Jen Cohen

Are you familiar with the Universities at Shady Grove?

Over the last four years, I’ve asked that exact question at countless transfer fairs, college nights, presentations, and Open Houses. As a reader of this blog, you may be tempted to answer “yes,” but just how familiar are you? Do you know how we work? If so, could you explain how we work to others? Could you explain why someone would want to attend USG instead of anywhere else?

I’m Jen Cohen, and I work as the Senior Recruitment Coordinator in the Center for Recruitment and Transfer Access (CRTA), a somewhat hidden component of SAS. I say hidden because unlike the Center for Academic Success, Career and Internship Services Center, Center for Counseling and Consultation, and Office of Student Services, our most pertinent work is largely done off-campus. We help prospective students and community members to become familiar with USG – to understand both how and why it works – and hopefully to attend (or encourage others to attend) a program offered here in the process.

USG Student Ambassadors are integral in helping to promote USG

You may not know it, but you’re a recruiter, too.  If you’re a current student, when a friend or family member asks you where you attend school, you have an opportunity. If you’re an employee who works at or with USG, when you are asked about your job, you have an opportunity. If you’re a community member, when a neighbor or colleague asks you what those buildings near Giant are, you have an opportunity. An opportunity to spread the word about this hidden gem in Montgomery County that affords so many local residents with an easier path towards becoming a college graduate. But in order to do this, you will need to be armed with some tools. You will need to surpass “familiar” with USG and make it a point to truly understand how it all works. Today, I invite you to get to know USG:

• USG offers select graduate and undergraduate degrees from nine different Maryland universities all on our one campus in Rockville.
• Students apply directly to the university offering their chosen major, but on the application, they select Shady Grove as their preferred campus.
• Students take all their classes and access all services/student life here, but their professors, curriculum, and most importantly, diploma, come from the university offering their program. It does NOT say The Universities at Shady Grove on the diploma.
• Compared to the home universities’ campuses, USG offers smaller class sizes, more personalized services, reduced fees, and additional scholarship opportunities.
• At the undergrad level, all students are transfer students, starting at the junior level. This creates a greater sense of community, but also necessitates that students complete their first two years elsewhere.
• USG was founded as a way to keep talented students in the county beyond their associate’s degree. All programs offered by the nine universities at USG  have direct ties to the needs of the workforce in this specific region, making students much more likely to find local employment as well.

Students from all nine universities celebrate together at the annual USGFest

By sharing these simple bullet points with friends, family, and colleagues, you have the chance to provide them with an “aha” moment – that moment when USG transforms from a simple group of buildings into a place that allows them to achieve their educational dreams.

Invite others (and come yourself) to learn more about USG at our upcoming Undergraduate Open House on Saturday, April 22nd. As newly minted recruiters, I’m counting on you to help me spread the word!

Representatives from all nine universities will be present at the Open House, along with CRTA staff, pictured here