Millikin’s small size makes it accessible for students, specifically students from around the Decatur area, and families to take a guided tour or self tour around campus.
Students who are interested in a particular major are able to take a tour of the facilities, especially the school of theater and dance. It’s building a center for the dance and then the school of art and creative media, the Kirkland fine arts center.
Campus visits were meant to be very informative and insightful for prospective students and families who are considering the university but sometimes it feels invasive as a college student and feels like I’m an animal in a zoo.
As an art major who takes studio classes, I have studio space in KFAC and these spaces are very personal yet are open for anyone to see at the same time. These studio spaces showcase everyone’s work that they let people see and for people to look around and gander.
These spaces have at least three walls, and just like an animal behind a glass window, and you have a small crowd of people looking at you and gazing at your environment.
This past campus visit day highschoolers did not have school, so there were a lot of students and their parents on Millikin campus. When there’s a day like this, the cafeteria brings out their best food, having anything other than melons in the salad bar. You see people walking around with the plastic white bag bearing Millikin on the front given to you filled with papers and information about where to go on campus and what to expect.
I personally get nervous when I hear that there are people going through the studio and they’re on a tour or they’re looking around because my art is an extension of who I am and so people are just looking at that and perceiving everything around me.
But there are moments like these where I’m in the right place at the right time, and I’m excited to see if these students decide to choose Millikin. My professor walks in through the studio with about 10 prospective students, and a few other parents, and they’re in awe of looking at everyone’s art, and seeing the projects that everyone is doing. They paused for a moment in my space because I was in it, but also saw the art that I had hung up on the wall and there was one student that complimented my work, and there was another student that asked to take a picture of my art with good intentions, I assume. I was surprised that someone asked me that, but I gladly said yes and I let them take a picture and at this moment I decided to give them my art Instagram.
But something really interesting about this moment is that I was the highschooler visiting schools, and being in a place that is foreign to me, it was definitely seeing the people passionate about what they’re doing in the school that made me decide to choose Millikin, not only for its facilities and scholarship.
