There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a campus tour guide. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.81 an hour? That's $30,801 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 27,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

What Does a Campus Tour Guide Do

There are certain skills that many campus tour guides have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, interpersonal skills and listening skills.

How To Become a Campus Tour Guide

If you're interested in becoming a campus tour guide, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 85.9% of campus tour guides have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 2.4% of campus tour guides have master's degrees. Even though most campus tour guides have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Campus Tour Guide Career Paths

Top Careers Before Campus Tour Guide

Top Careers After Campus Tour Guide

Average Salary for a Campus Tour Guide

Campus Tour Guides in America make an average salary of $30,801 per year or $15 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $38,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $24,000 per year.
Average Campus Tour Guide Salary
$30,801 Yearly
$14.81 hourly

What Am I Worth?

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Roles and Types of Campus Tour Guide

There are several types of campus tour guide, including:

Guide

Role:

A tour guide takes visitors on guided tours at historical or culturally relevant sites that are unfamiliar to them. Guides share interesting information and entertaining insight into the places to provide tourists with a more in-depth experience. Following the lead of a tour guide in a foreign place usually guarantees that you will not get lost, and you will find the best spot to see and have a great meal, or a fun night out.

Guides sometimes obtain vocational training in travel or tourism, but they are not required to have a degree to hold this position. Language skills are great to have, and experience in the service industry, such as hotels or travel trades, can also be useful.

You will be walking around a lot as a guide, so make sure you are at least more fit than the average tourist if you take on this job. You should not shy away from speaking in public. Unless you advertise yourself as a Zen guide, you will be expected to keep the info and fun titbits coming all day long.
  • Average Salary: $34,479
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Tour Guide

Role:

A tour guide takes visitors on guided tours at historical or culturally relevant sites that are unfamiliar to them. Guides share interesting information and entertaining insight into the places to provide tourists with a more in-depth experience. Following the lead of a tour guide in a foreign place usually guarantees that you will not get lost, and you will find the best spot to see and have a great meal, or a fun night out.

Guides sometimes obtain vocational training in travel or tourism, but they are not required to have a degree to hold this position. Language skills are great to have, and experience in the service industry, such as hotels or travel trades, can also be useful.

You will be walking around a lot as a guide, so make sure you are at least more fit than the average tourist if you take on this job. You should not shy away from speaking in public. Unless you advertise yourself as a Zen guide, you will be expected to keep the info and fun titbits coming all day long.
  • Average Salary: $32,323
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Student Ambassador

Role:

A student ambassador is a college student usually with exemplary academic records, who helps in activities that involve helping other students with certain tasks. They are responsible for welcoming prospective students and families to campus by leading tour groups around campus, conveying information, and helping students acclimate to their new environment, especially foreign students.

They help staff with the admission or student activities office with special events such as orientation and recruiting new students through phone calls and social media platforms.

Their responsibilities build them into leaders, confident, responsible, well-informed and strengthen their verbal and written communication skills. This comes because they have to prepare themselves to answer questions by studying their school's history, academic programs, financial aid process, student organizations, extracurricular activities, and campus resources.

Some student ambassadors are paid on average $8 per hour and work about 10 hours a week, or they might be compensated by receiving tuition waivers or book vouchers. All-in-all, the experience they get builds their resumes and helps them in future careers.
  • Average Salary: $25,836
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

States With The Most Campus Tour Guide Jobs

Number Of Campus Tour Guide Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California127$37,687
2Florida53$27,039
3Massachusetts52$34,236
4Texas47$29,858
5New York44$29,782
6Illinois39$27,861
7Virginia30$33,515
8Colorado28$28,905
9Ohio28$28,090
10Georgia27$27,920
11Pennsylvania26$27,825
12Washington22$34,976
13North Carolina21$28,338
14Arizona20$28,514
15Alaska17$38,213
16Oregon17$34,881
17Minnesota17$31,244
18Michigan16$27,673
19Utah15$30,038
20Montana15$29,457
21New Jersey15$27,883
22Tennessee14$31,315
23Missouri14$29,350
24Maryland14$27,739
25Indiana13$34,393
26Nebraska13$29,341
27Louisiana13$27,362
28West Virginia10$28,019
29Wisconsin10$27,337
30Connecticut9$34,527
31Arkansas8$29,591
32Oklahoma8$28,999
33Iowa8$28,168
34Kansas6$34,586
35South Carolina6$26,733
36Kentucky5$28,928
37Nevada5$27,581
38Alabama5$26,968
39Vermont4$33,872
40Delaware4$25,397
41New Hampshire3$34,041
42Maine3$31,307
43Mississippi2$28,427
44Rhode Island2$25,410
45Idaho1$34,211
46Wyoming1$31,390
47New Mexico1$31,073
48North Dakota0$31,240
49South Dakota0$28,825
50Hawaii0$32,269

Campus Tour Guide Education

Campus Tour Guide Majors

10.2 %

Campus Tour Guide Degrees

Bachelors

85.9 %

Associate

5.7 %

High School Diploma

5.5 %

Top Colleges for Campus Tour Guides

1. Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Business
Biology
Education
Mechanical Engineering
Economics

2. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Biology
Business
Economics
Political Science
Mechanical Engineering

3. New York University

New York, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,828

Enrollment

26,339

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Business
Biology
Economics
Psychology
Political Science

4. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Biology
Business
Economics
Communication
Psychology

5. Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, MD • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,740

Enrollment

5,567

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Biology
Economics
Political Science
Marketing
Mechanical Engineering

6. Harvard University

Cambridge, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$50,420

Enrollment

7,582

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Business
Biology
Environmental Science
Economics
Political Science

7. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$56,225

Enrollment

19,548

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Business
Communication
Biology
Economics
Mechanical Engineering

8. Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$18,454

Enrollment

40,108

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Biology
Economics
Psychology
Mechanical Engineering
Public Relations

9. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor, MI • Private

In-State Tuition

$15,262

Enrollment

30,079

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Business
Biology
Mechanical Engineering
Economics
Kinesiology

10. Cornell University

Ithaca, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,188

Enrollment

15,105

Admissions
Most Popular Majors
Biology
Business
Hospitality Management
Mechanical Engineering
Economics

Top Skills For a Campus Tour Guide

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 16.7% of campus tour guides listed public speaking on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and interpersonal skills are important as well.

  • Public Speaking, 16.7%
  • Undergraduate Admissions, 12.9%
  • Student Life, 10.5%
  • Quality Customer Service, 9.9%
  • Alumni, 8.1%
  • Other Skills, 41.9%

Choose From 10+ Customizable Campus Tour Guide Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Campus Tour Guide templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Campus Tour Guide resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

Campus Tour Guide Resume
Campus Tour Guide Resume
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Campus Tour Guide Demographics

Campus Tour Guide Gender Distribution

Female
Female
63%
Male
Male
38%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among campus tour guides, 62.5% of them are women, while 37.5% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among campus tour guides is White, which makes up 67.4% of all campus tour guides.

  • The most common foreign language among campus tour guides is Spanish at 42.7%.

Online Courses For Campus Tour Guide That You May Like

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1. Guided Tour of Machine Learning in Finance

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This course aims at providing an introductory and broad overview of the field of ML with the focus on applications on Finance. Supervised Machine Learning methods are used in the capstone project to predict bank closures. Simultaneously, while this course can be taken as a separate course, it serves as a preview of topics that are covered in more details in subsequent modules of the specialization Machine Learning and Reinforcement Learning in Finance. The goal of Guided Tour of Machine...

See More on Coursera

2. Blended Learning: Personalizing Education for Students

coursera

Plenty of buzz exists about blended learning and its transformational potential. But what does blended learning really mean? In this course we will explore the different models of blended learning and dive into key issues that impact students, teachers, and schools. Specifically, we will look at these issues through the lens of three high-performing schools that each use a different type of blended learning. A few of the key topics will include: - The role of the student and how to support...

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3. Speak English Professionally: In Person, Online & On the Phone

coursera

Do you want to speak better English? This course will help you reach that goal. Speak English Professionally: In person, Online and On the Phone will boost your English speaking skills. In this 5 week course, you will learn how to identify and make a strong personal introduction. You will develop and demonstrate the speaking skills for group discussions: how to agree or disagree, how to clarify, restate and summarize. You will review and practice how to give information and respond to requests...

See More on Coursera
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Top Campus Tour Guide Employers

Most Common Employers For Campus Tour Guide

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Hiram College$56,104$26.974
2UC Santa Barbara$42,712$20.534
3University of Rhode Island$34,513$16.598
4University of Nebraska System$34,317$16.505
5Loyola Marymount University$32,542$15.655
6Case Western Reserve University$32,507$15.634
7University of California Press$32,388$15.578
8Alfred University$31,598$15.1910
9Marist College$31,085$14.945
10University at Buffalo$31,025$14.925