Students experience 'A Day in the Life'

Coastal Carolina University students hosted area elementary and middle school children for the annual “A Day in the Life of a College Student" on April 18, as part of the Dalton and Linda Floyd Family Mentoring Program. Approximately 220 students from 10 elementary and five middle schools were invited to participate on the CCU campus.

One of the purposes of this mentoring program event was to provide public school students with the opportunity to visit a college campus and see where their mentors go to school. The CCU mentors normally visit children at their school each week. “A Day in the Life” gives the children the opportunity to spend a day experiencing college with their mentors and, hopefully, spurs them to think about their own academic futures.

More than 200 CCU student mentors, athletes and dozens of CCU’s faculty and staff (including mascot Chauncey) volunteered to encourage students to succeed through education, science and artistic expression. There were also activities related to Earth Week, and each child received a book to promote literacy and reading.

Elementary students from the following schools took part: Aynor, Carolina Forest, Conway, Homewood, Lakewood, Ocean Bay, Palmetto Bays, South Conway, Waccamaw and Myrtle Beach Intermediate School. Attending middle schools were Conway, Forestbrook, Myrtle Beach, Ocean Bay and Whittemore Park.

The Dalton and Linda Floyd Family Mentoring Program is housed in CCU's Biddle Center for Teaching, Learning and Community Engagement within the Spadoni College of Education. The program encourages CCU students to become positive role models for "at-risk" K-12 children in South Carolina schools and promotes students’ success in and out of the classroom.