White Water Rafting Adventure

Hey there! Michael here. I’m officially a senior!

Through my involvement at UConn over the past few years, I’ve become involved with a University’s Leadership Legacy Experience program.

On an annual basis, a handful of accomplished student leaders participate in a one year long experience to complement the leadership opportunities and challenges we’ve faced thus far. Where we’ve been, the positions we’ve held, what we’ve done- it’s all irrelevant to Legacy. What matters is that we’re there now, as a cohesive cohort- and together we will better understand our positions in the community and act accordingly to leave the best legacy possible.

One of our many activities occurred this past weekend as we boarded buses early on Saturday morning for Zoar Outdoors in Massachusetts. Supported by a handful of our faculty and alumni mentors, we zipped up our wetsuits and jumped into rafts on Miller’s River to try our hand at white water rafting.

The majority of the rapids were Class III, though there were a few fun patches of Class IV. Before getting in, we were briefed on some safety procedures to make sure we left in one piece at the end of the day. Turns out that we didn’t flip over or fall out- so the instructions were mostly informational. A few sounded pretty fun though. For example, if our rafting leader yelled out “high side”, we were all to leave where we were and climb to the high side of the raft so that we could regain balance and slip off of a stuck rock.

We had plenty of fun, had a good challenge for the day, and left feeling accomplished. While we’re not going to process the leadership aspect of the day (something we do after many of our other experiences), this was a nice change from the University setting and really got us out in the open for some experiential learning.

I look forward to the remainder of my time as a Legacy student and to exploring the other educational aspects that the experience has to offer.