A week in the woods with no phones and no showers certainly doesn’t sound like your average college course, but then again, that isn’t what AURORA aims to provide. AURORA, Penn State’s Outdoor Orientation Programs, offers 3-credit, backpacking-based courses for incoming students that are designed to empower, engage, and excite. The transition from high school to college can be a daunting, nerve-wracking experience, yet AURORA’s courses operate during that time to help students through the transition process and provide them with a solid foundation for the start of their college experience.
Since its first students hit the trail in 1996, AURORA has served countless incoming Penn State freshmen. While these are backpacking trips, they are really college orientation experiences. AURORA simply uses backpacking as a tool to push students out of their comfort zones, which leads to an increase in confidence as well as the formation of uncommonly strong bonds with their fellow group members. AURORA’s highly-trained staff of upperclassmen leaders not only facilitates the backpacking experience, but also creates an environment of welcoming and inclusion where students can be vulnerable with regard to their fears about college, open up to their peers, and build these bonds which will last throughout their college career and beyond. Through this process, students leave their AURORA experience feeling empowered and ready to take on the world, or at least the first day of college.
AURORA offers an array of courses in a variety of locations across the state and the country, including ORION (Central PA), POLARIS (White Mountain National Forest, NH), RIGEL (Central PA), and VEGA (Olympic National Park, WA). While backpacking has always been AURORA’s bread and butter, they also offer a community service-based program, with an urban backpacking twist, called URSA (Philadelphia, PA). The unique beauties and challenges of each location serve to strengthen the impact of the courses on the students, and provide a backdrop for making lifelong memories. Feedback from AURORA students has shown that they enter college feeling more confident in themselves, as well as in their abilities to form connections with peers and professors. Statistics show that students also feel more strongly that they belong to a community and that they are accepted as their true selves. As a university, Penn State offers countless opportunities for engagement, growth, and education, but it is also a community of over 40,000 people. Students have stated that their AURORA experience helps to “shrink” campus and make entering this community more manageable. As a result of this shrinking effect, AURORA students are more likely to join clubs and other campus organizations.
Perhaps this quote from a past AURORA student says it best…
“Coming into ORION I was extremely worried about my ability to make friends in such a large community like Penn State, but after the trip I felt like I was truly ready to begin my college life and progress into the next stages of my life.”
AURORA is one of the many opportunities for students based out of Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, Penn State’s (newly renovated and expanded!) nature center and outdoor education field lab. AURORA courses are offered for 3-credits and satisfy the General Health and Wellness (GHW) requirements. Registration for the 2018 AURORA season is currently open. To register, and for more information, please visit their website shaverscreek.org/AURORA. You can also contact Jen Emigh, AURORA Director at 814-865-3890, or Drew Lehnerd, AURORA Assistant Director at 814-865-3927.
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