NDB students are all excited for another year of Intersession from February 22 to February 25. Although Intersession looks a little different this year due to COVID-19, the community is ready for the break and an opportunity to participate in new and interesting activities.

Intersession is a four-day program in which academic classes do not take place and students are able to sign up for educational courses about topics that they would not usually find in a classroom. This opportunity only comes once every two years, so every student experiences two Intersessions during their time at NDB.

“I am so excited for Intersession this year and all the new opportunities that they have,” says NDB senior Isabelle Neil. “I’m glad we can finally have it after COVID-19.”

Intersession is a new experience for many NDB students. Tigers enjoy the opportunity to learn new and interesting things from the courses hosted by NDB teachers and staff.

“I think it’s a really cool opportunity for teachers and students to explore other topics that are not necessarily related to the curriculum, and just kind of hang out and share their interests,” says NDB history teacher Matthew Hankins about this upcoming Intersession, his first experience with this program.

Like Intersessions in the past, this year’s course options contain a mixture of academic-based, artistic-based, and “just for fun” classes so that students can find a course that best suits their interests.

Normally, Tigers would be able to choose from on-campus, off-campus, and traveling courses. Traveling courses could be anywhere within California, the United States, or around the world, and students always have had the option to go on their own independent college trip.

However, this year, students can only take courses on-campus due to COVID-19. If they wish to travel off campus, students are able to sign up for independent college trips, family trips, or volunteer or internship work.

“It’s a little bit weird this year, of course, because of COVID, and so we have a lot of restrictions,” added Hankins. “But I think a lot of teachers still put a lot of work into on-campus activities, so I think it’ll still be really cool.”