Alternative Breaks

Alternative Break trips provide a unique opportunity for students to participate in an intensive public service experience while increasing their understanding of significant social and environmental problems.

Consider Applying to Participate on an Alternative Spring Break Trip!

Please stay tuned for updates on when the ASB Participant Application will go LIVE this October! If you have questions, please contact Lynn Nguyen.

Alternative Breaks 2022-2023

America's Longest War: Narcotics, Violence, and Migration in the “Drug Capital of the World”
Despite four decades of US-led drug control efforts, the overall production, trafficking, and consumption of drugs has remained consistently steady. Notably, the escalation of financial and military efforts against drugs has proliferated violence in Latin America and contributed to racially tinged mass-incarceration in the US. Participants will engage with community organizations in the “Drug Capital of the World” to understand the history and present state of America's War on Drugs.
Led by Edwin Sanchez Huizar '23 & Luis Cano Vazquez '23 (Location: Miami, FL)

Blackness, Womanhood, and Violence in Atlanta, Georgia
Black womanhood is an intersectionality that is often overlooked, especially in the context of sexual and domestic abuse. In Atlanta, participants will partner with local advocacy, abuse prevention and resource centers to deepen their understanding of the intersections of race, gender, and sexual and domestic violence, while learning about what local organizations are doing to provide support to survivors.
Led by Jordyn Birmingham '24 & Shi Thompson '24 (Location: Atlanta, GA)

Crossroads of a Crisis: Housing in San Francisco
Participants will examine the evolution of the housing crisis in San Francisco from the perspective of job-related immigration and migration. Through service and engagement with community organizations and local advocates, participants will explore how race, class, and citizenship affect the prosperity and wellbeing of different communities.
Led by Brian Liu '25 & Luna Jiang-Qin '25 (Location: San Francisco, CA)

Human-Land Relationships and Rituals
How do we love winter? How do we prepare for spring? How do we relate to the natural world around us, and how does our lifestyle shape that relation? How could we live, and relate, differently? The forests, the farms, and the people — native and non-native — of southern Maine will shed light on these and other questions as we explore what it means, and what it takes, to call a place home.
Led by Alexis Mullen '23 & Ethan McLear '23 (Location: Midcoast Maine)

Tools to Promote Educational Equity in New York City
Participants will examine some of the complex factors contributing to educational inequity in New York City, including racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and neurological differences within student populations. Through engaging with local community organizations, students will develop a deeper understanding of best practices for promoting educational equity in urban areas and beyond.
Led by Catherine Cao '25 & Yaerin Wallenberger '25 (Location: New York City, NY)

Engaged in direct service relating to these problems, students live and work in communities with which they otherwise may have little contact. Being completely immersed in this environment over an extended period of time allows students to internalize their experience, which can serve as a springboard for a lifelong commitment to social change.

Most trips do have a fee, but need-based financial aid is available to cover up to 80% of trip costs.

How Bowdoin AB Works

Alternative Break trips are organized and led by students who want to provide an intensive learning through service experience. AB leaders are responsible for all aspects of the alternative spring break trip, including recruiting participants, trip logistics, coordinating with the host site, and leading the actual trip.

Most trips do have a fee, but need-based financial aid is available to cover up to 80% of trip costs.

Leader Selection

AB proposals and leader applications are reviewed each spring for the following year by a committee of students, faculty, and McKeen Center staff. Those leaders whose trips are selected receive support and training from the McKeen Center to plan and implement their AB trips.

Leaders' Seminar

During the fall semester, ASB leaders participate in the Leaders' Seminar, a 10-week course facilitated by the staff of the McKeen Center. This seminar prepares leaders in how to organize and lead their trips and to help student participants examine the political, social, cultural, and economic aspects of their service and the communities in which they will be living. Through this seminar, leaders develop their own seminar which they lead for their trip participants in the spring.

Participants' Seminar

Prior to the trips, participants attend weekly pre-service meetings to prepare them for their service experience. These meetings include background and cultural information about the site, educational visits from Bowdoin professors, reading assignments, film viewing, fundraising, and team-building activities.

During and After the Trip

During the trip, students participate in meaningful service activities, daily reflective sessions, and evening group activities. After returning to campus, students work together to educate the larger Bowdoin community about their issue area and experience.