Bachelor of Science - Adventure Education

Students majoring in Adventure Education are preparing for future careers in leadership, instruction, and administrative positions with non-profit and commercial outdoor education, wilderness education, wilderness therapy, therapeutic adventure, developmental, environmental, and recreation programs.

Adventure Education teaches students how to use human powered outdoor activities to expose people to purposeful challenge, high adventure, and new growth opportunities. Students majoring in Adventure Education engage in outdoor activities such as backpacking, rock climbing, canoeing, ropes courses, and mountaineering to systematically learn four broad sets of skills. First, they learn the professional and technical skills to operate competently and safely in demanding outdoor environments. Second, they learn how to teach various outdoor-related lessons that aim to the development of new skills, knowledge or values. Third, they learn how to develop, frame, facilitate and process adventure experiences so that their future clients and students grow personally and professionally. And fourth, they also learn to interpret and teach about the various natural environments they will encounter when teaching in the great outdoors.

Students enrolled in the Adventure Education program take a variety of courses that cover adventure programming history, philosophy, ethics, theory, leadership group behavior and management, group processing and facilitation, experiential pedagogy, wilderness first aid, risk management, legal issues, and program administration.

In their second year, all students in Adventure Education participate in a 15-credit Fall Immersion Semester, which involves wilderness backpacking and canoe camping expeditions lasting 4 to 15 days. They also have the option of spending a semester in the Outdoor Education program at LaTrobe University in Bendigo, Australia or a semester in Norway at the University of South-Eastern Norway in Bø to study friluftsliv (Outdoor Life). Adventure Education students can also take courses with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) that will count toward the completion of their degree in Adventure Education.

Additionally, students are required to complete a minimum of 75 days of documented adventure leadership or instruction prior to their internship Adventure Education Internship (AP 4880) or 30 days prior to their Clinical Adventure Education Clinical (AP 3890). This leadership/instruction experience must occur after the student’s formal matriculation into the Adventure Education program. Some of this experience is gained through work at the PSU Outdoor Center SOAR (Student Outdoor Adventure Recreation), CALE (Community Adventure Learning Experiences), and/or Outdoor Orientation programs while most is accrued through summer jobs in outdoor programs.