The senior trip. What is it? Though images of trips to exciting places as one’s time in school approaches to an end come to mind, most BSGE students don’t know what happens during the senior trip. Questions abound, even ones as simple as where the seniors went and what they did.
The seniors left for their trip during the middle of the day on Friday, January 21 and returned on Sunday afternoon, January 22. They went to Honor’s Haven Resort, one of many resorts in the Catskill Mountains. This has always been a school tradition at BSGE, even if the activities that occur every year vary. 72 of the 88 seniors in BSGE went on the trip, along with them came several teachers as chaperones, including Mr. Rabinowitz and Mr. Mehan. Those who did go were met with a fun and action-packed experience.
Located in Ellenville, NY, Honor’s Haven Resort had many of activities to offer the seniors, with a very flexible itinerary to meet their several interests. One of very few strict rules they had were to be back in their rooms by 1:30 a.m. Another was that the 12th graders were expected to be at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Naturally, the 1:30 a.m. curfew led to complaints from some of the seniors when they had to wake up extra early the next day, such as Danielle Bahnasy ‘17, who said, “it was not fun to wake up at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning after being out the entire night.” Several seniors had adventures with their friends, including the nature hike where many “took pictures at the waterfall, while a few decided to swim in the water,” according to Danielle, several parties that occurred in the resort, specifically a DJ dance party, a pizza party, a karaoke party, an open mic party, and an ice cream party, and the late night swims people had at the indoor pool. Other activities were paintball games, afternoon movie screenings, roller skating, a winter carnival, a camp fire, bingo, and a scavenger hunt. Unfortunately, the weather was too warm for there to be snow, preventing the seniors from snow tubing.
Even so, the senior trip was such a success that many of the participants had trouble readjusting to school life, some becoming sad at the thought of going back to school while many were sore from the several activities they did over the trip. Anu Rajagopal ‘17 agrees that the senior trip was a success, mentioning how “it was so liberating to to escape from college applications and work for a weekend to just be teenagers,” and thought that the senior trip supported the idea that BSGE is a single close-knit family that would comfort each other. At Honor’s Haven Resort, there were other students from Cardozo and Townsend Harris, which really showed the seniors how close they were to each other in comparison to those from other schools. Hotel rooms were open to anyone, showing that even if something bad did happen, BSGE’s seniors would have a support system to fall back on. During such a tumultuous time for the 12th graders, the senior trip proved to be a true success, leading Anu to say, “everyone should get to experience” it.
The BACC Rag 