottage Health, received unanimous approval for its feasibility study from the California […]
