Benjamin Swift

B.A. Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Sociology, Colorado College

Originally from the mountains of Colorado, Benjamin has always felt called to explore the map’s edge. He grew up skiing, biking, and running his way across the Rocky Mountains that make up his backyard, and has climbed three quarters of Colorado’s 54 fourteen-thousand foot peaks. After graduating high school he wanted to continue those adventures, and embarked on an Andes and Amazon semester program with Dragons, where he explored the mountains, rainforests, and cities of Peru and Bolivia. After that, he continued to explore his passion for environmentalism and human rights in Ecuador, where he studied the impact of climate change and invasive species on stream ecology and worked at a rainforest animal rehabilitation center.

While in college, Benjamin studied sociology which he used as a lens to explore questions of development, human rights, and social change. Through his coursework he has traveled to the US-Mexico border, Mexico, China, Nepal, Tibet, Italy, and France. He has worked at a Colorado LGBTQ+ advocacy nonprofit, conducted research for a Latinx rights organization, and organized students on a project to close local coal power plants. In 2020 he co-founded a podcast about activism around the world with a friend from his Dragons program, and is now working on podcasts about abortion and mental health. Benjamin is also an avid filmmaker, and produced many of the videos you find on the Dragons website.

Benjamin is thrilled to now be working as a Dragons instructor and exploring the rich cultures of South America just as he did with Dragons on his gap year.