<p>This is a message for former students at Bowdoin who’ve participated in the Pre-O program. We’re looking at the various offerings and would love to hear what some students favorites were…any ones better than others? Any of them to avoid?</p>
<p>My son who is now a Bowdoin junior went on a hiking trip in Northern Maine. He really isn’t a particularly outdoor kind of guy but loved the whole experience. Saw a few moose, camped out, had backpack taken and emptied out by a bear (!) and got to know some folks before classes began. Only downside was that they got back to Bowdoin late afternoon on arrival day for dorm move-in and he got the last pick of beds.</p>
<p>I’m a rising sophomore at Bowdoin, and I really appreciated my community service pre-o with the McKeen Center for the Common Good. The experience made me feel welcome not only within the Bowdoin community, but also within the greater Brunswick/Portland communities: it moved me outside of the so-called “Bowdoin Bubble” right off the bat, and I’ve continued volunteering with some of the organizations that I worked with on that pre-o trip. For me, it was particularly nice getting to know other freshman through doing service work with them. The McKeen Center created a really warm, accepting atmosphere, and I don’t know if I would have felt as comfortable interacting with people on some of the the other pre-o trips (though I’ve heard good things about them, too).</p>