Resume Boost: 5 Ways to Market Your Outward Bound Experience

So you've taken a Costa Rica Outward Bound course or something similar. Now what? A lot of students wonder how they can market themselves for future jobs and/or colleges after going through an experience that distinguishes them, both personally and professionally. The difficult part is communicating the impact of a course experience and effectively transferring it to a resume or personal statement. When looking for a standout factor, employers and acceptance committees alike want to see how applicants can add value to their organizations -- so let's look at five ways you can boost your resume and market your unique Outward Bound experience.

 1. Teamwork - In terms of overused buzzwords, "teamwork" sits pretty high on the list; however, an Outward Bound course takes the otherwise subjective concept and makes it significantly less biased. Sure, working with a team to complete a project or meet a deadline is valuable, but being able to say that you literally spent 24-hours a day with a group of unknown peers to belay each other down a cascading waterfall or stay motivated to hike across an entire country awards you a lot more points in the teamwork category. Considering that many companies are shifting towards more collaborative work environments, they'll love the assurance that you can truly perform as a team player and furthermore, that you can prove it.



2. International Experience - Costa Rica Outward Bound students are immersed in a foreign culture and spend time learning a foreign language every single day. As organizations stretch their operations across borders more than ever, being able to cite specific examples of cultivating genuine cultural awareness can increase your chances of getting hired or accepted into a higher education program. All of our alumni can highlight personal interactions with Costa Rican families, what it's like to cross international borders, and how they learned enough Spanish to successfully navigate a local market -- they might not be fluent, but they can problem solve and figure out how to communicate, a beneficial skill not every candidate can claim.



3. Certifications - Many of our courses offer multiple certifications that are internationally recognized. Depending on what type of work you're looking for, being able to list these can potentially be the difference between "We'd like to offer you the job!" and "Unfortunately we're looking for someone with more experience." The Leadership Semester program is designed specifically to avoid the latter response (especially for jobs in the outdoor industry), allowing students to earn up to 7 certifications. The main point is that you should take advantage of the opportunity to beef up the "Additional Experience" section of your resume with items like CPR/AED for the Professional Rescuer or First Aid (America Red Cross). It shows that you're competent in other fields and have unique interests. *By the way, any time an acronym is used, be sure to spell out what it means in order to avoid any confusion.

4. Community Service - A lot of universities are taking a more holistic approach to their admissions criteria these days. While grades and standardized test scores still reign supreme as determining factors, well-rounded students with diverse experiences but less-than-perfect GPAs are beginning to find themselves on university campuses more consistently. All of our courses have a strong service project component that takes students into remote villages to paint local schools, build medical clinics, and install safe drinking water tanks. Be sure to mention what the specific project was, but more importantly, what you gained from it and how it applies to other areas.



5.  Leadership - Alright, this one can be tricky. How can you make it clear that your "strong leadership skills" don't get the same amount of attention as everyone else who has written a resume in the last 300 years, which is to say, very little. Being able to say that you've developed and refined your own personal leadership style during an Outward Bound course carries a lot more weight. Are you a participating leader? Maybe your approach is more democratic or perhaps you prefer to delegate? If you're a Costa Rica Outward Bound alum, think about the leadership wheel -- which direction did you identify with?

While these suggestions will hopefully build a solid foundation for starting your resume or personal statement, the most powerful way to separate yourself from other applicants is to be honest about what your Outward Bound experience meant to you. If you have a course memory that changed who you are or the way you think, don't hesitate to focus on it (requesting a letter of recommendation from instructors can also have a positive impact on your chances of landing a job). So good luck out there, students! Boost those resumes!

Trying to make Dr. King proud

25 years after one of the most devastating moments in the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. remains one of the most celebrated figures in modern American history. His assassination was a near-paralyzing blow to the entire movement, but his ideas and principles resounded too deeply with the social psyche for the legacy to be permanently erased. The champion of racial equality, Dr. King fought tirelessly for the removal of segregation in all of its wicked forms. In addition to his civil rights efforts, he was also a passionate proponent of helping others in the form of service, which he preached about as a minister as well as something he encouraged all of his followers to embrace.

Take a quick look at the philosophies of Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound, you'll notice the emphasis on community service and it becomes evident that he and MLK would have found some common ground had they ever met. In fact, it's entirely conceivable to imagine the two sitting down for dinner, sharing ideas about how to have a positive impact simply be offering a helping hand. Hahn might start the conversation with insight such as,

"We are crew, not passengers. Students and teachers are strengthened by acts of consequential service to others, and one of an Expeditionary Learning school’s primary functions is to prepare students with the attitudes and skills to learn from and be of service to others."

To which Mr. King might enthusiastically add,

"Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love."

As interesting as this exchange seems as an illustration of both leaders' points, we are more concerned with implementation. Every year, we craft courses that just might make Martin Luther King, Jr. proud - countless students have come to Costa Rica and spent an afternoon harvesting sugar cane, repairing houses, distributing food, teaching English, and providing safe drinking water. Promoting these cross-cultural service activities are, and always have been, a serious commitment of ours.

In fact, as more and more Girl Scouts gear up for a summer of adventure in Costa Rica, many of them will be dedicating their off-season solely to completing multiple service challenges. As a destination partner with our organization, they have done much to serve the communities that play a crucial role in our operations. See our students in action:



So whether you're listening to the top MLK tribute songs or getting goosebumps from watching his speech videos, don't hesitate to make even a small service contribution in his honor. We encourage you to try to make Dr. King proud.

Happy MLK Day from Costa Rica Outward Bound!

Service with SIGA

As a commitment to serve is part of our mission statement at Costa Rica Outward Bound, we are always excited about partnering with new community service organizations here in Central America. Most recently, we have partnered with SIGA Ministries to deliver school supplies to children in underdeveloped regions of Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

SIGA, which stands for Servants in Grace Abounding, is a "ministry of encouragement" that aims to improve the quality of life in remote regions of Latin America.

Founded by Ruth Clowater and her husband Carlos Espinoza in 2004, SIGA Ministries, Inc. is a Virginia-based 501(c)3 in the United States with full-time outreach programs in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

SIGA Ministries works in remote communities to provide educational materials for children, facilitate community development projects for indigenous peoples, teach adult literacy classes and fund womens empowerment and economic initiatives that aid women entrepreneurs in starting new businesses.

Costa Rica Outward Bound Tri-Country students will be working directly with SIGA Ministries to deliver school supplied to a remote town in Costa Rica along the Sarapiqui River. The Tri-Country group will deliver school supplies to the village of Arbolitos as they paddle up the Sarapiqui on their way to San Juan Del Norte, Nicaragua. Then SIGA will help to deliver the school supplies to over 300 students in about 24 schools in and around Arbolitos.

The children will receive things like pens and pencils (especially decorative ones), glue sticks, erasers, individual pencil sharpeners and composition books (in spanish: cuadernos). There will also be small toys and/or personal items that will be given as Christmas gifts during the holiday season.

To learn more about SIGA Ministries check out http://www.sigaministries.org.

Oscar nominations for our Girl Scouts Underwater Explorers II, 2010?!!

When most people think of COSTA RICA OUTWARD BOUND, they think of surfing; waterfall rappelling; trekking volcanoes; sea kayaking; camping in the jungle; sailing; white water rafting; SCUBA diving; zip-wire flying; and other outdoor adventure sports. But what few may not know is that two core values of COSTA RICA OUTWARD BOUND are community service and intercultural exchange.

At the beginning of this month, from July 3 to July 15, the Girl Scouts Underwater Explorers II (2010), lead by professional and super-fun CRROBS instructors Donna White, Lisa Purul and Carola Coto Mora, took a boat out to our remote base camp on Isla Solarte, located in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, of Panama. When the girls weren’t “playing” in the water, they were playing with the local indigenous children and helping around the community.

Their first service project task was to drain and clean out all the rain-water run-off silt and muck from the local “ojo de agua” (water supply reservoir.) This enabled the entire community access to cleaner water. The second part of their service project was to script, direct and perform educational skits around local issues such as nutrition, cleaning up beaches and roads, as well as how to prepare food more safely for local school children.

The Girl Scouts emphasized the importance of a well-balanced diet and distributed rice and lentils to local school children, instead of their typical “rice and plantains” –because of the high protein levels in lentils. The Girl Scouts also inspired most of the local community to come out early one Saturday morning and do a clean-up of beaches and roads around the island. And lastly, the Girl Scouts introduced a new kind of stove which is cleaner and safer both for the environment and the families using the stove!

Check out the videos below of the skits that the Girl Scouts Underwater Explorers II (2010) scripted, directed and performed themselves…do I smell an Oscar?!!!

We are so proud of all of these girls!!

Skit 1:


Skit 2:


Skit 3:


Skit 4:

Students Help Save Sea Turtles, Forever

Costa Rica Outward Bound students heading to Playa Avellanas this summer will be making a big difference for Costa Rica's sea turtle population.  While "turtle season" does not really begin until eggs are laid around September and October, there is a lot of work to do for aiding their conservation.

Recently Laura Statesir, our Program Director, contacted Marc Ward from an organization called Sea Turtles Forever (Tortugas Para Siempre en español) which aids in sea turtle conservation efforts year-round.  She was looking for some environmental philanthropy for our beach-bound students, and to her happy surprise, Marc agreed, noting:

"I love what you guys do... very cool program and important these days to facilitate young people on their path....  My niece did Outward Bound... and loved it."

Laura and Marc then began discussing possible service projects for all of our students heading to Guanacaste province, and planned for our students' to help with their Habitat Restoration Project.

Marc & Rachel Ward, founders of Sea Turtles Forever in 2001, noted some key problems inhibiting Costa Rica's sea turtle population growth:

• poachers stealing eggs 
• a lot of fishing line: very destructive to many forms of wildlife
• extremely large amount of trash: harmful to turtles that eat it; deadly to hermit crabs that kill themselves by crawling into open containers with water (the morning sun boils it) 

During turtle season, STF combats the poachers by doing night patrols with the goal of scaring off the poachers and collecting turtle eggs (to harvest them).  But during the off-season, there is a much larger project to be done: The Marine Plastics Survey.  This is where Costa Rica Outward Bound students come in.

In this Marine Plastics Survey, Sea Turtles Forever hopes to prove that the area in Northwest Costa Rica is a plastics sink: an area where trash - dumped from all over the world - collects after getting picked up by currents.  By doing so, they are not only cleaning up beaches to help the populations from decreasing year after year, but they are also bringing attention to the area for further efforts to improve the situation.

Volunteers will work to not only clean up a 100-meter stretch of beach, but also to document and clean everything they find.  As you might imagine, this can be quite time-consuming.  Marc and his main patroller, Joey Beshore, are incredibly excited about Costa Rica Outward Bound's ability to make this project possible.

Why is so much importance placed on this species?  Sea turtle biologists have proved that protection of sea turtles is vital to the world’s ecology because of their broad migration patterns.  Well that, and we can all agree how adorable they are.  You can see it on the face of Hannah Curran (shown top right) who participated in helping newly-hatched turtles during our Water &; Wave Semester course last December.

Those two facts alone are enough to make our students love the idea of keeping sea turtles alive forever.

To learn more about this project and their efforts, contact Marc or Rachel Ward at info@Seaturtlesforever.com or 1-503-739-1446.

Summer Service in Panama

It's not often you supply food to an island of indigenous people who actually need it.

And by "actually," we mean that even a home full of fifteen orphans did not have anything to eat last Saturday the 19th until eight Girl Scouts and their two instructors arrived with bags of food.

Two weekends ago, Girl Scouts Underwater Explorers students - with their Costa Rica Outward Bound instructors Mariana and Erin - completed a meaningful service project in Panama.

"It's amazing that people live that way.... maybe we shouldn't complain as much as we do about small stuff," one of the Girl Scouts reflected after completing the project.

The group packed bags of food (including rice and lentils) at our base camp on Isla Solarte located in the Bocas del Toro archipelago. After spending 1-2 hours organizing hundreds of food packets, they took a boat taxi to Tierras Obscuras (meaning "dark lands") to deliver them to homes and schools. This is when they met the woman with fifteen hungry orphans. They also met some of the locals and observed the classroom settings. It had a profound effect on them, and they spent the afternoon discussing it.

This will not be the end of our community service in this region.  When other Costa Rica Outward Bound courses head to Panama this summer, we hope to help by supplying fresh water to some of the islands.  Scott Brown, our Associate Program Director, has been coordinating projects with Operation Safe Drinking Water which organizes projects for delivering water tanks and building fresh drinking water systems in areas where inhabitants are drinking dirty water and getting sick.  Students' jobs will be to help install rain catchment tanks for indigenous schools and villages in order to catch, store and share the pure rainfall.

We are excited to have found another way to integrate Community & Service, one of our core value elements, into the courses' Panama Phases.  Pura vida!

University of Alabama: Meet Their Instructors and the Project

University of Alabama's students arrive on Monday, and they have a big service job in Talamanca ahead of them. And who better to lead them than our veteran Tico Land Instructor, Orlando Zamora, along with one of our newest instructors, Sean Marr?

Our Custom Course Manager, Shawn Pendergrass, will also accompany this group of eleven honors students and their chaperone, Wahnee Sherman. Shawn has been working hard to plan this service project ever since he went to Talamanca on a reconnaissance trip last January. He found three areas needing assistance: Waste Management, Youth and Community Development, and Environmental Awareness.

The group of 15 will head to the town of Amübri in Talamanca where villagers are establishing a youth group in the community and involving them in community service projects. Waste management improvements will include: building trash/recycling bins, giving presentations about proper waste disposal, picking up trash, and designing PSAs for the town to run on the local radio. Community Development will include: developing team-building and leadership-building among the youth and greater community, improve the recreational facilities, preparing English lessons, and planning a field day for the community. Finally, the Environmental Awareness work will include: reforesting areas, creating a nursery for endangered trees native to the area, and constructing signs with environmental messages.

There is a lot of work to do, and these skilled group of go-getters needs to know they are in good hands. Meet the men to lead them next week:

Orlando Zamora, Lead Instructor

Hometown: Piedras Blancas, Costa Rica
About: Orlando is arguably the strongest instructor we have at Costa Rica Outward Bound (and possibly in the entire country). He not only built his house for his wife and five kids, but he carried their cast iron stove 15 km to his house on mountainous rainforest terrain. And last December on a different University of Alabama course, he carried the large cistern (water tank) 12 km to the small village during their water supply service project.
Read More: a Canopy Chronicle article about Orlando









Sean Marr, Instructor

Hometown: Doylestown, PA
About: One of Sean's most unique characteristics is his ability to do flips, due to the gymnastics training he had growing up. As an adult, Sean has been busy with a lot of worldly experiences including studying in Mexico and teaching ESL (to students from all over the world) back in Pennsylvania. But don't let all of this traveling fool you - he is very close to his family and hopes to move back there some day.
Read more: Sean's Leadership Series profile, the wrap-up of the last course he led, and a Canopy Chronicle article introducing him




It's important, too, to understand the background of this village in order to understand the importance of these projects. For one, the population of Amübri has increased exponentially (to approximately 2,000) in recent years and, with it, consumerism. The increased consumption of products is causing environmental problems because of the lack of waste disposal options. Secondly, since the community has grown, Peace Corps Volunteers recently formed the community youth group, Koswak. They will be transitioning out this month.

Basically, this is all perfect timing for University of Alabama to come in and make a difference.

On June 2, 2010, Costa Rica Outward Bound released an article to the media about all of the work they accomplished. We published it in our newsletter, The Canopy Chronicle for our followers to read.

Alternative Spring Break, 2010

When students read "Spring Break" on their annual school schedule, "rainforest challenge" is not typically the first thing that comes to mind.

But this year, for 14 State University of New York (New Paltz) students, 10 Tallahassee Community College students, and 10 Canterbury School students, it was. And after hearing their feedback, they seem to have made the right decision.

It took just seven days of homestays, hiking, surfing, and rafting for some students from each group to leave empowered, impressed, and wanting more. And, from some of these comments, it looks like we have a lot to learn from them, too.

Read their comments below:
(And read more SUNY New Paltz testimonials and trip journals at their Wellness & Recreation web page.)

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“I have learned that I’m a caregiver for people that fall behind because I know I would want their support of the positions were switched.”
-Megan, 19

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"Everything was excellent in Costa Rica, we had an amazing time. They really enjoyed it and that's what counts! The course was extremely affective, there is really nothing I felt had to be changed. I believe the course affected the development of the students in a positive way. I heard many of them say this was one of the best weeks of their lives. They learned a lot as you do from international travel and I think they were impacted greatly.

"So overall, the trip was a huge success, I am working on a presentation to the admin of the college to expand this program or at the very least continue our program of coming down there every spring break." -group chaperone
Click here to see this SUNY New Paltz video.

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“It was a complete culture change that exceeded my highest expectations while forcing me to discover new things about myself and look at the bigger picture.
-Louis, 22

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SUNY New Paltz hiking near Orlando's homestay

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“Costa Rica Outward Bound provided a trip that enabled me to push myself and look at life in a different way.” -anonymous

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“I learned that what we as Americans have is too much. The people here had a lot les than us, but were as happy as can be. Family plays and important role in the smooth flow of life. I learned that life could be lived that “Pura Vida” way.”
-Amy, 17

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“My experience was breathtaking; it opened my eyes to the awes of nature and gave me more self-confidence and self-reliance.”
-Julianne, 16

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“I learned that life isn’t about materialistic objects and we don’t always have to be stressed about what is coming next. What matters is love, believing in yourself and overcoming challenges.”
-Janet, 15

Talamanca: Service Project Gold Mine

Looking for community service in Costa Rica? From school improvements and building libraries to water systems and chocolate harvesting, Shawn and Laura found it all.

A common practice of Costa Rica Outward Bound office staff and instructors is to scope out new areas for outdoor challenges, new homestay families, and of course, community service. Last weekend, Community Service Coordinator, Shawn Pendergrass, and Laura Statesir, our Program Director, visited indigenous communities in Talamanca (of the Limón Province in the southeaster part of Costa Rica near the Panamanian border) where they found a large variety of projects for future students.

View a larger map
The area is home to indigenous populations of the Bribri and Cabécar peoples. Because of limited opportunities and limited support from the government, these areas often lack access to good education, healthcare, water and electricity.

Over the weekend, Shawn and Laura met with Peace Corps Volunteers and community leaders to discuss possible collaborations between the communities and Costa Rica Outward Bound to better the quality of life in a sustainable way, encourage the preservation of their unique culture and traditions, and help them get ahead by opening up windows of opportunities for them.

Some of the projects that are being considered include providing books and other materials for schools that have little or none of these things, painting schools, building recycling centers in the villages, micro-financing projects, working with a local women's group that runs a small cacao/chocolate production business, organic farming projects, and installing a new water system to provide an entire village with safe and reliable water.

We here at Costa Rica Outward Bound and the villages themselves are very excited about working together to bring these projects to fruition. If you're interested in bringing a group down to work on one of these projects specifically, please contact Shawn Pendergrass at custom@crrobs.org.

Clean Water for Cabecar

"Service is an active expression of valuing our common humanity, our diversity, and the natural world."

This statement comes straight from the Costa Rica Outward Bound website under the Mission and Philosophy page. It is one of our goals to enrich the students not only through the challenges they face in and around the rainforest, but also through the assistance they provide in the local communities. The needs of the country and its communities change from year to year, so it is important that we go on reconnaissance missions to find new projects with which the students and employees can help.

Last October, Shawn Pendergrass and Orlando Zamora went on such a mission to Valle Escondido ("Hidden Valley" in Spanish), in the Turrialba area, to visit the indigenous Cabecar tribe to which visitors must hike 12km through mountainous rainforest terrain. This trek takes about three hours from a road.

What brought them to such a remote location?

Orlando, a long-time volunteer and friend to this group, has wanted to supply this eight-house, 50-person village with clean water for years. Currently, only the school and two homes are connected to water. The others get their water through hoses originating in nearby springs. Silt and parasites frequently contaminate them causing a multitude of illnesses, some of which are fatal. The main cause of death for the indigenous children, in fact, is dehydration and illness from bad water.

This clean water project, spearheaded by Shawn (the Community Outreach Coordinator) and Orlando (veteran Land Instructor), will supply the entire village with safe and reliable drinking water. To begin such a project, they must bring two large, 1,100-liter blue tanks. No special transportation exists to bring them - they, too, must be carried 12km on foot, in addition to the rest of the materials which include: tools for digging and cutting, pipes, connectors and spouts, and water treatment supplies. Shawn and Orlando need plenty of help from CRROBS students if they want to complete this project.

Enter: University of Alabama.

This Sunday, December 13th, we welcome eleven UA students and their chaperone, Josh Burford, the Coordinator of Freshman Community Outreach for the Community Service Center. Six of their eight days will be spent assisting Shawn and Orlando in Valle Escondido setting up the clean water to the area. The village will have clean water by Christmas, in addition to new school supplies, clothing, and toys the UA students will be contributing. Doña Carmen, a member of the CRROBS base staff, also donated a large trash bag of stuffed animals.

As a reward for their hard work, the students will thankfully have a day rafting the Rio Pacuare. That is, if their tired bodies make it that far.

To view photos of Shawn's and Orlando's reconnaissance mission in October, click here.

One month later, watch their experience in this video montage:

Viva la Tortuga!

Long live the turtle!

‘Tis the season to be nesting. Every year from August to October, two of Costa Rica's three sea turtle species lay most of their eggs on the coastlines: the Green Turtles in Tortugero National Park (Caribbean coast) and Olive Ridley Turtle in Guanacaste (Pacific coast). There are seven species of sea turtles found in the world, all of which are endangered. Therefore many animal lovers fly to Costa Rica to do their part in assisting with turtle conservation projects set up by Costa Rica-based organizations.

Costa Rica Outward Bound is one of these organizations. And this week, students from two of our fall semester courses, Water & Wave and Tri-Country, are sacrificing their sleep to help out on the beaches of the Pacific Coast.

With a special partnership with one of Costa Rica’s turtle refuges (an area protected by the government) in Tulin, CRROBS students are able to participate in the conservation of these beloved animals. There are three crucial ways through which our students participate in the conservation process:

1. Beach cleaning: maintain and improve the beach; rescuing turtles if necessary
2. Night patrols: protect eggs from poachers and predators
3. Collecting eggs: place them in a secure hatchery area

The beaches must be maintained because, in the off-season, the sea turtles stay in the water. When it is time to lay their eggs (mainly between August and October), they exit the water and follow the moon to find a safe spot to lay them. Because they do not see very well, they are confused if the beach has too many obstacles and no place to go. Volunteers, including our students, clear the beaches maintain safe places where turtles consistently go to lay their eggs year after year.

In addition, poachers steal eggs, and predators eat them. Turtle eggs are a delicacy and can sell for a lot of money. As night time is both the time when eggs are laid and the time when poachers and predators make their moves, conservationists set out around midnight and again at 3am to safeguard eggs and relocate them to safer places. Costa Rica Outward Bound’s students make these patrols every night while camping on Playa Hermosa.

Through these efforts, CRROBS students and conservation organizations all over the country hope to repopulate the beaches with these adored creatures.

To read more from a previous CRROBS newsletter, click here.

From Service to Surfing

June 29, 2009

The Girl Scouts Service Challenge course finally gets a chance to relax. The arrived in Manuel Antonio today - a beautiful beach on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica. It is here where they will be learning to surf, learning some yoga moves, and enjoying a beautiful pool in the middle of rainforest gardens.

Perfect timing.

The girls just came from a 7-day hike through the southern rainforests of Costa Rica. They're ready to relax. Their days at homestays were filled with hard work: sugar cane production at the Lopez's, carrying loads of wood and wire to build a garden at Orlando's, and banana tree planting. Some of their highlights? Eating lunch on banana leaves. No bad allergies. Learning about banana farming. Playing soccer in the mud with the Piedras Blancas villagers.

On Wednesday they'll be back here at base ready to enjoy their last day touring through the city of San Jose on Thursday.