An Outward Bound graduate completes a course with innumerable skills, unquantifiable by most and priceless to a select few. Graduates are equipped with the tools to fix and build relationships. They are adept at demonstrating empathy towards their peers. They can foster bonds between friends and foes. And they are strong in the face of adversity. The Outward Bound graduate returns home from his or her wilderness experience demonstrating character, excellence, discipline, resilience, confidence, practicality and patience.

Character

Students demonstrate character and compassion while crossing a river on a Yosemite Alpine Backpacking expedition.

The Outward Bound graduate is diverse in experience, which correlates to his or her strength of character. Graduates are able to apply what they learned on course to their lives back home. They understand the pleasure of paddling a sea kayak, watching porpoises breach the surface, and bull kelp direct the water flow. Similarly, they fully grasp the importance of preparation when crossing a two-mile wide inter-coastal passageway on rough waters. The Outward Bound graduate understands times of peace and times of need; peace warrants contentment in experience, but need warrants action. As the saying goes, “Proper planning prevents poor performance.” The diversity of these experiences strengthens a graduate’s character and allows them to be comfortable and confident regardless of the situation.

Commitment to Excellence

An empowered student starts atop Breathed Mountain. Photo by Emily Wetzel

There is a community of talent on an Outward Bound course. Students come from all over the region, country, and world to converge for a multi-day adventure. These students bring with them knowledge gained from their lessons, loved ones and personal lives. Each individual has a skill-set another does not. The spectrum of these skills is so vast it cannot be placed on a balance. You cannot compare someone’s linguistic skills in multiple languages against someone’s ability to easily compute mathematic equations. You cannot compare lively personality against the pensive introspective. Regardless, the graduate understands their own strengths as well as their areas of improvement, thus making them a powerful force for the future.

Discipline

Students communicate and work together while portaging a canoe on course with Outward Bound

Discipline strengthens quickly in the wilderness. A student group only needs to sleep through a storm in a wet sleeping bag once to remember the importance of fortifying their shelter. On course, students practice discipline when tying knots on a glacier, choosing a place to camp on steep mountains, packing their bags well on 20-mile days and crafting a hot meal at the end of the day.  In addition to physical discipline, spending time with a group in the wilderness also strengthens emotional discipline. Students learn how to strengthen relationships through challenge and adversity. They understand when to share their ideas and when to remain silent. And they begin to mentor their peers in times of leadership.

Resilience

A resilient student celebrates getting to the summit during a mountaineering course with Outward Bound

Middle schoolers graduate a 5-day urban course; High schoolers graduate a 3-week summer expedition; and young adults graduate an 80-day semester. Each student leaves their friends and family; some leave jobs. All travel; some more than others. Regardless of the situation, everyone gives up something. Each graduate demonstrates conviction for their cause, their timeline and their outcomes. They are dedicated, convincing and unwavering. The Outward Bound graduate possesses the fortitude to square up with challenge and battle to completion. Their success is measured relative to their outcomes. Failure is only an option if you try, and every graduate will gladly rise to the challenge.

Confidence

Reaching the top of a climb in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Confidence is the unwavering belief in your own abilities. Through the diversity of experiences and skill building that takes place on an Outward Bound expedition, the graduate is able to find confidence in any situation. With this newfound confidence, visions of judgment or ridicule become a thing of the past as self-assured communication and compassion are brought to the forefront.

Practicality

Students keep on track by navigating on course with Outward Bound

When the Outward Bound student reflects upon the day their summit attempt was thwarted by impossibly difficult weather, they can understand that the fool would push through in a futile attempt at an unrealistic goal. They understand that the experience dictates the outcome; the means justify the end. Due to this overwhelming sense of clarity, they can process and execute their plans with the precision of an expert.

Patience

Students help each other up during a rafting expedition with Outward Bound

The German philosophy of Gestalt dictates that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. No student is the same, but all are equal. At times philosophies may not be shared, ideas may not be supported, and individuals may not understand each other. As a result of the Outward Bound graduate’s patience, they are able to suspend their point of view for their peer’s. They are able to understand that although an individual cannot hike as quickly while carrying a heavy pack, at some point in their own life they were the last one in line. They are able to demonstrate patience because if they arrive at camp without all of the links in the chain, they are a broken unit, and that chain is the protective system used to negotiate the hazardous terrain of the mountains, literally and figuratively.

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An Outward Bound course does not begin on day one. It begins at completion. It begins the moment graduates are faced with challenge in their community and continues through the proceeding weeks as they seek solutions. They are the ship and they are leaving the harbor, the protective safety of the break walls, their insulated experience. Their growth, compassion, community and character, will no longer be supported with such zest. It is up to them to determine what they will do with their Outward Bound wilderness experience. It won’t disappear, because each graduate is affected. Some have a new pin they wear with pride; others may choose to seek their own path. Nevertheless, each member of the expedition was a vital part of the experience; each member was a part to the whole. They are now a part to the whole of life: the life they return to; the experiences they can change; and the community they can affect.

About the Author

Professionally, Kevin Sullivan is an outdoor educator, mountain guide, graphic designer, bike messenger, and marketing director with a Wilderness First Responder medical certification, AMGA Single Pitch Instructor certification, and Leave No Trace trainer certification. He has worked with Outward Bound schools in the Northwest and New York City, the YMCA’s B/GOLD Mountain School in Seattle, and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.

Unprofessionally, he pretends to know about coffee, drinks too hoppy IPA’s, intellectualizes about art, and reads books about anything, while dreaming of the next adventure. He has been to forty-five of the fifty states, and traveled to Italy, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. He hopes to climb in the greater ranges, but for now the North Cascades will do.