Campus groups share their spring break plans

Students have a wide range of plans for this year’s nine-day spring break.

Various classes, friend groups and sports teams will be venturing out of Bethlehem to locations all over the world to learn, relax, compete and bond.

Lehigh’s International Social Entrepreneurship class, taught by professors Mark Orrs and Todd Watkins, is traveling to Kenya for spring break to gain hands-on experience with what students have been discussing in class.

The class of 12 will be embarking on a 14-hour flight to Nairobi with their professors on March 10 and will be returning on March 20.

Kelsie Strobel, ’18, a student enrolled in the course, said the trip goers will explore Africa on a two-day safari and have the opportunity to meet with small-business owners as well as local social entrepreneurs.

“I’ve never been out of the country before, so I’m really excited to interact with people with a different background from me,” Strobel said.

She said students in the class will be meeting with at least three different local social entrepreneurs who try to instill positive change in Kenya, to learn about the work these entrepreneurs do to make the country a better place.

“When we get back, we’re going to break up into groups or teams of two and we’re going to come up with a deliverable, where we can help and put into use something that would be beneficial to the community,” she said.

As for other break options, members of Lehigh’s Kappa Delta sorority Rachel Fishman, ’18, and Emily Salove, ’18, will travel to the Bahamas with four other women in their member class.

Salove said the group started brainstorming locations to visit over winter break and finalized the trip once the women got back to Lehigh for the spring semester.

“My older sister actually went to the Bahamas for one of her spring breaks when she was in college, and she really liked it, so she was the one who suggested we should look into that,” Salove said.

The women booked the trip through Student City, an organization that rents hotels and sells all-inclusive vacation packages to college students. She said this made the process of booking the trip easy.

Fishman has been to the Bahamas once before with her family when she was in elementary school and is excited to go again with her friends, she said.

“I think it’ll be different going with my friends this time,” Fishman said. “We’ll be more independent and get to plan our days ourselves and not have my parents decide all of what we’re doing.”

Another Lehigh group, the women’s lacrosse team, is traveling to Virginia and North Carolina to compete against Liberty University and Davidson College.

They will be driving approximately nine hours to Virginia to play Liberty on March 12, and will then continue to North Carolina to play Davidson on March 15.

The team has never played either of these opponents before, goalie Taylor Tvedt, ’17, said.

When the team is not busy practicing or playing in these two games, it will spend time bonding.

The team will have dinner together every night and the opportunity to hang out and swim at the hotel.

The team also hopes to take a trip to the coast to go to the beach, Tvedt said.

“Our team is really fun,” she said. “We spend a lot of time together, but at the same time, we’re all best friends and we somehow don’t get really sick of each other.”

Tvedt is especially excited for the nice weather in Virginia and North Carolina.

Last year, the team went to Florida over spring break, so Tvedt hopes the weather can foster a similar positive spirit among the team members.

“The beautiful weather in Florida last year got us so hyped, and we had so much fun just loving the weather, especially coming off of the long winter,” she said, “So just being (outside) the first couple of times and the weather together will be really awesome.”