Review: virtual guided tour
Certainly a digital tour of the university’s campus should focus on the lush meadows of our fine campus. This is the best way to attract prospective students to Tilburg. It is quite understandable that the movies in the guided tour are coated with a layer of varnish: sun is always shining on the campus, everyone is working diligently and there is free WiFi everywhere! The less glamorous spots on campus are polished or are not shown at all. For instance, the interior of building P is omitted, except the newly refurbished restaurant, which is the only part deemed nice enough to show to future students.
The virtual campus tour looks great: the movies are professionally made and accompanied by a attractive soundtrack. The layout of the site is trendy, without violating the university’s corporate identity or branding. There’s even an option to share the campus tour with all of your friends. International students can enjoy the guided tour as well, as all videos are narrated in English.
In the guide tour, students from every faculty take surfers on a trip around campus. Every building is highlighted in a youtube movie. The students that act in the clips are each representing one faculty. At least, that’s what you would have thought. Univers took the time to Google them. The university has linked three students to wrong faculties. The only correctly linked students study in the law and humanities school. The remaining three schools – economics, theology and psychology – are represented by students of different faculties.
It seems that the university’s marketing bureau is keen on humanities students, for three out of five students study at the school of humanities. The humanities students are used to represent the other remaining faculties; psychology, economics and theology. Apparently, humanities students are the most representative of students. Or perhaps, there were no students from other faculties on campus that day.
Of course, it is not a crime to ask students to represent a wrong faculty. Try and find a student who can tell a nice story about our campus or the buildings, is fluent in English, looks nice on camera and wants to cooperate. But to make the students lie blatantly – ‘I am a second year psychology student’ – is a bridge too far.
They pull the lying of brilliantly though. Perhaps this can be attributed to their connection with student theater troupe ‘de Koffer’. Three out of the five students are connected to this organization. Nonetheless, the movie clips depict the campus in a good yet idealized way. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
The digital campus tour can be viewed here.
