Winter at Westminster

We’re gonna talk to Westminster College in our snow day segment. You normally don’t correlate the two with a lot of snow day segments, but it’s gonna be a good one. And I actually bumped into our guest who will be joining us at the Ski Utah Event, Elizabeth Rogers, was telling me about some of what they do at their winter program there at Westminster. She says it was initially designed to attract out of state students who are avid skiers and snowboarders they go to school full-time and their credits are transferred back to their home school at the end of the semester. The program is considered a study abroad alternative for students who want to ski or ride as much as possible through the season and take advantage of Utah’s powder but still stay in school. So, you want to talk about interesting programs, we’ll share the information about that coming up.

On the line with us is, uh, is this Liz? This is Liz! Alright, Liz Rogers is with us from Westminster College. I bumped into you I think at the, uh, you were at the Ski Utah Luncheon the other day weren’t you? I was not. Someone representing Westminster was there. It might have been Laura Murphy. Ok I know I talked to somebody and we were talking about this program at Westminster College and I know some people are sitting out there going okay, a snow day segment where we normally check at resorts and manufacturers, how does Westminster fit into all of this?

But you’ve got a great program. We do, its called Winter at Westminster and it’s a program for out of state students primarily actually to draw them to Utah for the famous Utah powder. And they come for Spring semester from all over the country and have basically this great experience, they go to all the resorts they get season passes, they do pretty much every winter activity you could imagine, and they love it. It’s sort of like studying abroad, but not. Yes, exactly, its like a study abroad alternative, is what we call it instead of going to, you know, France or something its for the skiers and snowboarders out there that love it and they have a chance to ski every day and their classes are all set up so that they can do that and its like being a ski bum, but you’re still going to school.

I think I can get an A in that. Parents love that part. You bring up a good point I was just thinking as a parent who has a son down at Utah Valley you know if he told me he was going to transfer for a semester or a quarter or whatever because they had a great program where he could ski or snowboard everyday I’d say mmm, how you gonna get your math and your English done? Right, right, so it works really well, its really well designed. I was also looking you said over a list of some of the activities this Winter at Westminster, run us through what a typical day is like for these students.

Okay, well, so they go to school Monday through Thursday, they don’t have classes on Fridays specifically because we have activities and we generally have them Friday and Saturday and an activity, you know, an example would be anything from going to Snowbird to learning how to go backcountry, getting a level one avalanche certification, we have a yurt camping trip, they go snowmobiling, they go to the Utah Olympic park and get some coaching on free style and Nordic jumping, they go bobsledding, its pretty much, every weekend is filled with some unique activity. And who would not want to do that, right? Exactly, it’s a lot of fun.

So, how do students qualify then? Oh they just apply, like they just apply to the college like they would for anything and then as far as getting into the Winter at Westminster program really all you need is to be really excited about skiing or snowboarding, there’s no real application to get into that program, they just have to get into Westminster for the semester. And as far as, students who want to transfer from another university or college, how do they, I mean are there any hassles on the other end when they tell them they want to go for a semester? Not usually, occasionally there are hassles with the financial aid, sometimes the financial aid doesn’t transfer, and that can be challenging, but most colleges are okay with it because it’s just for a semester and the credits transfer back to their home school and it really works quite smoothly.

Alright so Westminstercollege.edu/snow and they ought to be able to find it. Oh yeah, we’ve got a great website with all the information, the whole activity schedule, lots of pictures, how to apply, all of that. It’s very easy. Great stuff, is there a phone number we can give out if students out there want to make a call? Sure sure, I’ll just give mine it’s (801).832.2864. And is it too late to get in for this year? No it isn’t actually we’ve had students that apply over winter break and they’re here in a week, it’s pretty impressive. Yeah we guess they wouldn’t waste any time getting here. No its not too late at all actually lots of students are applying at this point still. Alright Liz thanks for sharing that information with our listeners our there. My pleasure! It is westminstercollege.edu.