LIMA, Ohio (WLIO) - The University of Northwestern Ohio is getting their close up for a nationally-broadcasted TV series.
The College Tour is an Amazon Prime TV series that travels to many college campuses across the country and gets the genuine perspectives of students. Executive producer and host of the series, Alex Boylan, says the idea for the series began when his niece was on her journey to find the perfect college and didn't have the financial means to travel to a lot of colleges, so he wanted to create a show that tours college campuses, and at the end of the each episode it credits her.
The College Tour is an Amazon Prime TV series that travels to many college campuses across the country and gets the genuine perspectives of students.
Boylan is a former winner of The Amazing Race and has a long career as a TV producer. We caught up with Boylan for a behind the scenes sneak peek and asked him how UNOH popped up on their radar.
"UNOH is so cool - they just won School of the Year, and it's fantastic, but just in the sense of everything that we were looking at, in the sense of how they're talking to the businesses out in their community, and what the market needs, they're building the students and getting them ready for those jobs of tomorrow," said Boylan. "It's just really impressive, and this is cool stuff. We're talking about motor sports and automotive but also pairing it with bachelor's degrees in business. It's like they're preparing people for the race track or the boardroom, and it's just really impressive what's going on here."
Boylan also says that he knows the show is making a difference for students heading into college by the feedback from the audience.
"We get emails almost daily from families saying, 'you made me closer to my daughter', because, well, put yourself in a high schoolers' shoes -'Why am I taking chemistry? Why am I taking algebra?' Sometimes it's not all connecting as to why," said Boylan. "There are 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds watching a 20-year-old talk about where they're going in their career, and it allows them to connect the dots. I think it helps start the conversation of, what do you want to do with your life? What is your dream job? And what a perfect place to be doing an episode here at UNOH, because they're all about trying to place you in your dream job."
The College Tour TV series has been on for 15 seasons, and according to Boylan and university officials, the episode for UNOH should be on Amazon Prime sometime in the fall.
