In late October, NHCC held an Instagram takeover with three students from the Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT) program. The students took us behind-the-scenes and shared what a typical day looked like from their perspective. In their one day takeover, these students truly enlightened us and knocked it out of the park!
View the posts from their takeover below!
Prior to the takeover, NHCC shared photos and IG handles of the students, with the post caption reading, “Tune in tomorrow, when three medical lab technology (MLT) students will be taking over our IG account! They’ll give us the inside scoop on what it’s like to be an MLT student at NHCC! #nhcctakeover."
MLT student, Vera kicked off the takeover with an introduction video! The caption read, “Hi everyone! I’m Vera! I’m an MLT student at NHCC, this is my 2nd year. And all that I can say is that it has been the best 2 years of my life! I absolutely love North Hennepin Community College and I’m so excited to see where all of this awesomeness takes me! The lab is SO fun! Stay tuned and follow along about what a typical lab day looks like 🥼 🧪 🧫 #nhcctakeover."
After her introduction video, Vera posted a quick panorama video of her laptop and her study spot when she arrived on-campus in the early morning. The messaging read, “5am wake up. 6:30-10am study. Then lecture from 10am-12pm and lab from 12-2pm!”
Vera then posted another quick, panorama video of her laptop and her notes for studying spread out across the table. The messaging read, “Biochemical testing today.”
Next, Vera posted a photo of a classmate using a piece of lab equipment. The messaging read, “Risa preparing to test reagent on the Beckman ACCESS-2 Immunochemistry Analyzer. I’m so grateful we have the opportunity to use such incredible instrumentation and machinery over here in the lab at NHCC!” She also shared a nice shot of the BHCC hallway, with the messaging reading, “MLT building (BHCC) has the best windows.”
Vera added a photo of her class sitting in the Campus Center cafe to our Instagram Feed. The caption read, “Our wonderful MLT day class! Our Professors always know what we need. And we needed a taco break yesterday! We all had so much fun and enjoyed each others company in between class and lab. These fabulous faces will be doing tons of biochemical testing today and we’re all very excited about it! #nhcctakeover."
A little while later, Vera shared a short video of students moving throughout the MLT lab and looking over their notes. The messaging read, “Now we get ready for lab!” Lab coats on, prepping our materials, and reading our procedures.”
During her lab, Vera posted a carousel to our IG Feed. It consisted of a short video, a student photo, a boomerang video and a photo of a table. The carousel post showed students learning with colored notecards in the lab and the caption read, “Here is our MLT class doing an activity that our AMAZING Program Director put together for us - we are matching up biochemical tests along with their media name, what they are looking for, and the reagents added! Ashley (our director) always ensures we are understanding the material properly by putting together activities like this for us. Thank you Ashley! Everyone needs a professor and program director like you! So creative and fun and we always learn what we need to know! #nhcctakeover."
For her next IG Story, Vera shared a photo of Ashley preparing what look like blood samples in Petri dishes. The messaging read, “Ashley -Our MLT Program Director. The most supportive and kind professor. Ashley always makes sure that our clinical microbiology lab is set up and easy to understand.”
Vera liked sharing the first carousel post to our IG Feed, she did it again! This time her carousel was even longer. It had 7 videos, a boomerang and 2 photos, the caption read, “This is a series of testing that is done in the Clinical Microbiology lab ~ Some results are just stunning! ✨💗🧡 check out that fire-y Pink and Orange tube that produced a positive Urease test! 1st video - Ashley (Program Director) is creating Organism to be tested. 2nd video - Vera is streaking a plate right away to see if organism will grow. 3rd photo - the beautiful positive urease test. ❤️🔥4th video - Nathan is performing the Phenylalanine Deaminase test. 5th video - getting ready to do colony morphology on each plate so that we can correctly identify organisms. 6th video - entire MLT day class working hard on each procedure. 7th video - Sarah discussing what she is doing to perform the Citrate test. 8th boomerang - Yusuf in his element getting set up for procedures! He’s so organized and diligent! 9th video - Ashley is explaining the API strip reading to us. 10th photo - Vera is performing colony morphology. MLT is so fun! #nhcctakeover."
Next Vera adds a boomerang video of test tubes to our IG Stories. The messaging read, “It’s a baby tube inside of a tube…wait what?! Just kidding…this is nitrate testing.”
Vera films her classmate, putting a swab into a test tube and asks him, “Which test are you working on?” The messaging read, “Kevin is performing the Urease test.”
While in the lab, Vera took a photo of two of her classmates sitting together. The messaging read, “Nathan and Libby incinerating their loops and needles to sterilize, so there isn’t any more bacteria/organism.”
Next, Vera shared a photo on our IG Stories of two green test tubes. The messaging aligned seperately to each tube, reading “Negative citrate” and “positive citrate.”
For Vera’s last carousel of the day, she posted 4 photos and 1 video in the lab to our IG Feed. The caption read, “API testing! Us MLT students had so much fun with this specific test! We set it up yesterday, incubated it for 24 hours and read the results today! It was fun to understand the principle behind the test and see our results come in to play accurately. Woohoo! The lab is so fun! 🤩🫶🏼✨🧠🦠🥼🤍 #nhcctakeover."
Spicing things up for her last IG Story of the day, Vera posted a video of herself paging through printed PowerPoint notes, set to the song, Party Time by Black Box. The messaging read, “What a PowerPoint looks like for MLT lectures + labs. Very informative and to the point -Grateful that our professors clearly state the objectives we need to know for our exams and ensure we will be great lab techs out in the real world!
To end Vera’s daytime portion of the MLT takeover, she posted another photo with her class and director in the lab. The caption read, “MLT students - I’m grateful for you! Ashley, Andrew - we are so grateful to you! All of your help and support, it’s overwhelming! NHCC - we are thrilled to be students here and in such a prestigious program! Thank you for watching the MLT day class have the time of their lives today 😍 stay tuned for the evening class! They are just as fun!!!! #MLTrocks #nhcctakeover."
Next, evening MLT students, Pa Zong and Madison took over our IG account. First posting a photo of their notes and computer! The messaging read, “ Evening class is beginning!! Lecture to start and then lab!”
The evening takeover started with a little poll on NHCC's IG Stories. A photo of a pink Petri dish was shared, with a question next to it that asked, “Is this a lactose fermentor?” Our followers on IG could answer “Yes” or “No." 77% of respondents answered “Yes” and 23% of respondents answered “No.” There were 13 votes in total.
With such a fun poll, they decided to do it again! This time showing a photo of an orangey looking Petri dish, with the same question next to it, asking, “Is this a lactose fermentor?” Again, our followers could pick an answer of “Yes” or “No.” The second time around, 47% of respondents answered “Yes” and 53% of respondents answered “No.” On this poll there were 15 votes in total.
Wrapping up the polls and responding to followers with the correct answer; Pa Zong and Madison shared another photo of the two Petri dishes. The messaging aligned to each dish, reading, “Yes! The fun pink color means lactose was fermented” and “No :( yellow means no lactose was fermented.”
Posted to our Instagram Feed, the five photo carousel showed microscopes, smiling faces, Petri dishes, student testing and even bacteria on a computer! The caption read, “Evening class was loads of fun! Lab went smoothly which is always nice and Ashley pulled up a slide of gram negative rods which was cool because the cultures we were working on would look very similar if gram stained on a slide! Thank you for following us on our takeover! We hope you have a better idea of what the MLT program can be!”
For one of their last takeover posts, the students shot a video in the BHCC hallway. The messaging read, “Campus is nice and quiet when we leave!” Adding to it, a timestamp on the IG Story read 8:00pm.
The last IG Story from our evening students showed a photo of the BHCC building at night, from the sidewalk. The messaging read, “Thanks for following us on our takeover!! It was a pleasure!!! #MLTprogram.”
The next day, to tie up the MLT IG takeover into a nice bow, NHCC posted a photo of the three students to their Feed. The caption read, “Shoutout to Vera, Madison and Pa Zong for hosting yesterday’s #NHCCtakeover! Thanks for following along, hopefully you enjoyed the inside look at being an MLT student at NHCC!”
Looking at the Takeover Results:
On NHCC’s Instagram Feed
- Vera’s introduction video got 32 likes (The Most Liked Post From The Takeover).
- In 2nd place at 28 likes were Vera’s lunchtime MLT photo & the evening students lab photo.
- Vera’s intro video had 33 interactions (The Most Interactions From The Takeover).
- In 2nd place at 21 interactions was Vera’s lab testing carousel video.
On NHCC’s Instagram Stories
- The second IG Story poll on “Is this a lactose fermentor?” Had 135 actions taken from it.
- The IG Story of BHCC outside at night had 128 actions taken from it.
- The IG Story of BHCC’s hallway had 125 actions taken from it & it reached 109 accounts.
- The IG Story of the negative and positive citrate tests had 122 total actions taken from it.
On NHCC’s Instagram Account in General
From Oct 26-27:
- 55 accounts engaged with NHCC’s Instagram account. That is up 2,650% versus Oct 24-25.
- NHCC's account reached 391 different IG accounts. That is up 48.1% versus Oct 24-25.
- NHCC's account engaged with 400% more accounts that weren’t following us vs. Oct 24-25.
- NHCC had 126 content interactions, which is up 3,050% versus Oct 24-25.
- Also from Oct 26-27 NHCC had 104 Post interactions.
Collaborating with the MLT department on this takeover was a treat! We look forward to showcasing other programs through takeovers and we'd love to hear if you have any student recommendations! Think a takeover in your department would be a success? Reach out to us!