Exploration Adventure: Hamilton’s New Preorientation Option

With approximately 70% of incoming freshman going out on pre-orientation trips, programmers for the pre-orientation have been searching for ways to accommodate the eager first years. That’s one of the reasons why the college has created its newest pre-orientation trip: exploration adventure, also known as XA.

Like the Adirondack Adventure (AA) and Outreach Adventure (OA) programs, XA consist of about 6 to 10 other first years and are lead by student leaders. However, the XA trips differ from AA and OA experiences, because they focus on in depth learning about various subjects in a hands-on setting with other students, and possibly some faculty, who share the same interest.

The trips ranged from yoga to learning about the history of warfare in New York state. Additionally, some of the trips, such as, Religious Diversity in the U.S.A. and American Freedom, work in conjunction with courses in the fall, giving students a chance to become really informed on the topics of their trips.

The purpose of many pre-orientation programs nationwide is to give incoming freshmen a chance to get to know their peers away from the college or university, so some might question why a student might choose to participate in a pre-orientation program that is learning based and in a classroom like setting. Annalise Curtis ’18, comments, “I chose to do beekeeping because a lot of the other trips were stuff like hiking, or rock climbing, or different outdoor activities, which seemed really fun but I felt like I could do them at a lot of different times or that I had done a lot of them before and with beekeeping it was something that I had never ever done before and I didn’t think I would ever have the chance to do again.”

Going to college is a nerve wracking experience which forces a lot of students to develop a new mindset for. It also requires students to purchase and bring a lot of belongings. Acquiring items necessary for pre-orientation trips should not be stressful. Rachel Alatalo ’18, who also participated in bee-keeping comments “going into college you already have to buy so many new things, you basically have to copy everything you already have in your house and take it with you and then when I was looking at the AA trips it looked like you had to get all this new camping gear and at the time I didn’t want to have to go out and get hiking boots and all this new gear. Also, I was really interested in a lot of the programs so it didn’t feel like I was settling at all.” Rachel participated in the bee-keeping trip, which wasn’t her first choice at the time but she ended up feeling very satisfied with her trip. She was able to work alongside Nancy Thompson, who has her own beehive as well as one of the biology professors, while also being able to spend a some time on campus getting to know where everything is, while all the other pre-orientation groups were off at other sites. She remarks “beekeeping is just not something you really get to do and it actually ended up being really fascinating and fun being with the people I was with, so I’m really happy I ended up getting my third choice!”

Unlike the AA trips, which had approximately equal ratios of girls to boys, the majority of the XA groups were mostly females. Kathrine McNally ’18, who participated in Arts and Culture in Utica, commented in regards to the gender imbalance’ “it was weird, but it was really nice in a way where we were able to just bond in an all girls group for the first week.”

 Another appealing aspect of the XA trips is that for those people out there who are not particularly outdoorsy, they have access to indoor plumbing and do not have to go to the bathroom in the woods. Students who participate in the XA trips would either stay in churches and community centers in exchange for community service work, or would go “car camping,” which is camping out of a car at a campsite where there are bathrooms with running water.

Next year pre-orientation trips will be mandatory for all incoming freshmen, which will be more work to organize and accommodate, but will give all incoming students a chance to get to know their peers and leave no one with regrets of not going on a pre-orientation trip. Suffice to say the exploration adventure pre-orientation program had a successful first year and is likely to gain more popularity in years to come.