By David Kelly-Hedrick, Literary Thinking and Experiential Education Coordinator

I confess as the Experiential Education Coordinator that I secretly wish and hope that students on every EBC Week experience get lost. Not terribly lost. Not dangerously lost. Just lost enough to be confused, disoriented, upended. That they get lost to meet new people and share new experiences. That they get lost discovering new places. I hope they might get lost to help find themselves.

What the Education Beyond the Classroom, or EBC experience, means for each student varies as they travel to such wildly different locations ranging from Camp Orkila to the Galapagos Islands. Our faculty keep dreaming up and creating new incredibilities for places to travel, people to meet, things to try and practice and learn, and moments to share with fellow students and newfound friends.

From Robert Frost’s Directive: The height of the adventure is the height Of country where two village cultures faded Into each other. Both of them are lost. And if you’re lost enough to find yourself By now, pull in your ladder road behind you And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.

The visual collage here may best represent an entire picture of EBC Week 2024, and of course, beyond every picture lies many words and stories. Ask an EPS student about one of their memorable EBC Week encounters. There may be a story in a book about it; and if you are curious about this article’s title, or its direct or indirect quotations, seek out the poem “Directive” by Robert Frost. Then go out and get yourselves lost on a personal EBC Week and see what you all might find.