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University tour entertaining, educational

Submitted by Brittany Grosse, GM Dawson High School--At around 10:30 am on April 7, our group of seven GMD students (Alysha and Ileah Mattice, Brett Hart, Josh McLeod, Megan Dorrington, Victoria Grosse, and, myself, Brittany Grosse) met up at school extremely excited to be leaving for a week- long trip to Vancouver Island and Vancouver for our university tour. We'd been planning this trip since the early months of the school year. After a lot of hard work and determination, our group had finally made it. Once the vehicles were loaded, we took the hour long drive to Skidegate Landing to catch the ferry. On our way, we ran into our Grade 7 teacher Mr. Kestle! He had the joy of sitting very close to all of his past students on the plane. Within no time, we landed in Vancouver. We rushed to the ferry terminal where we all spent a lot of time and money at the two arcades on the ferry. But hey, whatever passes the time, right? With the games to entertain us, the time whizzed by like nothing. With "I Just Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Bublé (our trip's theme, according to me and Megan) playing loudly, the energy was already at a high. This carried on into the next day when we saw our first university, the University of Victoria. I have to say the UVIC Campus is gorgeous, and not just because of the immense amount of bunnies (which several of us attempted to pet) hopping everywhere. They have an incredible building dedicated to First Nations' peoples with art work displayed all around it. After UVIC we toured Camosun College. It had to be one of my favourites because of how much it felt like a big high school. It was very cozy and I would totally consider going there. After Camosun, four of us sat in at a few court hearings. I'm glad to say I was one of them. It was very interesting. After sightseeing, we went back to the hotel and started fresh the next morning. Part of our group stayed in Victoria while the rest went to Nanaimo and visited Vancouver Island University aka Malaspena. The view of Nanaimo from VIU is incredible but it's all uphill, and as the tour guide told us "You'd have to be part mountain goat to survive here". Which I found very true. We missed our next tour at Capilano because we missed the ferry. We eventually got to the campus and just did a quick walk- around ourselves. The next day, Saturday, a member of our group enrolled in a one-day workshop at the Vancouver College of Art and Design. They have a small downtown campus but the instructors are all professional graphic artists, interior designers, or fashion designers. Awesome! For others there was more touring, a visit to Emily Carr University and some serious shopping as our Vancouver hotel was right across from Metrotown!On Monday, we went UBC. It was a huge, almost like a small town within a campus and everyone was tired by the time we were done. The coolest thing was this little area where you stand on a table and you could hear an echo no one else can.After UBC, a small group went to Simon Fraser University and the rest of us headed to the Law Courts downtown. We sat in on two Supreme Court cases. Three of us on the trip are interested in law or law enforcement.The next day we packed up and headed for home. I think it's safe to say everyone enjoyed themselves. A lot of memories came from that trip (ask anyone who went about being "out voted" by Mr. McIntyre and they'll be happy to tell you) and I for one am glad I went. On behalf of the 2010 University tour, I'd like to thank everyone who helped us. Whether it was buying raffle tickets or getting their car washed, every little bit helped. Thank you, Gwaii Trust for funding our tour. We all really appreciate it. Finally, a huge thank you goes out to Mr. McIntyre and Ms Young for being our wonderful chaperones and putting up with our "big happy family" all week. We all had a lot of fun. I hope next year's group has just as much fun as we did.