<p>according to the OA brochure Outdoor</a> Action Frosh Trip Brochure there are ~50 trips for backpacking and only 2 for canoeing -- why is this? does the canoeing trip suck?</p>
<p>I’m confused about this too… maybe most people aren’t very experienced and just go for the ‘default’?</p>
<p>I think there were five trips that combine backpacking and canoeing in addition to the two canoeing only trips.</p>
<p>but why do so many more people choose backpacking over canoeing?</p>
<p>In my camping experience, it is much, much easier to organize a backpacking trip than a canoeing trip. It’s a lot easier to find a suitable location for backpacking (you can do this virtually anywhere) than for canoeing (which requires a 50+ mile river with decent flow during late summer), and backpacking can cater to a lot more difficulty levels than canoeing. It’s much easier to train an OA leader to lead a backpacking trip than a canoeing trip. So it’s not all that surprising that there are a whole lot more backpacking trips than canoeing trips.</p>
<p>is canoeing unpopular with incoming frosh maybe?</p>
<p>Whether or not it’s unpopular (I actually bet that it’s very popular), Princeton doesn’t want to go to the trouble of setting up enough canoeing trips to meet what I expect is a very high demand.</p>
<p>No use worrying about this. Just put canoeing as your first choice if you want it.</p>
<p>The backpacking trips are the OA standard, that’s what OA leader training prepares you for. The canoeing trips are different and take extra preparation – the leaders need extra training, you need different equipment, etc. So to answer your question, the canoeing trips definitely do not suck, and there’s probably more demand for them than can be met.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of demand for canoeing and climbing trips, but as other people have said, they require a lot more training, and take a lot more work and equipment. So only a few of those kinds of trips are offered.</p>
<p>It’s kind of like asking why there are all those bad dorm rooms on campus - is it because lots and lots of people want bad rooms? I would have thought that huge 300sqft singles would be more numerous since I bet a lot of people want those.</p>
<p>not really, because it seems like OA organizers would be much more flexible in response to demand than housing would be. there are tons of people who want to be OA leaders i think and it would be pretty easy to find ones that can canoe and lead; money doesnt seem to be much of an issue either seeing how they fully subsidize everyone receiving needbased aid. </p>
<p>housing is basically not flexible at all, it’s not like you can call up some kids and pay a bit of money and suddenly have 500 new huge dorms</p>
<p>so no it’s really not like that at all</p>
<p>OA does not own enough canoes to meet the demand for canoeing trips. Only two (or 3) people can paddle a canoe at a time, therefore a group of 12 would need 6 plus canoes, and the vehicles to haul them. OA does not have endless funds.</p>
<p>platypodes,</p>
<p>You should be thankful that they removed analogies from the SAT.</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics[/url])”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics)</a></p>
<p>Oddly this thread has me quite optimistic about next year’s freshman class:)></p>
<p>Your analysis is incorrect because housing is not perfectly inelastic, and the University has had several centuries to adjust quantity to reflect demand.</p>
<p>You are also severely overestimating the elasticity of the product that is “OA leaders” and are vastly oversimplifying the process by which OA Leaders, particularly those who are trained enough to lead canoe trips (certainly even from a First Aid standpoint they’d need to be much more trained). You’d be surprised at how not everyone immediately jumps up and volunteers to be an OA leader. It takes a lot of work, and most people don’t have that kind of desire or time to commit. Add to that the fact that the canoe trips are extremely new (for example they did not exist when I went on OA a mere two years ago) and we can conclude that the analogy that I offered, while not 100% applicable, is more than adequate enough to surpass the bar of “so no it’s really not like that at all” that you laid out.</p>
<p>I would recommend not majoring in Economics. Perhaps you can try auditing some of those courses?</p>
<p>Alumother, it makes you optimistic that next year’s freshman class may have some presumptuous know-it-alls? Don’t we always get a few of these anyway?</p>
<p>I prefer to think of it as a thirst for knowledge and a desire to debate.</p>
<p>serious question: Is it true that you are not allowed to dispose of used toilet paper? And that females cannot dispose of used feminine products?</p>
<p>=O</p>