The DePaul College Prep Rams are back after a long and hot summer break. The Rams traveled to many different places over the summer with their families and some students even went on vacation with students from school.
Christopher Petersen, the Director of Student Activities, oversees the summer trips program that is organized for students to go on trips during the summer. These trips that the students get to enjoy wouldn’t have been possible without the teachers at our school who volunteered parts of their summers to go on.
DePaul Prep partners with the EF tours company to plan the summer trips every year. EF tours has many different trips to choose from with beautiful locations and important, fun sites to see that the students and faculty love.
This summer, there were five trips that took place which Petersen explained as “very ambitious,” since that are a lot of trips occurring throughout the summer. The destinations that students traveled to were Ireland/Scotland, France, Peru, Iceland, and Japan. Every day, students woke up with a set itinerary. Petersen attended the Japan trip this summer and he explained how everyday was very long. “We usually start really early in the morning and are out until really late,” said Petersen.
“We went to a lot of temples and historical Japanese gardens and places that are unique to that certain area,” said Petersen. H
e said the heat was the only big negative factor to his experience in Japan. In order to deal with the heat, Petersen and his group changed some of the set activities to make everyone on the trip happy.
Junior Neve Demaret is a student who attended the France trip. The trip began in Paris and students who attended this trip traveled along the coast to places like Biarritz, Provence, and Nice. Demaret said that her favorite destination that she stopped at was Biarritz and Monaco.
Demaret really enjoyed these two spots specifically because she said that “they were very peaceful but also really fun. There was a good energy present at both places and I loved the beach along the coast.”
The best part about Demaret’s France trip was being able to be with students from DePaul Prep. “It was fun because I made friends with people who I normally didn’t hang out with at school,” Demaret said.
While making new friends and experiencing new places, the trip went by fast for Demaret. “It was a good amount of time for the trip. It wasn’t too long or too short,” said Demaret.
Junior Delaney McGarrity is a student who attended the Peru trip this summer. Similar to Demaret, McGarrity said that her favorite part of her trip was making friends with people she wasn’t close with before. “It was fun to be on a trip with people from different grades that I wouldn’t normally talk to since I was able to get close with them as well,” said McGarrity.
The students who attended the Peru trip went to different places like Lima, Cuzco, and Machu Picchu. McGarrity said that her favorite place she visited on her trip was Machu Picchu. “We took train rides back and forth to see all the mountains and our tour guide taught us a lot and let us take an extra hike to the top,” McGarrity said.
Petersen said that there would be some changes made for the next summer trips. This summer’s trip consisted of partnering up with other schools from around the world. Partnered meaning “we stay in the same hotel, we ride the same buses, but we don’t engage much with each other,” Petersen said. This happened because there are usually not enough students to reach the tour’s minimum number of people. Petersen explained that he is not a big fan of sharing trips because there are a lot of “unknowns.” The expectations that other schools have for their kids could be different from DePaul Prep’s expectations that they set. Partnering with other schools sets up an imbalance and is not beneficial for DePaul Prep students, which is why this will not happen next summer.
Along with that, there will be a new application process next year. Students have to apply to travel instead of just immediately being allowed to attend a trip. DePaul Prep wants to make sure that they are sending students who deserve to go on these trips and who have proven that they can travel across the world. It is a commitment for the adults to travel with high school students across the planet. Since not every student has traveled far, especially overseas, it is important that every student behaves right and knows what they are signing up for.
Parents of and students who want to attend a summer trip must sign a code of conduct form to ensure that students are well behaved and can adapt well to the new rules and regulations in different countries.
Before attending the trips next year, there will be more meetings offered. These meetings will be with the adult who is leading the trip so students can get to know the destination they are traveling to and their itinerary. Students can then come prepared to go on their summer trip and know what they are going to be doing everyday. These meetings and training sessions will allow students to understand the trip they are about to attend and what they are getting themselves into, so they can prepare accordingly.
Petersen wished that he traveled around the world when he was younger. “When I traveled internationally for the first time as an adult, I loved it and I wish I would have done it sooner,” he said.
The school puts a lot of time into planning these trips in order for students to have the best experience possible. “It’s really for the kids. Seeing their expressions and what they learned on the trip is the real reason why we do it,” said Petersen.
