Beyond the Classroom: Norwich Cadets in Morocco | 2026 Olmsted Field Study

Video title: Beyond the Classroom: Norwich Cadets in Morocco | 2026 Olmsted Field Study

[Background instrumental music plays throughout.]

Cadet Speaker: Coming here opened so many doors for me, that I can see that the world is so much more than what I think it is, or the assumptions that we make, or the little bit of reading that we do, or Google searches that we may make that take up 10 minutes of our life rather than actually getting to experience the beauty and culture of various different areas. This field study within a country interacting with different people who speak different languages, how to interpret or communicate with them, has taught me that there is not just one way of doing things. There is not just one way of understanding something. You can only do so much research online, and there is an immense value in actually meeting those people. No matter how many Google searches I do, that is not really going to give me any insight into the nation. I feel like the Olmsted trip itself put me at an advantage and at a little step up compared to other people that have not gone on the Olmsted trip. Unforgettable experience. I had so much fun. The ups and the downs, it was all worth it.

[Sound of wind rushing and birds chirping. Cadets navigate urban streets in Morocco.]

Cadet Speaker: All right, Fountain Bakery, Hammam Mosque. School. School? I think.

Dr. Morris: Norwich University is interested in producing effective leaders, leaders that can lead with allies from other countries, that are comfortable in international situations. So this year, we spent a couple weeks in Morocco traveling to various cities, meeting with average citizens, generals, soldiers, business persons, academics, with the goal of trying to understand a little bit about Morocco. The terrain changed from the mountains, to the ocean, to the desert. Students got to just experience what it is like to travel and to navigate in this particular space. It is an immersive, experiential learning opportunity. That is what Norwich does. That is what we have been doing for over two centuries. And that is what Partridge wanted us to do.

Cadet Speaker: Norwich is a place where they build leaders. Dr. Morris really let us make this experience the way that we wanted it, the way that we envisioned it, and that will definitely prepare us for the future, especially when we are junior officers. We are still going to fail. We are still going to learn. But we are going to have a better understanding of how to deal with it and how to learn from it.

Cadet Speaker: The fort was definitely my favorite experience. Essentially, we met with the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces at the Military History Directorate. And after we got there, we were introduced to the general who ran the installation. And it helped me really see what diplomacy was like, in a sense, in a very light manner. I will always tell that story with whoever I meet, because it was an incredible opportunity to meet with the armed forces of a foreign military, interact with them on people-to-people diplomacy, and learn from incredible individuals.

Cadet Speaker: The biggest thing that is going to stick with me is the Medinas. I think just that environment and the way it was set up, the vision of it, the close markets, and everybody moving around, and all the people selling their homemade things. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really beautiful. And I think if I were to live over here, I would be in the Medina every day.

Cadet Speaker: The camel riding in Merzouga, right? That is not something everyone does. That is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was so much fun, surrounded by people that I like. In, you know, the Sahara Desert, which is the textbook definition, dictionary picture to the side, desert.

[Sound of wind blowing over sand dunes.]

Cadet Speaker: I think what I will remember from this trip and talk about, for example, to my kids and people in the future, will be the exchanges I had with people there, the chance to talk with the Amazigh people. They are indigenous to Morocco, and we made tagine and couscous. I feel like cooking is very intimate. At home, I cook with my mother. It was a great experience to be able to share with someone else and even bring what I made home so that I can cook it with my mother.

Dr. Morris: The Norwich model is unique because the students plan, and execute, and evaluate the event with some faculty guidance. They are responsible for managing the logistics on the ground. They are responsible for facilitating some of the meetings that we have with politicians, educators, military leaders, business people, and just average civilians and tour guides. They are responsible also for setting up the schedule and keeping the team moving from place to place. So it is not just a culturally immersive experience. It is a leadership experience as well.

Cadet Speaker (Logistics Officer): As the logistics officer on the Olmsted Expedition, trying to plan all the travel routes, all the housing, and all the train situation in the country, which is completely unique to this country, provided me a very good challenge to really push myself and not in an academic sense, but in a practical sense, actually learn about what it is to organize these large trips for 12 people. I mean, that is a lot. Twelve people does not sound like a lot, but it is a huge challenge to really make the flow of the trip work.

Cadet Speaker (Phase Leader): I was the phase leader for phase three, and we had four months to plan this phase, and coming into the trip, the phase was planned. However, two days before we were supposed to journey into the desert, which is phase three, our guide canceled on us. So it was just a challenge to have to be on the ground and feel like you have no plan, even though you worked so hard to make sure that everything goes perfectly. I watched one of our cadets here take work that fell through the cracks at the very end here and turn it into probably three of the most fun days I had in Morocco. When I learned I just had to roll with the punches, there is a lot of things that I cannot control, and even though I had a plan, that plan did not go how I specifically wanted it, so I just had to learn to rely on the people around me and just recognize and realize that not everything is perfect. I would say it gives us a lot of confidence in doing everything and anything in our future careers, because we are not always going to have guidance and we are not always going to be told exactly what to do. It also gives us a framework for how to build proper teams, right? Being able to find the conflict styles, the communication styles, and bridge the gaps between, at this point, 10 different people, but once we graduate anywhere from 15 to 40 people. The skills that we learn here are going to translate wherever we go, whether that be as an officer in the military or somewhere in the corporate world, in the government world.

Cadet Speaker: And it helped me out tremendously, because I got to meet and interact with a foreign military general twice as a cadet. You know, there is room for mistakes and there is room for learning, but if I was a captain, for example, meeting a foreign general for the first time, there is a lot more expectations.

Cadet Speaker: I think one specific moment that comes up in my mind when I think about the guidance Professor Morris has given us has been thinking about the periphery, thinking about things that are not said. For example, when we visited the South and saw the Amazigh people and learned about their culture and politics, we focused primarily on that throughout the day, and we did not really discuss what we were seeing around us that was not being said, that was not being discussed, such as reservoirs, water resources, things like that, that really go deeper into what is actually happening in the region. As a future leader, it is crucial that we have the ability to see and understand things that are not being directly spoken to or told to us.

Cadet Speaker: The Olmsted Expedition is actually one of the things that pulled me to Norwich. For me, this was my first time outside of the Western World and being able to say that I went somewhere and did something that I probably was not comfortable with two or three years ago. It is such a good opportunity to attend this trip with a lot of these cadets, work together, not just come for a tourist trip, not just come and do tours, but meet with these people. I think it definitely showed me that there is so much to see in the world, and it is definitely something that I want to continue doing. One of the lessons that my dad always taught me was seek first to understand and then to be understood, and I think that is at the very core of this trip, at the very core of leadership.

Dr. Morris: Each student, each cadet, is going to be a leader, and they have no idea just how many people that they are going to lead. They have no idea how influential they will be over the course of their life, and this is an important time period of their life in which they are getting an undergraduate education at America's oldest private military college. We want them to have all the tools necessary to be resilient, to have empathy, to be critical thinkers, to be engaged, but also to be effective leaders, and that does not happen by chance. Norwich is forever. Norwich men and women are forever. Experiential learning is also forever. And that is something that we carry with us as Norwich cadets, from Norwich into our lives, and we pass it on to our subordinates, our peers, our mentors, even some. And it is a ripple effect. So starting with something like Olmsted, if we did not have the ability to plan it ourselves, then what would we be doing? We would be like every other school.