Making Friends and Memories
After nearly 50 years, COOT remains an important community-building tradition
For new students, the beginning of the school year can be busy and bewildering. For nearly half a century, a touchstone Colby program has helped them find their place in the campus community and stretch their wings, just a little, in the state of Maine.
That program is the Colby Outdoor Orientation Trip, or COOT. Required for all first-year students, the program can encompass adventures as strenuous as a backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail’s high granite peaks, as remote as a canoe camping expedition on a river that makes up part of the Canadian border, and as adrenaline-powered as whitewater rafting and rock climbing.
Over the years, COOT has expanded to include many types of recreational activities. Students can learn to surf, go sea kayaking, do trail work under the guidance of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club, enjoy stand-up paddle boarding, explore art, try their hand at fishing, find inner peace and strength with yoga, and bond with their classmates at a classic Maine summer camp environment through playing games and doing challenge courses.
Although there are many more options for new students today than there were in 1975 when the program began, its mission remains as steadfast and clear as it has always been: to be a fun, engaging way to welcome students to Colby and to prepare them for their transition to living and learning on campus.
Along the way, students make friends, laugh a lot, and discover they can thrive in a new, sometimes challenging environment. For many, memories of the program remain indelible years, even decades, after the adventure that often is one of their favorite Colby experiences.
