Fellow Stories
True gap year stories from Fellows abroad!
Check out the latest blogs from Global Citizen Year Fellows in Brazil, Ecuador, and India!
Category
Class Year
Country
Whose Choice is This?
Lydia Crush
2011-08-29
It’s midnight and the big day waits for me once I wake up, when I find out what my apprenticeship will be. It’s like the Ceremony of Twelves in The Giver. Jonas waits in apprehension while others decide what his career will be. His interests have been noted and his skills were tested and studied....
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The Cost of Living
Erica Anderson
2011-08-25
Five dollars a day is not enough to make a life, let alone a very lighthearted afternoon. This Monday, the Global Citizen Year fellows were shipped into the heart of San Francisco to try and better understand urban poverty in the United States. We were split up among two neighborhoods, the Tenderloin and the Mission....
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The Mission
Winson Law
2011-08-23
On a dreary, foggy day, a charter bus full of 57 Global Citizen Year Fellows tore through the Mission and Tenderloin neighborhoods of San Francisco. In an attempt to simulate urban poverty, Global Citizen Year provided each Fellow with only $5 and two other weary souls to venture through some of San Francisco’s most impoverished...
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From Development to Culture Shock to Avatar: a Typical Day at Fall Training
Charlotte Benishek
2011-08-23
Up to this point fall training has equipped the Global Citizen Year Fellows with broad skills required to be successful in our Global Citizen Year, such as mindfulness, self-awareness, and engaged leadership. However, on Saturday we departed from this theme and delved into international development specifically. The day began with a conference call with David...
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57
Joan Hanawi
2011-08-22
It’s craziness. It really is. 57 like-minded youth from all over the United States—flying, driving, doing whatever it takes to congregate in one singular place. 57 young adults who have all been consumed by the same passion—to tap into innate potential by willingly embracing a cross-cultural immersion. 57 students attempting to break societal restrictions and...
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Familiar Faces
Lydia Crush
2011-08-22
The usual questions I’m asked are “do you know any Spanish,” “have you ever been out if the country before,” “do you know anyone else in the organization.” My answer has so far been a huge grin and a laughing “no.” For a while I couldn’t understand why it might matter if I know people...
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A Silent Hike, Me?
Elizabeth Warren
2011-08-22
Stanford University is gorgeous! California weather is like Florida’s fall weather, in one day of travel I went from super hot and humid summer weather to cool, nice Cali weather. One of the more awesome things here is that all of us Fellows get along great! Thursday, during the morning session we explored Mindfulness, finding...
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And. A new life starts like a flash in the sky
Albamarina Nahar
2011-08-22
I am beyond surprised that my mentors and supporters have lead me to Global Citizen Year. I would have never thought that taking a year off was even normal. But reality gave me a slap in the face and college applications were beyond stressful. The application process was not going the way I liked it,...
Read MoreIntro to Me!
Karina Rodriguez
2011-08-05
Hello! I want to first begin by saying that getting to know a person never begins with “so tell me about yourself.” I think people need to spend time together to get to know each other, rather than just lay it out all black and white. I am also not very good at describing myself...
Read MoreBubble Boy
Russell Bollag-Miller
2011-08-01
I have moved around for the majority of my life. One commonality between all of the places that I have lived (Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts) is an invisible bubble that has enveloped these communities. This bubble is why I have decided to take a gap year. The bubble I’m talking about is essentially a mentality...
Read MoreA Mile Wide, An Inch Deep
Michael Ratliff
2011-07-28
Having only passed the Mason Dixon Line once in the first 17 years of my life, I had – and still have – a strong desire to explore life out of the American Southeast. I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to attend a United World College, a program designed to bring students from...
Read MoreThis Isn’t That
Jacob Stern
2011-07-28
Hello! I’m Jake. My story? Well, I was raised in California and spent the first 13 years of my life in the suburbs and Jewish Day School—the next four were spent in the same suburb and public high school. OK, that sounds pretty dull. There was definitely fun thrown in here and there. But, for...
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