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Sophomore Retreat
posted February 13, 2009
.jpg) Sophomores had no idea what was in store for them this year as they headed out into secluded Virginia for the Sophomore Retreat September 13.
"Despite the fact that we had planned everything, we really didn’t know what to expect," said Kristen Cleveland. "It was really different from freshman year."
Cleveland wasn’t kidding either; they really did plan everything. The students comprised three committees- work, food, and fun.
What the group wasn’t prepared for was the selection of their issue group projects.
On Saturday, each sophomore presented a heartfelt project in a three to four minute presentation.
The presentations were then voted on and put through a gauntlet of group work and planning.
As the projects were whittled down to five solid civic action projects, the students broke up into small groups to carve out the potential of each project.
The groups created a rough outline of a proposed plan to ameliorate the project, an estimated budget, a timeline, and an approximation of how many students would be required to take on the task.
“The process for choosing our groups was fun and I think we were all very impressed by the way Professor Marr went about it,” said Stephen Laudone.
Before dinner that night the groups knew their projects and chose the groups that they wanted to work in.
However, the sophomore retreat wasn’t all hard work.
The Friday night the group made it out to the site, they all played name games and had a brief introduction.
Not too long thereafter the friends were huddled around the campfire singing songs and bonding.
“It was nice to start from scratch, rekindle bonds, and forge new friendships within the sophomore class becasue we were split up last year a lot with our issue groups,” said Laudone. “It’s really as Bharat said, ‘We really needed a forced vacation.’”
Jon Baker agreed and felt like the retreat provided a time for him to spend with his friends that he didn’t get to spend time with outside of class.
This sophomore vacation was very different from the freshman retreat they experienced the year before.
“It was really interesting for me, since I went to both retreats,” said Cleveland. “This year it mixed people up and gave us a new isusue to bond over.”
By Anthony Miller
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