"Outward Bound really isn't the focus of the course at all, at this point at least," Platt says.

"Some of the very important and positive points in Outward Bound are involved in all types of education. It's just another philosophy to help facilitate learning," he says.

"[The class] is showing that there are many different ways to learn. It's pretty open," says Sarina Corsi, a master's candidate at GSE.

"[The question is] how can you bring the excitement of outdoor learning experience into an environment that's in a box," she says.

A Different Kind of Class

Because of its focus on expeditionary learning, the curricula of the Outward Bound program courses can vary from other GSE courses.

On the first day of class, students arrived, sat down and were promptly sent off into Harvard Square.

Their assignment was to locate two hard-to-find campus landmarks--Helen Keller's tribute to Annie Sullivan and the rhinoceros statues--and to ask socratic questions of people in the Square.

Truitt chuckles as he remembers a particularly funny response.

"One group asked a homeless person at Out of Town News, 'What is knowledge?'" Truitt says.

"I don't know, but I understand there's lot of it going on over there," the man responded, with a gesture towards Harvard Yard.

The point of this exercise, Truitt says, was to open up students to sources of knowledge other than just the teacher.

"It's a tribute to this whole method of question-asking as an experiential method," he says.

Another part of the course that students say is unique is its student input, especially considering its 60-plus enrollment.

Early in the term, students split into small groups, and develop a class on a topic such as educator development; later in the term, the class material is nearly entirely presented by students.