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MyCoE

Social media student takeover

Thank you for sharing your UW Engineering experience through the College of Engineering Instagram and Facebook account! Student takeovers show our followers—including current engineering students, prospective students, other UW departments and students’ families—a realistic representation of engineering at UW.

The story should be fun, friendly and accessible, with a mix of biographical information about yourself and facts about your time here at UW.

A man in casual clothing smiles and reaches towards the camera, framed by a social media post graphic with interactive icons on a yellow background.

Logistics

  • Username and password: will be emailed to you on the morning of takeover.
  • If you have questions throughout the day, you can text [lead]
  • Make sure to fill out a copy of the Student Takeover Agreement if you haven’t already

IG Story guidelines

While we definitely want your Instagram style to shine, we also want to be accessible to all of our followers:

  • Keep the total time of your entire story under 3 minutes. Stories should be short and to the point so people keep watching. Individual Stories can be up to 60 seconds, but the shorter, the better.
  • Use a vertical camera orientation (portrait mode, not landscape!)
  • Ensure visuals are varied and entertaining. Use filters, and mix photos, videos and Boomerang.
  • Incorporate gifs and stickers where appropriate - the UW has several! (Try searching “UW” or “Huskies” in stickers).
  • Be mindful of the environment around you when recording to make sure you can be seen and heard.
  • Follow rules set by the Instagram agreement: refrain from any posts that include nudity or profanity, etc.
  • Promote the takeover on your own social media accounts (we’ll post about it leading up to the takeover, too!)
  • Make sure to tag @uwengineering somewhere on every post so we can make sure it’s sharable across our social media.

Story outline

Here’s a suggested timeline of your story, feel free to mix it up for what works best for you:

  • Start with “Hey Huskies” and an introduction that lets people know who you are. Possible points include: what is your major, where are you from, why do you love the UW, why did you choose engineering
  • Illustrate a day in the life of a UW engineering student. Share a typical day: classes, job, extracurricular activities, hobbies, etc.
  • If you do research or are working on a hands-on project, share the experience. Be sure you get permission from your lab manager, faculty adviser or teammates before sharing.
  • End with a farewell post to thank fellow Huskies for tuning in. Be sure to say “Go Dawgs” at the end, or something with similar Husky pride!

See a couple of older takeover examples pinned on our Instagram homepage.

We trust your judgment and are excited to see your story shine!

Tips for success

Here are a few tips to make your takeover as successful as possible.

  • If you post about it before the day of the takeover to let your friends and other students know, please tag us at @uwengineering so that we can help promote it.
  • If you add text to a post, you can use relevant hashtags to get the word out.
  • Tag other accounts! Many CoE departments have IG accounts that you can tag, so if you’re filming in an MSE class or outside of an A&A lecture, give them a shoutout.
  • If you’re unfamiliar with Instagram but still want to do a takeover, let us know - you can send us the videos throughout your takeover day and we can get them posted for you.
  • And of course, let us know if you have any questions leading up to the takeover!

Additional resources