As part of the CMA course CRU 195 Cal Poly students are asked to write a "reflective essay" about the two months they spent at sea aboard the Training Ship Golden Bear and what the cruise meant meant to them. The selected essays below were well written, and show that cruise is an intense, even life changing, experience.

• Blood of the Earth
  "I need to be constantly refreshing myself like the warm ocean water of Nuku Hiva; calm like the ground water of Waitomo, and powerful like the waterfalls of Fiji. These realizations have put me in much closer contact with the Earth and the water that is its blood. "
  
  
• Good Ole Goldy
  "I thoroughly feel I am a changed person from this trip. I never would have believed someone if they'd told me I would be celebrating my 20th birthday in the southern hemisphere, in New Zealand of all places. Everything I have seen and done will stay with me for the rest of my life."
  
  
• Like Running Water
  "I now understand, and prudence would dictate, that resistance should be met with a more fluid approach, like water. Why press against, when flowing around will provide success with greater ease? This philosophy has enabled me to thoroughly enjoy my experiences on the Golden Bear."
  
  
• Metamorphosis
  "But where are we going? Perhaps more importantly, why are we going? Some will point out to you that every so often our little lost floating world bumps up against something lumpy and solid and dry that looms up out of the wetness and smells of soil and trees and busy streets. They will tell you that this is why they have come, for the sights and sounds of these little interruptions in our floating existence."