Liz Jones ’18 was waist-deep in snow, facing a mountain in the middle of the Colorado Rockies. Well, it was more like a really humongous hill, but with the 60-pound sled of camping supplies strapped to her, it was practically a mountain. There was no going around, only through.
“I turned to our advisor, Jacob, and said, ‘Tell me we’re not going over that.’”
He looked back at her and told her, “You got this, Liz.”
She’d felt weak, like her body was crumbling, but she made it across, pulling a pack half her weight up and over a mountain to set up camp on the other side. “It was a reminder that I could accomplish anything,” she says.
That was Liz’s second two-week wilderness expedition with High Mountain Institute, an independent school in Leadville, Colorado. (Her first and third were hiking through canyons in Utah.) Its specialty: semester and summer programs focused on interacting with the environment.
Every year, Cary Academy invites a variety of semester programs to speak to sophomores about the wealth of opportunities beyond the CA campus. That’s how Liz became curious about High Mountain.
“I’ve always loved the outdoors. I have such a strong connection with nature – it’s where I’m most comfortable. So when High Mountain came to campus, I was so excited to apply,” Liz remembers.
Though she was nervous about going for it – she’d never left home for 12 weeks before, and she’d been going to school with the same people for six years – Liz saw High Mountain as just the thing she needed to push herself. In fact, most students who explore these experiences do so for the same reasons: It’s a challenge and a way for them to grow into better people.
Liz is just one of nearly a dozen students over the last nine years who’s picked up her life in North Carolina and dropped it miles and miles away for a whole semester.
KatE Sanchez ’19 will follow in
her footsteps – and make her own way
to High Mountain later this year.
Sonum Tharwani ’14 is another. A few years ago, during an Affinity Group discussion, a CA alumna pegged Sonum as a perfect fit for The School for Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL) in Washington, D.C. A champion of ethics, Sonum jumped at the chance.
For months, Sonum lived and explored and learned to be a vocal activist in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. She wrote a speech critiqued by Hillary Clinton’s speechwriter. Tackled global issues with classmates from all different kinds of backgrounds. And helped draft a nuclear policy that she presented to real D.C. leaders and lawmakers. As Sonum puts it, from start to finish, SEGL transformed her into an empathetic citizen.
“SEGL challenged me and changed my way of thinking. To write better policies, we have to empathize. We have to first change ourselves to become the effective leaders we want to be and that the world should have.”
It also redirected her path. As a high school junior, Sonum had viewed her passion (becoming a doctor) on a micro level – treating patients. But SEGL opened her eyes to a whole world of macro-level problems that she wants to take on. Now, she’s a senior at Emory University, about to embark on a
two-year post-grad stint to work in hospitals and focus on global/public health and policy.
“I turned to our advisor, Jacob, and said, ‘Tell me we’re not going over that.’” He looked back at her and told her, you got this Liz.”
It’s that kind of self-awareness and self-assuredness that Mairéad O’Grady, Associate Head of School for External Affairs and Sonum’s former advisor at SEGL, loves seeing in students.
“Students meet 23 other people who aren’t like them – who are on different sides of issues. By living and thriving together, each person learns where they stand. Having that confidence and strength in an ethical framework will push them to make better decisions as leaders,” says O’Grady.
That’s because, for the bulk of these programs, content and curriculum are only half the lesson. Some of the most memorable learning and experiences happen through interaction, through existing and coexisting, through being an active part of their surroundings. And, as Heather Clarkson, Head of Upper School, says, through being slightly uncomfortable at times.
For Rachel Lee ’17 and Kyle Lerch ’14, that meant spending a year immersed in German life with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX). After graduating from Cary Academy, each made the trip abroad to dive into a culture they’d always felt drawn to. (Kyle’s family is from Germany; Rachel’s parents’ international work sparked a love for travel.)
Though Rachel and Kyle lived in different parts of Germany, their experiences gave them insight into the lives of others – the similarities and the disparities.
Kyle, in the rural village of Niese, struck up deep conversations about his host grandfather’s childhood in Poland and chuckled at the American country line dancing subculture that other host family members enjoyed. (Think American flags, country music, cowboy boots, and parties in a barn.)
In Sprockhövel, Rachel, who is only a couple of months into her German journey at press time, settled into a life with a host mom who teaches circus and acrobatics classes. During her short time there, Rachel has already stretched her comfort zone by trying new things, from climbing aerial silks to shooting a bow and arrow. And she, too, was surprised by her classmates’ take on American culture.
“To them, being an American is the coolest thing. And they’re really into the clothing brand Hollister. If you’re in head-to-toe Hollister, you’re cool.”
Despite brushes with “American life”
and the similar day-to-day motions of German society, things weren’t quite
the same as they were back home. For instance, Kyle picked up on nuances of
the German “work while you work, play while you play” outlook.
“Having lived in one place all my life, I’d had a narrow sense of what is ‘normal.’ But being in a place where things were slightly different showed me what was
par for the course most everywhere and what was specific to where I was from,”
he muses.
That eye-opener helped Kyle when he enrolled in Harvard after his CBYX trip. Not only did Niese help him appreciate the comfort of home, but it also built up his comfort with being in new situations. He was more independent, more flexible, had more agency, and was more in tune with people from an array
of backgrounds.
These programs have a way of expanding students’ boundaries, exposing them to new people, and revealing their truest selves. Of changing their views, their worlds, and the way they move within them. Because that’s what happens when you submerse yourself in an uncharted experience.
Liz, Sonum, Kyle, and Rachel all either found their “thing” or uncovered a
better sense of who they are (or both).
Emily KeadY ’19, who’s joining CITYterm in New York City in
spring 2018, is also hoping to discover her passion.
How? New experiences and activities like the Brooklyn Bridge Project, in which students do an intense research dive into the Brooklyn Bridge, create an artistic response to it, then showcase it in a gallery with 29 other original pieces. Or the Neighborhood Study, when they spend weeks learning about a New York neighborhood however they can, then give walking tours to their teachers and peers.
CITYterm’s intentional focus on experiential learning means students spend most of the week exploring New York in person, supplementing what they’ve learned in a classroom.
“We’re all about metacognition here – thinking about thinking,” says Cotter Donnell, CITYterm’s director. “We’re teaching students how learning happens so they can better understand themselves as learners. When we empower them with those skills, they come out of CITYterm with a strong sense of how they learn best.”
In other words: CITYterm wants students to own their learning. Which, as Heather Clarkson says, is exactly what Cary Academy wants each of its students to do every single day.
That’s why CA has been growing its experiential programs – like Work Experience during Discovery Term and offering more experience-based options for required classes in the summer – in addition to continuing mainstays like the sophomore World Language Exchange. And it’s why faculty push students to apply to semester and post-grad programs. It’s not just about doing something cool or different or challenging; it’s about students exploring interests in ways they can’t on campus.
“I wanted to take a really big risk. I didn’t know much about myself at the time. I needed High Mountain to learn about and reflect on who I am.”
“We know we can’t fit everyone’s needs here in four years. So there’s incredible power in students saying, ‘I want to try this,’ and in going out on those big adventures. They get to learn about themselves and learn from others,” Clarkson says.
To her, that newfound ownership and self-discovery is rewarding for both students and CA. Students who go on these journeys, she notes, “are braver and know how to step outside of themselves and ask questions from multiple viewpoints. When they come back, they have a new ability to see beyond the frame of Cary Academy and to really understand experiences different from their own.” And that thinking spreads from student to student to student.
Just ask Liz Jones. After High Mountain, she would encourage her friends to turn off their phones, so they could enjoy living in the moment with one another. For her, the main goal for enrolling in the program had been to challenge herself in a way that she never had before.
“I wanted to take a really big risk. I didn’t know much about myself at the time. I needed High Mountain to learn about and reflect on who I am.”
All that happened – and then some. And she’s sharing her knowledge with others and carrying it with her through the rest of her high school years and beyond. Liz is now more thoughtful
about the way she affects the world around her, and she’s no longer afraid
to be openly curious.
Plus, as she puts it, “I try to think more about things that actually matter, that are truly important. There’s no need to turn something really small into something
big – chances are there are bigger obstacles to face.”
After all, spending six weeks trying to survive the wilderness has a way of giving you some perspective.
Now, it seems, there’s no mountain too high for Liz to climb.