Ropes Course
The Ropes Course: Team Building for Third Year Students
"I got to know several of my classmates much better over the time we spent there today, and I now feel a new level of trust with them. It was the perfect team-building activity for a bunch of anxious soon-to-be third year medical students and I would recommend the activity for future."
This year, the rising third year students in the Pritzker Class of 2008 were given the opportunity to participate in a unique team-building exercise-the ropes course. Ropes courses are engineered structures for climbing. Ropes course programs involve small groups of participants who work together in a series of activities which increase in difficulty and focus on participants' physical, emotional, social, and intellectual capabilities and team building skills.
The idea was suggested by class member Katie Bekeny, and she spearheaded the efforts to bring this pilot program to Pritzker. The fourteen participants set the following goals for themselves though this experience:
- To demonstrate the power of teamwork by presenting students with challenges that cannot be completed as individuals.
- To encourage individual professionalism by exploring concepts such as leadership, respect, compassion, communication, responsibility, altruism, and honor.
- To explore and practice communication skills in the context of goal setting, problem solving, cooperation, group support, group cohesion, trust, conflict management, frustration, and risk taking.
- To give students an opportunity to interact with and get to know their classmates outside of their normal, familiar environment and to build class unity based upon shared challenges, successes, and fun experiences.
