The College Tour

Courtesy of Darby Drake

By Alannah Murphy

Earlier this year, a film crew from Amazon Prime came to Catholic University’s campus to film an episode of The College Tour. According to thecollegetour.com, this show “tells the story of colleges and universities around the world.” Each episode features a different college or university and gives an overview of the different aspects of that school. This way a student can get a feeling of what a certain college or university is like without having to physically go to that school’s campus. 

When a college is selected to be highlighted in an episode, students are chosen to represent the school and speak more about what their college has to offer. Senior biochemistry pre-med major and neuroscience minor, Darby Drake was selected to be the ambassador for research at CUA. Drake currently works in Dr. Rao’s T4 biomedical research center.

“I think we were chosen (to be featured in this episode) because we are a highly accredited university,” said Drake. “Something that is really great about Catholic is that we are a nationally accredited research university which allows us to conduct a lot of research.”

Other schools, such as Arizona State University, Baylor University, and Loyola University Maryland, as well as many other universities and colleges, have been featured on the show. 

Junior double major in marketing and entrepreneurship Jamie Besendorfer was also chosen to be in the episode. Besendorfer’s segment featured a discussion on business, and she talked a lot about Maloney Hall and what she does as a business student. 

“The filming process was my favorite part and being able to create my own scripts. I felt very professional and cool,” said Besendorfer. “Everyone on the camera crew was so nice and helpful, it is an honor to be able to showcase our beautiful campus and students.”

Drake and Besendorfer got involved with the show in different ways. Drake works as a Cardinal Ambassador and the Office of Admissions got in contact with her. Besendorf was contacted by Catholic’s marketing team, and they had her send in a voice tape for an interview. 

Drake agrees that the Amazon Prime show is important and the episode on CUA will have a positive impact. 

“It allows students to visit colleges without actually going there. I know during Covid time it was extremely difficult to travel but students still wanted to get a feel for what the colleges had to offer. It will be very impactful because I think it will attract a lot more well-known people. We are already well known but I don’t think people know how much potential we have and how many opportunities we have here.” 

Being that CUA is located in the nation’s capital, there are kids from all over the country who are interested in coming here, however, traveling to Washington DC to visit can be difficult for some students who don’t live close by. This show will not only allow students to gain all the information they would from a regular campus tour, but it also allows CUA to be further promoted to a wider audience who might otherwise never have known about Catholic University. President Kilpatrick has said that one of his goals as the new President of CUA is to increase enrollment and this show will help to accomplish this goal.  

The College Tour is still filming new episodes and their previous episodes are available to watch on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Freevee, and Tubi.