Four years of guiding packs of potential Bruins around campus has left Bobbie Nickel with a collection of fond memories.
She remembers writing out a script before giving her very first tour as a nervous first-year. She remembers spending time between classes in the 10-by-15 foot windowless office in Kerckhoff Hall that is home to UCLA Campus Tours.
Nickel is one of the five graduating tour guides that have been giving tours since their second quarter as UCLA students.
Trent Hubbard remembers giving a tour for ambassadors from China with Nickel when they were both first-years.
“They … did not speak a word of English,” said Hubbard, a fourth-year political science student.
Most of the jokes and stories told on the tour may have been lost in translation, but Hubbard said he enjoyed taking pictures with the visitors and teaching the ambassadors how to do the 8-clap.
Over time, their experiences as UCLA students enriched the quality of their tours.
When the time comes up to talk about study abroad programs, Ali Karol, a fourth-year history student and one of the veteran tour guides, tells the people on her tour about her summer studying in Paris.
“It’s really hard as a first-year when you are talking about things like Royce Hall because you’ve never gone to a performance there,” said Sarah Hadburg, a fourth-year international development studies student. “Now I can pull from the half a dozen performances I’ve gotten to see there over the years.”
Nickel worked to make her tours as interactive as possible. She once singled out a kid listening to his iPod during a tour of high school students, asking him what he was listening to and if he could dance.
Soon, the entire group was dancing in front of Schoenberg Hall, she said.
“We ended up having a jerking and Dougie-ing contest on North Campus,” she said, smiling at the memory.
Christopher Handel, a fourth-year political science and economics student, didn’t have to try to make one of his tours interesting. That’s because it included actor Will Smith.
Handel gave a private tour to Smith, his ex-wife Sheree Zampino and their son Trey. They were accompanied by two heavy-built body guards.
“It was all very strange for me,” Handel said. “I wasn’t star-struck, but when I actually had to give the tour I did get a little bit like, “˜Oh my gosh, Will Smith! He was in Independence Day.'”
Most tour guides at UCLA share similar personality traits, Hadburg said. All of the five graduating tour guides said they had a background in public speaking and described themselves as outgoing, which drew them into the Campus Tours program.
Although Hubbard, Hadburg and Nickel will plan to graduate after winter quarter, they plan to return to campus in June for one last tour.
Graduating tour guides give a tour during finals week of spring quarter while the remaining tour guides follow them throughout campus in costumes, a long-standing tradition in the Campus Tours program.
After graduating, Handel and Hadburg will head off to work for consulting firms. Hubbard and Nickel, on the other hand, will begin working in the entertainment industry ““ Nickel as an aspiring scriptwriter or reader and Hubbard as a hopeful agent in the industry.
Karol plans to go to law school, but she is not ruling out the possibility of being a tour guide in the future.
“I know law schools do have tour guides as well,” she said. “It might be something I’d be interested in. Maybe after I get through the first year ““ I hear it’s really crazy.”
Nickel, Karol, Hubbard, Handel and Hadburg’s four-year stints as tour guides may be concluding, but they said their experiences will remain with them.
“The tours program is for life,” Hubbard said. “Just like you’re a Bruin for life, you’re a tour guide for life.”