Inspiring Opportunities: heading to college via the Boundary Waters

• Portaging across rapids
• Pitching tents in the wilderness
• Cooking over the camp fire

Probably not the way most college students picture their first week at school.  But that’s exactly what 50 or so students encountered during their first days at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University this fall.

For 19 years, CSB/SJU have offered a program called CollegeBound to students entering their first year at CSB/SJU — with a record number of students taking advantage of the program.  In all, 22 first-year students from Saint Benedict's and 22 from Saint John’s joined several upperclass student guides for a week of canoeing in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota.

A metaphor for life at school

CollegeBound is a pre-orientation outdoor experience offered through the institutions’ Adventure Programs and facilitated by the Peer Resource Program (PRP).  It’s designed to help high school students with the transition to college. “We try to use it sort of as a metaphor for starting school — different language, different place, different friends, don’t know the rules — all those sorts of things students go through when they make the change from high school to college,” says John Clarkson, director of CSB/SJU adventure programming.

The students participating in the program actually moved to campus a week before everyone else in August.  They enjoyed a pizza party as a way to get to know each other on that first night and then boarded the bus the next day and headed north. 

When they arrived, they were broken into crews of 6–9 students (men and women in separate groups) and hit the water for the weeklong adventure. 

By the end of that week, students who had never met each other before had become life-long friends. “Now, I really have these 50 kids that are some of my best friends which is so great.  Especially that first week of classes — when I would walk by the bus stop and see some of them and say hi —knowing 50 people right away makes a dent in a school this size,” explains Eric DeLuca, a first-year student at Saint John’s from Orono, Minn. 

First-year Saint Benedict's student Zuri Balmakund of St. Cloud, Minn., echoes those feelings. "We’ve talked a lot about how we never expected to become such close friends just from the trip, but we never split up.  We meet for lunch and hang out on the weekends all the time," said Balmakund.

A unique program

Clarkson says there is only a handful of other colleges across the country that offer a program similar to CollegeBound.  And the CSB/SJU program is unique in that there is no fixed route that the crews take while in the Boundary Waters.  Every morning, each crew determines where it wants to go that day. 

Some crews may chose to paddle just a couple of miles, find the nearest campsite, and enjoy the sun; swimming and relaxing.  Others really push themselves — going as far as they possibly can. 

“It's a different element we offer with our program than others, but I think it’s a good example of how that’s probably playing in college for the students as well.  It’s kind of a really neat metaphor for everything that’s going to happen to them in their first year away from home,” states Clarkson.

“That was kind of the cool part.  The whole group came together to decide where we wanted to go and how hard we wanted to work,” said DeLuca.  “And we really learned to work together as a team.  If one person was struggling a bit, someone would step in and help him.”

First-year CSB student Lindsey Waytashek, Sartell, Minn., really liked the fact that each group got to "take charge" of their trip.  "My crew didn't bring a tent, we just used a tarp.  On nice nights we could peek out and see the amazing star-lit sky." said Waytashek.  "I learned so much on this trip.  I learned communication and cooperation — both of which are essential to success in college and in life."

And with the success of this year’s trip, planning is already underway for next year’s 20^th CollegeBound trip.  Details will be released in spring 2007.

Read additional Inspiring Stories about the CSB/SJU Community.