One of the many great things about RMA is its commitment to giving students opportunities to learn outside of the classroom, which is why the school plans class trips and other outings throughout the year. For freshmen, this means an overnight trip each fall. This year’s freshman class took their big trip last week on Monday 9/25 and Tuesday 9/26. Students had to be at school Monday morning at 6 a.m. Still, it was worth the early start to bond as a class while visiting North Carolina colleges and Xtreeme Adventures, an obstacle course outside of Charlotte designed to build leadership skills and teamwork.
The freshman explored two colleges: Wingate University (located not far from Charlotte) and Elon University (located east of Greensboro). The students I talked to described Wingate and Elon Universities as small but beautiful campuses, though some said they thought a bigger school might suit them better. One student said that they liked seeing the athletic facilities and the student dorms at Wingate, while another commented that they were impressed by how Elon–where students watched a presentation on the school before they were split into groups and toured the rest of the campus–offers a lot of one-on-one help from the professors.
Since RMA believes in working and playing hard, students headed to an extreme obstacle course called Xtreeme Adventures on Monday to have some fun while also enhancing their ability to work together. The Xtreeme Adventures experience included breaking off into five groups of seven and competing against each other. Some of the obstacles included balancing on wooden boards on their sides, as well as crossing a thick wire while grabbing a cup of water and drinking it. Another activity required students to move across parallel bars by only using two wooden boards placed one in front of the other to move forward. Another challenge involved maneuvering around a rope that represented a spider web. The last obstacle was to build a car and race it. Students only had 4 tires, 2 poles, 2 wood planks, and some PVC pipe and rope; they had to use these limited items to construct their cars. I’m told everyone enjoyed this experience very much and they would love to go there again sometime in the future.
The next class trips offered by RMA will be in February 2024. The juniors will head down south to explore colleges, while the seniors will head north to New York to have fun together one last time before they go off to college.
