Latitude Student Ambassador
September 2023 – June 2026
Overview
Latitude 37.8 High School is a small public charter located in the Fruitvale district of Oakland, California. The school is dedicated to serving low-income and ethnic minority students through hands-on, project-based learning; career readiness; and a low-homework policy.
Role
As a student ambassador, my job is to give tours to visitors, talk about our schools' offerings in greater detail, share my personal experiences to highlight the strengths of our school, and act as a role model to visitors and students.
Selection
To become a student ambassador, a student must be hand-selected by the school principal. They need to be an everyday leader, organized, and passionate about the school and its well-being, among other things. It wasn't until this year that I was officially considered a student ambassador. Since 10th grade, I've been doing a ton of behind-the-scenes work for Latitude and its student ambassadors, but this year, the principal formally requested that I take on a more front facing role as an official student ambassador.
Training
After I was selected, I had to be trained, which entails biweekly meetings, shadowing other ambassadors, and mock tours. During the biweekly meetings I learned the basics of public speaking, what other grades did for their projects and classes, and specific inner functions of the school. brainstorming and innovation sessions about improving the school's marketing and investment.
Process
Once I was trained, the biweekly meetings transformed into training new student ambassadors, brainstorming and innovation sessions about school marketing and investment, reflections during the big tour seasons (application season and enrollment season). Additionally, giving tours was a beast of its own.
Challenges
There are two main challenges to being a student ambassador. The first and most notable challenge is staying on top of schoolwork. Being a student ambassador means you're often giving tours during classes, which means missing hours of lessons, so it's super difficult finding the time to learn things outside of class, especially for student ambassadors that have a lot of extra-curricular commitments. The second challenge is code-switching. Since ambassadors deal with a wide range of visitors with differing needs, it's important to make sure we're meeting them where they are, in order to give them the best experience and impression of our school. To do that, we need to alter ourselves enough to meet our visitors where they're at without losing our authenticity.
Reflection
My experience as a student ambassador has taught me a lot about public interaction, marketing practices, and logistical work. I've gotten better at code-switching, making small talk, and introductions. I've also learned some of the best techniques for training in a role or skill, including repetition, association, and connection. Being an ambassador has prepared me to pitch products, welcome people hospitably, elaborate on my learning experiences with prompt.