LESSONS LEARNED: BEYOND THE ACADEMICS

There are lessons to be learned on-board beyond the academics, lessons in personal responsibility, teamwork, and hard work that are in every way just as important as what is learned in class. Our teachers and staff are cognizant of that, and they are just as passionate about imparting those lessons. They take their responsibilities as role models and mentors as seriously as they take the subjects they teach.

"Students often show up with a set of boxes they want to check; be on a boat, go to this island, go to that island, get scuba certification. Maybe they want to make their resume or college application look better. But by the end of the journey they realize that’s not what it’s really about. And that’s not necessarily the most important part of what they take away from the experience," —Mike Meighan, Sea|mester’s Director.

Julia Riddle, a former student turned staff member, concurs. "A lot of people come wanting the end result. They don’t understand that to really get the experience, to get that deep in yourself and in what you’re doing, you have to wake up everyday, you have to look the same people in the eye everyday, and you have to go through the worst and the best together. Lots of students probably don’t actually realize the transformation that’s occurred in them until they get back into the real world and have that benchmark of how everybody else lives their life. We hear that time and time again."

Captain Brendon Baumeister, known affectionately to his shipmates and crew as Boomer, describes the transformation this way. "They come on as college students. Most don’t pick up after themselves, they’re not exactly used to waking up early every day. But getting up at the crack of dawn – or standing your night watch – is often what’s needed when living on a boat. This isn’t just sailing across an ocean, having drinks with umbrellas in them. They quickly learn it’s cleaning, and working, and waking up early and needing to study even when they feel a little seasick. If it was as easy as a Carnival Cruise they wouldn’t feel anything close to the sense of accomplishment that they feel having sailed across that ocean on a working ship, pulling lines, cooking for one another and taking care of all their academic responsibilities. It’s challenging, but that’s why it’s so rewarding."

"One of the things I see happening is that students see how passionate we are about what we do,” says Chief Scientist Chantale Begin, “and they realize they can live their lives passionately. They may not follow my path and want to be a marine biologist but they find they can live their lives with that spark, with that passion. And they start trying much harder." And, according to Captain Baumeister, they begin to bring that passion to the experience. "There comes a point where they start to realize that they are a crew and they start to operate as one. And then all of a sudden you see this remarkable change start to take place where people start looking out for each other and helping each other. And once that switch takes place, all of the sudden, big, powerful things start happening. I’m not really sure exactly how to say it, or how to define it, but it’s the difference between asking somebody what it’s like on day one, and then asking them again on day 80 or 90. They’ve learned marine science, seamanship, sailing and scuba diving. But those are just parts of it. Something much bigger has happened."

That something bigger is the lesson that it is the journey that has mattered most, not the destination. And it is the most valuable lesson our students learn.

SEA|MESTER HELPS COLLECT IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC DATA ON THE HEALTH AND MIGRATION PATTERNS OF SEA TURTLES IN THE CARIBBEAN. TO DATE WE HAVE TAGGED AND RELEASED OVER 150 SEA TURTLES.