Dartmouth First-Year Trips 2019 | Behind the Scenes!

Just a peek into the lives of Directorate members, croolings, and trip leaders in the late summer of 2020. Trips takes months (and years) of planning, hundreds of volunteers, and, according to this video, a bit of dancing. All of this effort goes into welcoming first-year students ("trippees") into Dartmouth. We try to ease their fears, discuss difficult topics, challenge preconceptions and stereotypes, and try to make the outdoors as accessible as possible.

I personally had not gone on an outdoor excursion until my first-year trip many moons ago. It's crazy to me that it's been 5 years (!!!) since I was a first-year student. Trips has taught me so much. If you're a potential volunteer checking out this video to see what it would like to be a volunteer, I urge you to apply :) this program will help you become a better leader, community member, active listener, outdoorsperson, and friend. If you're a first-year student or prospective student looking at this, I hope you see how much effort goes into welcoming you into the school and feel a little bit more excited for your eventual first day on campus! If you're an ex-volunteer like me, hey, let me know if this looks much different from your experience or if it pretty much is the same thing :)

More info:
Trips is organized by the Director and Associate Director (which is what I was for 2019) and a Directorate of coordinators, trip leader trainers, croo captains, and other important Trips community leaders. Croos help with logistics, like organizing food and activities, while Trip Leaders lead their trippees through their trip. You can find more information about Trips here: http://outdoors.dartmouth.edu/firstyear/