The USU Eastern GEAR UP (an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program) has been busy with assisting high school seniors both in Carbon and Emery counties with applying for scholarships and Federal Student Aid. This is just one of many services the program offers GEAR UP students.

Kris Alley, GEAR UP Advisor at USU Eastern said, “We’re trying to put together some summer activities here at USU-E. What we have here is our Eagle Experiences, where we’ll bring in high school seniors, juniors and let them experience a night at the dorms, kind of the cultural life at USU-E, we like to really encourage that and we try to make our own little version of it for the summer.” This gives high school students the opportunity to experience being a college student for a day.

USU Eastern is not the only university that GEAR UP students will have the chance to visit. They will be heading south to Dixie State in St. George before the end of the school year. Alley added, “During the summer we’re going to head over to Colorado Mesa, it’s really booming, it’s becoming a powerhouse in the region as far as the amount of students going there. Great programs over there nursing, radiology things like that, they’ve got a lot of great things going on over at Colorado Mesa.” The visits to various college campuses are a way for students to narrow their choices down to what best fits their academic needs.

Additional services offered through GEAR UP are preparation for high school graduation, academic tutoring and mentoring services, academic support, test preparation, career/study skills workshops and family support. Alley finished with, “Go ahead and give us a call, you can actually find us on Facebook, friend us on Facebook, USU-E website, we have our own little separate page an also you can call over to USU-E and transfer it over to the GEAR Up office.”

USU Eastern GEAR UP office can be found in the Jennifer Leavitt Student Center on the second floor or by calling (435) 613-5648.