In GZAAT, students are lucky to have the wonderful opportunity to have visitors from different well-ranked universities in Europe and the United States to provide guidance and additional help for upcoming graduates. These visits have been happening regularly for the past few weeks, but are they practical? How could students benefit from them?
College counselor of GZAAT, Marika Tsitskishvili, states that these visits are very effective for the students who are willing to study abroad and seek interesting information on their prioritized university in the future. “The universities that represent themselves in our school have different areas of expertise and include diverse faculties. They should be very interesting for students, and similar events with this easy access level are uncommon elsewhere. We try our best to have universities with different faculties to represent and introduce themselves to students. Almost All-Ivy League universities have introduced themselves to students in Georgia and our school. Like Yale, Columbia, etc. Even Boston University.” Mrs. Marika mentions that students are the crucial reason why sometimes there are three blocks at a time where they get an exclusive introduction from a university. She also says the activity of the students during the fair. “We either have five students attend the university visits or even 70 or more sometimes, depending on their interest and charisma towards this.”
Upcoming graduates, the seniors, attend university visits actively. Even though they might not find all of them helpful, they still enjoy listening and making remarks about decisions they must make soon. But what about the Juniors? Have they gotten any perks and benefits from attending these visits?
A Junior student, Kate Gelashvili, was interviewed.
(I)-Interviewer (K)-Kate Gelashvili
(I): Kate, have you attended any university visits at our school?
(K): Yes, I attended almost all of the visits, and a couple of them seemed to have interested me, but neither provided the faculties I was looking for. Many of the visited universities did not provide scholarships as well. Most of them introduced faculties such as business and similar programs, which are opposite of what I am interested in; most of them missed a wide range of variety and versatility. Visits are beneficial in some ways but lack variety and opportunities.
(I): Do you still think these meetings are crucial?
(K): Yes, I do think they are useful because other than going to that university, you get a lot of information about what they are looking for, which could be eye-opening in a lot of cases.
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After interviewing our college counselor and a student, it can be concluded that the effectiveness of these university visits is high but may lack variety and opportunities, which
may vary for each student.
Edited by Zura Gigineishvili