Oh, hello, and welcome to my recruitment blog!  Over the course of the next few months I will be blogging during my recruitment travels in hopes of giving you an honest perspective of what it is like to be an admission counselor on the road.

You will follow me from the first step in the process (getting my territory and planning travel) all the way through my six weeks of high school visits, college fairs, receptions and interviews. Sometimes I will share fun anecdotes from my interactions and sometimes there will be mundane observations. All of the time, hopefully, I will give you a glimpse of what admission counselors do every Fall.

Now, a little bit about me:  I grew up in Southern California and attended Calabasas High School before venturing south to Vanderbilt (Go ‘Dores!) for my undergraduate degree in Spanish and Psychology.  Following graduation, I came back to Southern California and received my Masters in Social Work at USC.  This will be my third travel season with the University of Southern California and I have recruited in Houston, Austin, San Antonio and the central coast of California the whole time.  If a few years ago you would have told me that I would become attached to Houston, TX or get paid to drive down Highway 1, I would have rolled my eyes and not believed you–yet both are true.

If you ask anyone to describe me, I have no doubt my love of cats, Mexican food and coffee would come up.  I also am very into social media and technology and consume a ridiculous amount of online media.  Yes, I tweet and Facebook and Tumble (the verb conjugation of Tumblr that I just made up), but am militant about giving people my undivided attention when face to face.  I read a lot (summer reads have been This Is How You Lose Her, The Spectacular Now and If I Stay, among many others) and try to spend as much time outside as possible.

(my photo of Santa Monica beach from Ocean Ave)

I send postcards to friends from the road and love getting handwritten notes.  I have a fantasy league for MTV’s The Challenge.  I have been known to go to concerts, movies and meals alone in my day to day life.  If I could be Mindy Kaling I would be, but since it seems I cannot I settled for naming my dog after her character on The Mindy Project.  At any given moment, I probably have cat hair or bagel crumbs or a coffee stain on an article of clothing I’m wearing.

The above (fun?) facts about myself are meant to convey that although recruitment will be the focal point of this series, a lot of my personal preferences and quirks will weave their way into posts and form the perspective through everything comes.  I hope my experience is relatable and educational for other professionals, but also entertaining for anyone who takes the time to read about it.

By Samantha Schreiber