This November, I traveled to Seattle for four days with Parker for a Model UN conference that required my missing two full days of school. Compared to other longer trips, I did not miss as much school, but it still managed to impact me and my school life. Before the trip I had to meet with all my teachers, pre-learn a math lesson, and receive most of my homework for the next few days all at once. The whole experience left me wondering, Was it worth it?

During the trip I had an amazing time, attending a two-day Model UN conference and debating issues with other delegates from around the country. This is not an experience I could have had at home, and I learned so much from the conference.

Out of the extensive list of clubs in the high school, a few of them such as Model UN and “The Weekly” choose select students for travel to places both in and out of the country. Also, recently a group of students and teachers traveled to California for a People of Color Conference.

These students attend conferences, participate in debates, listen to speakers, and engage in other educational programs in which they meet people and learn unique skills to help them improve their studies when they return to Parker. On the trips, they explore the cities they are in too, discovering the culture through various activities, resulting in an experience both educational and recreational.

But these trips almost always conflict with school, and although sometimes students travel on the weekends, they can miss up to a week of school. The result is that these students fall behind in their classes then have to play catch-up.

One could argue that although these trips are memorable, students get too far behind the rest of the class, causing them, and sometimes even their classmates, to suffer. In some cases the teacher has to teach lessons twice, or make accommodations for students who will be missing their class. For the student, this can cause major stress, and cause them to have to complete additional work to catch up to the rest of the class.

On the other hand, experiences gained on a trip are unlike anything one could experience at Parker. Conferences like these teach students so much that helps them improve as journalists, speakers, or Model UN delegates.  But aren’t skills as a student more valuable than these?

Some of these trips are once in a lifetime opportunities to travel around the world and to participate in amazing conferences or other educational programs, but there is a cost.

Even though I missed only two days of school in Seattle, I definitely felt stressed. It was only a few months into school, and my freshman year, moreover, and I was still getting used to the rise in homework and the increase of seriousness and intensity in projects and papers. I missed out on a fairly large science presentation, and preparation for the mock trial in my history class.

It depends on the trip, but during my Seattle trip, on one of the days there was built-in study time—which I found very helpful—but besides that, I didn’t really find much time to do homework, other than on the plane, which can be difficult because of the lack of Wi-fi. I got some work done in Seattle, but not enough to make my return as easy as I would have hoped.

Every day we did a ton of different activities, and at the end, all of us were so exhausted. Especially on the days when I attended the actual conference, by the end of the day I was not in the mood to start reading and annotating.

Upon my return I had to meet with my teachers to catch up, which was definitely a stressful experience. I found that I was able to catch up with not much difficulty, but that could be because I only missed two days of school. All my teachers were very accommodating and very helpful upon my return.

Although this was my experience, I have heard of some other students who did not have teachers as accommodating.

Since so many students travel on trips and miss school, there should be some way these students can be helped all together. Sophomore Adele Lowitz, who attended ScotMUN, the international Model UN conference Parker attended last year in Scotland, missed five days of school for the trip.

“It would be nice if the school did a better job warning all my teachers in advance,” Lowitz said. “I think it would be really helpful if the school would warn all my teachers and send an email out to the faculty with the list that was more proactive.”

Still, it is the choice of the students about whether or not they want to go on these trips, and it is up to them to decide whether or not they can handle missing school. And if they decide to attend the trips, it is their responsibility to meet with teachers and complete their work on time.

Upper School Learning Resources teacher Julie Holman has had students come back from school trips and ask her for help, and she is open to letting more students ask her for help. “I would recommend that they try to get as much work as they can get done before they leave on the trip,” Holman said, “and if they have a plane ride, they could do some reading on the plane, but try to do a little bit of it before, and be proactive about it, so it’s done before they go on the trip.”

Not every person who attends these trips miss tests (I did not), but everyone has work to do, so maybe before the trips, there could be some sort of study session for everyone to get ahead on their work together. Regardless of how this is done, students, including myself, should complete as much homework as possible before the trips, and be proactive with meeting with their teachers.

Also, while this may be difficult for teachers, when a trip that a large group of students are attending is about to leave, teachers should make sure that the material they plan on using for the next few days is ready, so students missing school can get ahead.

In the end, the experiences of school trips are worth missing classes for. Although I was stressed after I returned and had to do some extra work to catch up, I still had such an enjoyable time–and knew that if I’d stayed at home, I wouldn’t have found this experience anywhere else.

As students at Parker, we are so lucky to have opportunities to travel and have these experiences, and in my opinion, it would be a shame to miss out on these trips just because one is scared of missing school. At least in my experience, teachers at Parker were accommodating–they helped me get back on track so I didn’t get too far behind.

If I’d stayed home I feel like I would have missed out on such a great opportunity, even though I had to do a little extra work to attend the trip.

If I am lucky enough to go on another school trip some day, I will take advantage of not only my time before the trips, but also the plane rides (if there are any), any study times, and try not to let the stress get to me so I can enjoy myself on these trips and have another incredible experience.