When friends and family come to visit UCF, it’s time to become a mixture of real estate agent, saleswoman, and safari guide in order to properly show off what it’s like to be a Golden Knight. Obviously, you want to give your visitors the best tour possible, but campus is so enormous that a comprehensive tour would require miles of walking. Plus, every minute spent strolling around is another minute not spent taking advantage of the fact that your parents are here and will buy you food and toilet paper. Given these priorities and time requirements, it makes sense to simply streamline your walking tour to hit all the major UCF hotspots, a tactic I used this past weekend when my sister came to visit.
I recommend starting off in the heart of campus: the Student Union. Show off the majestic Pegasus emblem on the floor, and share the urban legend about how if someone steps on it, they will not graduate. By this point, your visitor will probably smell the waffle cones baking at Toppers Ice Cream, and you can try to describe the indescribable glory of dollar cone Wednesdays. Next, walk upstairs to the second floor and point out the four coveted booth tables. Those guys are never empty, no matter what time of morning or night, and they’re definitely one of the best public nap places on campus.
Next, leave the union through the food court and take the boardwalk out to Memory Mall. Point out the little grove of palm trees and grass where people set up their hammocks to roast. Clearly, this is another great public nap location. Take a leisurely stroll down the Mall, and as you pass by the future site of the Global UCF building, make a joke about how UCF must really stand for Under Construction Forever. They’ll laugh and think you’re quite clever, having never heard the joke before.
Turn around and start heading back toward central campus. Take a left before the Student Union boardwalk, and walk along Pegasus Drive and show off all the fancy new buildings – Health and Public Affairs, Engineering, and maybe even take the short trip over the Harris Corporation Engineering Center for some extra architectural eye candy.
Keep walking through the older part of campus, passing quickly by the Mathematical Sciences Building and Ferrell Commons. Your next destination is the Recreation and Wellness Center (the gym) and Leisure Pool, so your family can see where you go when you’re feeling especially motivated, and where you go when life is hard and you need some cute lifeguards and sunshine. If your family is from up north, the glorious Leisure Pool may be a significant point of jealousy, so be sure to linger during this leg of the tour.
Continue on through the Academic Village, making your way to the Retention Pond behind Neptune. Explain how UCF urban legend claims that a three-legged alligator named Clyde lives there, though you have yet to see the little rascal yourself. Stare at the water for a while, then get bored, and decide the tour is reaching its home stretch.
Your visitors will now be ready for the ultimate tour conclusion. Take them to back to the center of campus to the Reflection Pond, and sit for a while talking about how much you love UCF, how glad you are they came to visit, and how you really, really need some toilet paper and would appreciate a trip to Publix in the not too distant future.
After the tour officially finishes, hopefully your family and friends have also become UCF enthusiasts, so the real last stop has to be the campus bookstore, so they can stock up on their black and gold gear. Go Knights!