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
The Wild Thornberrys
Kaya Hartley
2011-07-08
Hello, Kaya Hartley here. For starters, I believe I was 5 or 6 when I first decided I would travel the world. It all started with the TV show ‘The Wild Thornberrys.’ For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to watch it, It’s a cartoon about a family who goes on crazy explorations...
Read MoreThoughts on the Year Ahead
Taylor Lawson
2011-07-07
Name: Taylor Lawson Age: 18 Currently: a knitter, a musician and an idealist Favorite U.S. President: Thomas Jefferson Dream Occupation: a novelist/professor/research scientist/truck driver Hobbies: reading, watching BBC shows and collecting textbooks from Goodwill Religious/ Political Affiliation: none Finding Global Citizen Year was mostly an accident: I stumbled upon a Facebook ad(I don’t usually pay...
Read MoreReaching Outside My Comfort Zone
Lindsey Sepulveda
2011-07-07
Writing this blog post has been one of the most difficult things I’ve had to this summer, but like many things in life, it has to be done. I knew when I decided to become a GCY Fellow that I would have to do some blogging and many other things that aren’t a part of...
Read MoreYou Might Find This Interesting
Madeline Ripa
2011-07-07
Three months ago I was planning a half-year backpacking trip across New Zealand. I had travel guides at the ready and was busy researching prospective bungee-jumping companies and sites where they would be filming “The Hobbit.” I was ecstatic and ready to get going. Then, it just so happened, I got an e-mail. The subject...
Read MoreInspired by Brazil
Stephanie Dunning
2011-07-06
In the 10th grade, I went to Brazil with my grandparents for a month to visit family. While I was there I fell in love with the culture and the language. When I came home, my aunt told me that she learned Portuguese by traveling down the coast and teaching English when she had the...
Read MoreIntroductions
Heather Kurtz
2011-07-06
Hello, I am Heather Kurtz, a 2012 Global Citizen Year Fellow. When I was told to write about myself I said “Not again!” I am the salutatorian of my class and have had to write about myself many times already. But for you who read this I will do it one more time! I live...
Read MoreLiving as Others Do
Elias Estabrook
2011-07-06
These days I often find myself on a bus or a train, alone, absorbed in my thoughts, yet my eyes and ears opened to the surroundings. I pick up a bit of a conversation in Spanish here, a mother talking to her young baby there. I look out of the windows over the neighborhoods of...
Read MoreMaking My Own Move
Molly Owens
2011-07-06
“You’ve moved 12 times and you’re how old!?” That’s pretty much the general reaction I get when I try to explain why I still have moving boxes in my closet after living in my house for a year. I am from almost every little town just north of San Francisco. Although the population is under...
Read MoreBeing a Part of the World
Andre Olden
2011-07-06
When I was a little kid, I can remember watching shows like Taboo, where viewers are exposed to the peculiar cultures of other places in the world. One thing I can vividly recall is how mesmerized I found myself staring into the television, a prepubescent boy, with little more to his name than big dreams...
Read MoreChimamanda Adichie
Mariah Donnelly
2011-07-06
You might ask what brought me here. What made me decide to take a gap year? To be honest I wasn’t quite sure of the answer when I first applied to become a Global Citizen Year fellow. I wasn’t quite sure this nerdy, debate-loving, music listener, high school graduate could handle a gap year. I...
Read MoreEverywhere
Mitchell Mankin
2011-07-06
So how does someone end up putting off college for a year and going to a country thousands of miles away? Well, each fellow here has their own reasons, but here are mine. I’ve always been a person who likes to gather knowledge about the rest of the world — its history, its geography, and...
Read MoreThe World Up Close and Personal
Lily Goldberg
2011-07-06
Hey, I’m Lily, 18 years old and from Glastonbury CT (quite the uneventful area). It is quiet and nice, but I have to admit it’s incredibly easy to get bored here, which is partly why I’m so thirsting for adventure! It helps to have hobbies — that is my primary boredom cure. I love making...
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