Eighteen middle school students got to experience a taste of college life at Shippensburg University on Saturday, April 30.

The event, called “Ship Trip,” was hosted by SU’s Honors Program. Education majors taught mini lessons to the students, gave them a tour of the campus and took them to lunch at Reisner dining hall.

Co-chairs of the Honors Program Ship Trip committee, Codey Fickes and Alexandra Roles, held an introductory sessionwhich allowed students the chance to ask any questions they had about college life. Many of the questions asked were related to academics.

Lesson options for students included a chemistry, history, geography ordance course. Each student attended two classes, depending on their preference.

Roles said the students gave positive feedback about the classes and suggested that the program should host “Ship Trip” again in the future.

“Even though it was a small group of students, it was a super bright and fun group which really made the day great,” Roles said. “They seemed to interact well with each other, the teachers, as well as myself and Codey. It seemed like they had a positive experience, and so did we!”

The event has been taking place annually for eight years. Associate professor and adviser for the event Lynn Baynum calls the event an “enrichment program for gifted and talented kids in middle school.”

The program targets students between the sixth and eighth grades. Some of the students came from Chambersburg Area Middle School, but most of them are cyber-schooled.

One student, Steven Foster, traveled from Philadelphia to partake in the event.

“I want to study and see what college is like,” Foster said.

Foster said he already knows what he wants to do in life — he wants to become an anesthesiologist.

Before going home, students played a trivia game, testing their knowledge of SU’s campus and what they learned from their lessons. Students answered questions within seconds, getting most of them correct.

Everyone involved considered the event fun and successful, but agreed to expand on it for the future.

“We want to try and get more students involved to make this event even bigger, so hopefully we will be able to at least get more students in the area involved,” Roles said.

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