Past OB Instructors
What happens to an OB Instructor......after OB?
by Sharon Nicholas
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Like an OB student wondering if the real world is still out there after three weeks, imagine what that sensation is like after three years! This is a question that OB Instructors start asking themselves as the final months of their contracts come to a close. When it comes time to leave Anakiwa, memories, friends, tears and laughs, this is what you’ll find some of those instructors doing:
• Raising and supporting families, having babies including first, second, and
third ones
• Teaching or studying at schools, polytechnics and universities
• Travelling and adventuring
• Hydrology, Geology, Engineering, Corporate facilitators, Counselling,
Building, Farming, Modelling, Adventure Guiding
• Running their own businesses
• Working for organizations such as Conservation Corps, Police, Mountain
Safety Council, City Councils, Outdoor Pursuits Centre, Air New Zealand,
and Outward Bound
Leaving OB isn’t always an easy thing however and finding jobs as fulfilling is a challenge, so there are also those who take time out to ask themselves, What next? What am I going to be when I grow up? and Where shall I go now? That’s right, we’re only human after all.
One thing that is certain is that ex OB instructors keep in touch, get together regularly, often live in close proximity to each other e.g. Hokitika, Christchurch, Nelson, Wellington, still find time in their lives for some form of PT, and can’t wait to get out and start the next adventure which always seems too far away.
As for me, after leaving Outward Bound I travelled to Italy to work the Full On season, before roving around Europe climbing. On returning to NZ, there was some contract work in various parts, however I had to ask myself what next...kinda like get a haircut or get a real job! So now I'm working at the Royal NZ Police College, taking PT, and introducing police to experiential adventure education...as much as I can, and still planning the next adventure including a bunch of ex OB instructors biking around Samoa, snowboarding in Canada, and building Mountain Bike trails in Chile....maybe…!
