I sat down with Raey Block ’25, Stetson Outdoor Adventure Recreation (SOAR) council member, to learn about the adventure advocate and her passionate perspectives on exploration.
What does exploration mean to you?
It means getting out of the norm, going past what you see every day or going past what is expected. You can explore anywhere, even somewhere you already know. If you just walk around, actually pay attention to your surroundings. See what plants there are, see adventure in what you see every day. It doesn’t have to be going out far to an actual park or hike or doing something but I also love to do that. It’s just going somewhere new, having a new experience or you can even explore somewhere you’ve already been, just by looking at it in a different way.
Could you tell me about the opportunities that SOAR provides for students?
SOAR offers discounted rates–very discounted rates to go on outdoor adventure trips for Stetson students. Some of those are just day trips where you would go on a hike or kayaking or paddle boarding, canoeing. Then others are longer trips like Fall Break and Spring Break. Last Fall Break, we actually went to West Virginia. In January, we’re planning on going to a ski trip in North Carolina. No matter where you go, it’s beginner-friendly. You don’t actually have to have outdoor experience to go on SOAR trips, which is really nice. We provide all the gear. The rates are discounted so it’s much less to go on the trip, as it would be if you were going on your own. And it provides an opportunity to go with people who do know about the outdoors. You’re not just being, for lack of better words, thrown to the wolves, you’re gonna have people there who can actually help you out and are trained in safety measures and stuff like that. That’s definitely a benefit, especially if you like exploring in groups.
Why would you say that outdoor recreation is important?
Something I’m big on is “challenge by choice.” It’s a terminology I heard when I was working for Adventure West Virginia and it’s something I still live by, both in an outdoor recreation setting and not. There are always gonna be things that challenge you and push you out of your comfort zone, and it needs to be your individual choice and autonomy to decide, are you gonna choose to challenge yourself or to stay in your comfort zone? So if it’s out of your window of tolerance, it is okay to step down, but be aware that you’re doing that. Or, be aware if you can step out of your comfort zone a little bit more and challenge yourself. So that challenge by choice is a really big thing. I think it’s really important whether you’re doing an outdoor activity or not. But I think outdoor recreation definitely helps you recognize that and develop that within yourself. And also, it’s just fun, honestly, new experiences.
Would you say that it’s especially important as a college student to explore the outdoors?
Oh, definitely. I mean college, I’ve realized, is so much of being inside. It is so much of indoor classrooms, being on your computer, going to work. Most of what we do is inside, obviously, like our dorms or our apartments are too. I know a lot of times when I’m not intentionally being outside. The only time I’m really outside is when I’m walking to class and that’s not enough time to be exposed to the sunlight. Respectfully, we all need to touch a little bit more grass. There are times that I just freak out and I’m having a rough day. I just have had too much screen time. I need to touch grass. And you know what? When I go outside and just sit outside for a little bit, I feel better. Crazy how that works.
Over the summer, you studied abroad in Japan. What was this experience like for you?
It was the scariest thing I have ever done. I was so terrified. I was so excited but so scared. I had been doing a little bit of Japanese Duolingo but it was not enough. Going to just this entirely new place, I didn’t really know anybody else from Stetson who was going on the trip at the time, either. I felt like, even though I was going with the group, I was kind of going alone, and it was an absolutely incredible experience. If I could go back, there’s not a single thing I would change, except maybe I would have gone to more shrines and temples and maybe gone on more hikes. I didn’t really feel comfortable going alone for some of those things, because obviously we’re 8,000 miles away from home. Being somewhere where you don’t speak the language, and you have no idea how to navigate and you’re just from somewhere so very different culturally is just terrifying but so Interesting. It was wonderful.
What’s next for SOAR?
We’d like to keep growing our program for sure, still doing what we’re doing with having trips. Hopefully, eventually, we can expand and be able to have more funding so that we can take more people on trips. Because there’s a lot of interest in these SOAR trips and we don’t always have the bandwidth to take as many students as we would like. There’s a lot of a waitlist so I would like to see that happen. For now, I really feel that doing what we’re doing, but hopefully on a larger scale as years go by. We’re working on getting bigger with our outreach, social media and marketing.
