Throughout the week after spring break, some of Darlington School’s Fine Arts students traveled to New York for a few days of inspiration, education and to experience New York City. The trip consisted of students from the art history class who got to see some of New York’s most famous museums and buildings and the journalism class who spent their days at Columbia University, participating in classes at the annual spring convention for young journalists.

Brian Inman teaches Art History and has participated in the trip before, stating that the absolute best way to learn about art is to see it with your own eyes, something that New York is a perfect city for.

“As an art and history teacher I always like the New York trip because we get to go to pretty significant museums and students get to actually see the paintings on the wall, not just on a powerpoint,”  Inman said. “I always find that when a student sees something up close, then the knowledge actually becomes theirs and its very influential. So when we go to New York I always pick places where I know we’ll see things that we have studied in class and this is always very appreciated.”

The students who attended the trip thought that it was both fun and educative to experience the city with classmates and at the same time learn more about their interests in fine arts.

“Of course the trip itself is fun because we get to be with friends and classmates while exploring a new city. But also, as a fine arts trip we get to learn about the city as a hub for artists, where people go to make their dreams come true,” Senior Grace Lester said. “ We get to see and learn from professionals in real time and the entire fine arts team got to see the musicals so everyone in the theatre department — actor or crew — can see what’s it’s really like.”

Participating as a journalism student, Lester especially thought that the trip was rewarding to understand journalism in real life.

“For journalism students, we got to hear lectures from professionals as well,” Lester said. “One of the classes I attended was hosted by Jenny Cline who’s a sports reporter, so it was incredibly interesting to hear her perspective but also know that we are working towards the same objectives as she is when interviewing.

The teachers who organized the trip agreed that it was successful, but want future trips to have more time at the different museums and the opportunity to include the whole classes instead of just a few students.

“I thought the trip as a whole was successful, but in the future a suggestion would be to have more time at the different museums to avoid stress,” Inman said. “I hope to be able to go again, I just wish that there was a way that we could make it easier for students to go, with maybe if we had an alumni that would donate so that the whole class would be included and be able to participate and get the same experience.”