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Thanks for the sharing your impressions on this issue. In my experience, physical fitness for field courses is a problem for some, but not all of our students. The proportion of unfit students has decreased since the number of required field courses has decreased (see comments below), which is perhaps the only positive aspect of making field courses a voluntary part of the curriculum (!) Before each field course, I distribute a short handout of “dos” and “don’ts” and then go over these with all participants twice, once in a preparatory seminar, and again at the beginning of our field course. So far, I have not followed the advice of some university administrators to have students sign and return these handouts. My view is that students are adults and that part of their education is to acquire the field “savvy” necessary to assess for themselves any dangers. The list I distribute is basically common sense, but common sense applied outdoors has certainly been on the wane for some time. Thank goodness, nothing serious has yet happened, although we have had some close calls. We work a lot in the Alpine chains (currently the Alps and Dinarides) and vet the students before taking them along. The idea of including some first-aid skills is excellent, and not just useful for field courses.