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While thousands of students at the University of Maine crammed for finals last week, graduating senior Jay-Paul Thibault was surprisingly relaxed. The 28-year-old psychology major had no finals and no papers to write, although he had just completed the most enriching semester of his college career: a three-month journey to Kenya earning the last nine credits he needed to graduate.
Through the National Outdoor Leadership School, in conjunction with the University of Wyoming, Thibault was able to earn up to 15 credits on the excursion to Africa. Thibault has taken other outdoor leadership courses with Outward Bound and UM's Maine Bound. Through Maine Bound, he discovered the NOLS program. According to Thibault, learning outside the classroom has benefits that can't be gained through a traditional college course.
"The knowledge you get is unique from what you get in a classroom, I look at it as much more valuable," Thibault said. "Sure… we went sailing, we went diving; I even did some windsurfing. It doesn't sound like something you're going to do in a college course; especially here in Maine, but the lessons and the knowledge you received were found in the actual living - communicating with people."
The NOLS semester in Kenya consisted of courses in minimum-impact camping, a method of camping that leaves the site pristine as possible. Each student had to teach two courses related to the trip. Thibault chose to teach one about elephants and one about social icebreakers, which helped group members get to know one another. Students were evaluated on their outdoor skills, the courses they taught, the application of lessons taught by the instructors and other students, and social interaction with the group, which Thibault found himself studying throughout the trip.
"I'm a psychology major, and this was quite interesting, my focus is on social psychology, so here is a unique social situation," Thibault said.
The NOLS instructors let the students take over when hiking
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and climbing. Students were encouraged to chart their own course, even if it was the wrong one, and they were not corrected unless an error in judgment put the group in a risky situation.
"They let you go in the wrong direction for a while so that you would learn from your mistakes and realize what to do the next time. This is much more effective than someone leading you all the time," Thibault said. "If someone's just leading you, you will have a good time, but you will not experience or learn nearly as much."
Thibault said this alternative form of learning is gaining wider acceptance in the academic community and he predicts that more courses of this type will be offered by more and more colleges in the future.
"A few years ago, a university would've been very reluctant to give you credit for this type of course. They would've said, 'No, we're not going to give you credit for this. This isn't a college course, this is just having fun." he said.
"A lot of colleges and a lot of schools are realizing that a classroom, per se, doesn't have to be rows of chairs with a blackboard and a professor." he said. "It's experiential. It's hands-on. It's something you take with you that can be used in the business world as well as day-to-day decision making and living.
"Having technical knowledge in your field is critical, but it doesn't always end up having an application in life. Some of the greatest benefits are the interpersonal, decision making and teamwork skills you develop. These are actual things you can use throughout your life."
The mental and physical demands on the students during the trip were great. Included in the trip were hikes up to 75 miles long and a climb to the top of Mount Kenya, elevation 17,057 feet. Before the trip, aerobic exercise was suggested for all participants. "If you're going to be hiking, the biggest thing is your cardio-vascular system and endurance in general. It's not your legs, and it's not whether you can bench-press 300 pounds," he said.
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"My level of stress has gone down, my health has improved, my diet's improved, just because when you're out there you don't have access to meat, you don't have access to junk food, you don't have access to alcohol," he said. "[With] a lot of these things, you realize after 60 or 70 days you really didn't need them anyway."
A fading, freckled tan is the only physical vestige of his semester in Kenya, but Thibault said the lessons learned will stay with him permanently. The new graduate will leave in June to work as a computer consultant in Atlanta. With more corporations paying to send their employees to such out-door leadership courses, he said the NOLS course gives him an edge.
"One of the biggest factors for people in the corporate world that send people to these [courses] are the interpersonal skills - learning how to deal with people in stressful situations and how to communicate. That was one of the biggest things for me," Thibault said. "You learn about yourself and about how you interact with people in a way that you can't learn out in the 'real world'. People tend to be more honest with you [out there] if you're doing something that upsets them, you are in a closed group were differences have to be dealt with, there is nowhere for a person to hide.
"In the 'real world', people would tend to brush it off or tell someone else about the problem. Out there we have to confront each other and resolve the issue."
Although the trip to Kenya was demanding, the difficult times gave Thibault a new frame of reference that has had a positive impact on his life back here in Maine.
"Things that would stress me out here before ... don't stress me out nearly as much," he said. "You look at it and you smile, and say, 'yeah, I've dealt with much worse.' I've gotten up at four in the morning and hiked up a mountain 17,000 feet in the sky in 20 degree weather, when it's snowing, on the equator. After that things don't stress you out quite the same."
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