Click Here to donate to the Outward Bound Scholarship. The Course for Life My name is Curtiss and I am 17 years old. I was homeless as a “couch surfer”. Meaning that I would sleep wherever I could just to make it to school. I now live in an apartment given to me from Safe Place. I have a roommate and I play on the high school basket ball team. My grades are good. I’d consider myself a pretty average kid. Or so I thought, until I spent sometime this summer at Outward Bound. Outward Bound was most definitely a life changing experience for me. Not only did it teach me new values, but also it challenged my mind in a way never imagined. Although going into the course I was doubtful that it would be life changing, I was definitely proven wrong.

My experience first began with traveling to the unknown territory of Minnesota. Upon arriving at the Twin Cities, I found myself in a land of green, unlike Las Vegas. Minnesota had a fresh smell which intrigued my curiosity even further. Even though I was very excited to learn more about Minnesota, I fell asleep on the ride there. I just told myself “This is what separated the men from the boys!”

I was picked up by Outward Bound to travel by bus to our wilderness designation. The course started with us being dropped off in the wilderness with two instructors that looked like wilderness hippies. I found myself laughing at them just thinking “What losers live in the wilderness?” Then it hit me that I was going to be one of these supposed losers….

On this course we lived on no outward support, everything we needed for 13 days we carried with us. Just to give of idea of our inventory; tents, sleeping bags, food for 13 days, pots and pans, clothes, tarps, and our canoes. There were 3 food packs, 50 pounds each, 3 mondos, which held our clothes and belongings, they weighed about 70. The canoes were about 70 pounds also. The group had to carry all the equipment while portaging from 10 ft – 1 mile. Easy right, well lets see think of doing this with mosquitoes biting you all over, dodging poison ivy, all under the beating sun. This is seventy pounds on your back were talking about, this course was no joke! You can’t refuse to do it either because you have to make it to camp so you have a place to sleep that night. Very very physically demanding course.

The days of this course were the slowest of my life especially on the solo in which I will explain. The course required a solo for 24- 48 hours. We were giving a small bag of food and were not told when we would be picked up. We were given three main things to live off 1. A tarp 2. Sleeping Bag 3. Iodine Tablets to make the water drinkable. During this time I was bored out of my mind, all there really to do was read, think, and skip rocks. People say, “ I would just sleep the whole time” not a good idea because if your not tired at night there no way to sleep with all the creepy sounds of the night in the wilderness. The thought of a bear attacking you never escapes the mind no matter how hard you sleep. Once my solo was done I was so happy to talk and laugh with all my new friends, it was so replenishing.

This course was not designed to teach you how to live in the wilderness if you were abandon or something. It was designed to teach you to appreciate things never thought of. For a homeless youth life isn’t easy but we still have access to a lot of things to help us meet our needs. For Example, the toilet, (my personal favorite), which I love so so much more since having been without one for 13 days.

Most of all though I learned a lot about who I was and what I could accomplish. It strengthened my determination to succeed and live my dreams. I have been shown all my blessings and I’m grateful and thankful for everything put before me. Most importantly I discovered that the people who made a huge impact on my life (my instructors) I laughed at…I learned truly what “ don’t judge a book by its cover” truly meant. I will carry that lesson with me forever and I know I will never ever forget this truly life changing experience.

Curtiss