I’ve been spending far too much time flicking through the catalog of KWEST trips. KWEST is the week long world wide service trip that Kellogg students attend before pre-term. The trips for 2009 don’t seem to be up on the website yet, but we were given a booklet of the 2009 trips at DAK1.
Many Kellogg students talk about KWEST as though it is a relavatory experience, “you will meet your best friends for life there!”… The only thing that I’m convinced about is that it has to be worth doing, given all the hype. There must be 38 or so different trips, each led by 5 students who by then will be in their second year, with 25 matriculating first years joining them.
Every country in North, Central and South America must be represented between the various KWEST trips, along with every Caribbean island. There are also a dozen European destinations and four trips to elsewhere in the world. Each trip has a page in the booklet and you’d be forgiven for thinking that each trip was competing to win the prize for cheesiest advert. The headings include “Eco-Seekas In Costa Ricas”, “Scandinavia: Do Blondes Have More Fun?”, “No Spain No Gain” and “We don’t keep score in Ecuador”. They are quickly followed by a few brisk paragraphs of Kellogg’s best copywrite, such as:
Descriptions of various activities the group will participate in follows. The activities range from snorkeling to hiking, skiing, “general debauchery” or whatever it is the environment facilitates. To cap off the cheesiness, the trip leaders include photos of themselves in their craziest outfits and give themselves nick names such as, “Freeze Tag” Fry, “McDreamy” and “These hips don’t” Lai.
As for which trip I’m going to sign up for, I’m veering towards the central or south Americas. I still have plenty of time to decide on which one specifically…
