New York City

Spring 2013 NYC Trip

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Each year, the honors program takes students on a day trip to New York City for one Saturday during the spring semester. Students meet up bright and early in the morning to board a bus bound for the city. Students are let off at a prominent New York museum with tickets for admittance and set free for the day. People break off into groups to enter the museum, explore New York, and spend the day as they see fit. As night falls, the group meets up once again, this time to see a performance: either a Broadway show or an opera at the Met. After the show, students re-board the bus for a sleepy trip back to Ithaca, arriving home in the early hours of the morning. 

Past Museums:

• Museum of Modern Art
• Museum of Natural History
• Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Guggenheim Museum
• Whitney Museum of American Art

Past Performances:

• Madame Butterfly (Met)
• West Side Story (Broadway)
• La Boheme (Met)
• Spring Awakening (Broadway)
• Avenue Q (Broadway)

Costs:

The honors program subsidizes the majority of costs for the NYC trip. Generally, students pay approximately $30 for the experience, including hiring the bus, museum admission, and theatre tickets. Students are responsible for bringing or buying food.

Spring Awakening  to La Boheme -- Four Years of NYC Trips

by Caitlin Ahearn

Over my four years at Ithaca College, I was lucky enough to attend all four of the Honors New York City trips with my Honors friends. I was always astounded at how much we could pack into one day – bus rides there and back, one museum, one Broadway show or opera, with time to wander the city and find good food, all within 24 hours. As exhausting as the trips were, they were always worth it.

Freshman year, we saw Spring Awakening with its original cast on Broadway and visited the Whitney Museum of American Art. My friends and I still sing the songs from Spring Awakening, which was an amazing show with an even more amazing cast (Lea Michele, Jenna Ushkowitz, and Jonathan Groff were all in Spring Awakening before they were in Glee!) . However, my favorite memory was playing ―Guess the Title‖ with Rebecca Rideout and Josh Thomas at the Whitney, where one of us would cover up the title of an abstract painting and the others would have to guess what the title was. So much for intelligent analysis of art... but sometimes we Honors kids need a break from intelligent analysis, right?

Sophomore year, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw the opera Madame Butterfly. I wandered away from my friends at the Met and found a beautiful exhibit of musical instruments from different cultures and periods of history. I was amazed to see one of Paganini‘s violin strings on display (for non-music nerds, this is pretty awesome!). Madama Butterfly was also the first opera I had ever seen, which made my think of the movie Pretty Woman when Edward says, "People's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul." Luckily, just like Vivian in the movie, I loved it!

Junior year, we had the wonderful opportunity to see IC alum Matt Cavenaugh '01 perform as Tony in the Broadway revival of West Side Story, one of my favorite musicals. After watching the movie so many times, it was incredible to see the show live. We also visited the Museum of Natural History, although my favorite part of the museum was probably the dog park outside. Who can resist lots of cute dogs all in one place?

Senior year, our last year, we visited the Museum of Modern Art and took in the Tim Burton exhibit. Even though the exhibit was packed with people, I still enjoyed seeing all the art from Burton‘s private collection and the props and storyboards from his movies. We also saw La Boheme at the Metropolitan Op- era. Matt Worhach and I had lots of fun comparing the opera to Rent, the musical that was based off of the opera, and joking about singing Rent songs while the actors were singing La Boheme. Don‘t worry, we didn‘t actually do it! Maybe.

Overall, I had a blast on every one of the Honors trips. When I graduate, the trips will be something I will miss greatly. Wherever I end up next year (California? Europe? My parents‘ basement?), I know I will have great memories with some of my favorite people to look back on. And if the Honors board ever decides to open up the trips to alumni (eh?), I will be first in line. Just saying.