Every year since 2010, the C.T. Bauer College of Business has invited high school students who show an interest in marketing, entrepreneurship and hospitality to visit the campus, attend presentations and participate in classes to get a taste of the programs UH offers.
Program Coordinator Natalia Lara, responsible for middle and high school outreach, will welcome schools like Dekaney High School and Carl Wunsche Sr. High School this week. Lara said this program helps showcase the college’s outreach to the community.
“It effectively exposes students to UH and Bauer for the purpose of future matriculation,” Lara said. “It also gives the Bauer faculty, staff and students the opportunity to give back.”
Petroleum engineering freshman Zachary Kerls said he wished he would have participated in this program while he was in high school.
“It would have given me a chance to see what I was getting myself into,” he said. “I feel like a lot of kids don’t realize what it takes. Having something like that helps.”
The program is expected to continue expanding, develop new relationships with Houston-area high schools and maintain UH’s relationships with current partner schools.
The program lets young students see what it is like to be on a college campus. According to Lara, it is an experience that is not only good for the students in terms of setting future goals for themselves but also gets students thinking about UH as a prospective university.
“Students are driven to attend a university and obtain the diploma,” Lara said. “Our goal is for students to want to go to college and get their degrees, preferably at UH.”
Political science junior Chloe Ruffin said she sees this program as something beneficial, not just for UH but for the economy as a whole.
“It helps new students not waste their time and money,” Ruffin said. “Instead of wasting time doing something they don’t like because of their family or monetary reasons, students have the opportunity to immediately get into something they like for themselves.”
