Ambrielle Greenwood Helps Students Get to Know Clayton State and Offers to Be a First Friend on Campus for Students New to the Area
(September 21, 2026) - Ambrielle Greenwood graduated from Clayton State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Liberal Studies while working full-time as an Admissions Counselor at Clayton State. As a former student, Ambrielle knows her personal interactions and ability to answer questions from prospective students and their family members play an important role in helping people feel at home as they tour the Clayton State campus.
Breaking the ice and making people feel comfortable asking her questions is the first thing Ambrielle does when she leads a campus tour. She says, “I play a game where I ask them to guess what they think my bachelor's degree was in. Because no one ever guesses math. So, it's a really good way to get them to warm up because they start interacting with you immediately.”
Once the tour starts and students are comfortable, Ambrielle hears questions often. She says they want to know, “Do I have to stay on campus? Can I bring my car?” The answer is that first-year students must stay in the on-campus residence hall, but they can bring their car.
Ambrielle finds that families who have already visited larger universities in Atlanta or Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are impressed by the affordable tuition and smaller class sizes. A big selling point for students who tour Laker Hall is that each student gets their own room inside a suite with a common area. Not all the other universities offer that private room in their residence halls.
Clayton State also has many opportunities for new students to make friends and enjoy activities on campus beyond attending classes. Ambrielle tells new students to explore the possibilities, but it is up to them to take the first step. She said, “I tell them, we have 60+ student organizations based at the Student Activities Center (known as the SAC); there are sororities and fraternities, but you have to get yourself involved. So, you must make the choice: do you want to play intramural sports like dodgeball and volleyball, or do you want to join a group that matches your personal passions, like the gardening club for nature lovers or the comic club for creative artists.”
In some cases, during her tours with new students and family members, Ambrielle makes a personal connection with a student. One such example happened in 2023 when Ambrielle provided a campus tour for Jordan Simpson from South Africa and her father.
Jordan shared the story of their meeting. She said, “So my dad and I took a drive through here, and thankfully Ambrielle was here that day, and she was ever so gracious to take me around campus and said, ' Here is where this class will be, and this is where that class will be. And my dad, because my dad can talk to anyone, said Can Jordan have your number so she can contact you if she needs help or anything? And Ambrielle was like, "Yeah, sure." So then, for my first semester, I remembered I'd be overwhelmed and kind of like out of my comfort zone in the sense that I knew I was here and I could make friends, but I just didn't have that confidence to make friends at the time. So, what would end up happening is I would finish class early, sit in Admissions, and we'd just chat. And then later on I’d see her on tours she provided of the SAC, and I always chat with her or when she would stop by the gym after work.”
Jordan settled in and established herself as a student; she is a General Business major. Jordan shared that Clayton State has transformed her life in many ways. She said, “Coming here, honestly, it really has become like a home away from home for me. I love it here. This is a safe place. I love being around the lake. I love being outdoors. Being here has honestly changed my life so much.”
Jordan added that “In October 2024, I started working at the SAC. Since I've been here, I've become quite an integral part of the team. I started as a student assistant working mainly in the administrative suite, and then I'd fill in whenever I could go downstairs to the front desk. At the end of the fall semester last year, I was promoted to student lead. So now I help manage everyone's schedules.”
This fast friendship started with that one encounter between a student who moved to Georgia from South Africa and an Admissions Counselor chatting on a routine campus tour and, as Jordan would say, “And the rest was history.”