Two or three groups of 6 to 8 students each are formed and function independently most of the time. Each group is led by a faculty or staff member affiliated with the college, who is assisted by a student leader generally chosen from the previous year's participants. The groups have an approximately equal number of male and female students participating. This setting provides, for most of the participants, a relatively new environment in which to operate, which is both stressful and exciting. By providing new and challenging demands for the participants, it creates an ideal learning environment.
Students often return with a sense of being back in touch with themselves and nature.
Students should emerge from the course with a greater sense of self confidence. They are more likely, for example, to feel that they have the ability and resources to solve the many different problems that they confront daily. They are, in fact, expected to do this throughout the trip. Instruction in key areas is given as needed, but the leaders generally attempt to let solutions to problems be a product of individual discovery and group interaction. Students should also understand some of the most important factors involved in group dynamics in a way that reading alone cannot give.