Our last stop in North Carolina was UNC-Wilmington. While we were hoping for the warm beach weather that Wilmington is known for, it was unfortunately an unseasonably cool day. Despite the cooler weather, you could still see sand on campus, students biking to and from classes, and shorts and flip flops as far as the eye could see. There was that low-key vibe that goes along with a beach town and the relaxing pace was a lovely break from the frenetic pace of DC. Here are some highlights... 
The Watson School of Education is housed in a unique building with state of the art technology. When you walk in, a Maya Angelou quote is predominantly displayed: "Nothing will work unless you do." A few cool features - The Media Production Lab, distance learning classroom that connects UNCW with others around the world, and assistive technology classroom with technologies for teaching students with disabilities. This is one of the most impressive Education buildings we have ever seen on a college campus.
The Cameron School of Business has a Financial Trading Markets Room that allows students to follow the NY Stock Exhange. Another unique feature is the Cameron Executive Network (CEN) which matches motivated undergraduates with retired and active senior executives. Mentors come from a variety of professional backgrounds, including firms such as AT&T, Screen Gems Studios and Lockheed Martin. CEN mentors work one-on-one with students to help them develop a stronger understanding of the business world and polish their professional networking and interviewing skills. The mentoring program is very successful because many CEO's own property and/or retire in communities near the Wilmington beaches. Who knew?
Since Wilmington is the third-largest film production center in the U.S., which is home to EUE/Screen Gems Studios, the largest film studio outside of Hollywood, the Film Studies Department offers a lot of great opportunities to budding filmmakers. You may have seen the campus in WB favorites - Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill since both shows filmed on campus. Some students we ate lunch with told us that "The Rock" had been on campus recently filming an upcoming movie - and students are often asked to be extras in movies! This is an extraordinary place to study film.
As we listened to the Chair of the Creative Writing Department describe the curriculum, Mrs. Maglio began filling out her application to their graduate program. The inspirational description about having the opportunity to "make something out of nothing" had us all ready to sign up! Before you panic - she's not going anywhere. Whenever we visit colleges, it seems like a really good idea to go back to school. Do you know how lucky you are to have the college experience AHEAD of you?!UNC Wilmington is also known for it's strong program in Marine Sciences. If I had known I could "study" by traveling to the Galapogus Islands - I would have checked out these majors too! Majors include marine biotechnology, biodiversity, oceanography, coral reef ecology, fisheries biology, coastal ecology, and marine mammals.
We hope our highlights of our whirlwind tour of three UNC schools will encourage some of you to look at these schools. All three could be a great fit for the right Visi girl.
Published by KMH and TSM
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