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 Power of Social Enterprise
Hannah Bouline
2019-04-29
By Hannah Bouline, Ecuador ’13, University of Denver Four years ago I was sitting in a modest workshop stringing tags onto ribbon. The shelves full of colorfully dyed seeds hid the dull cinderblock walls. The door rested open allowing the brisk evening air to enter, and orange light from the setting sun illuminated the mountainside....
Read More
Alumni Post: 1 + 4
Lydia Collins
2014-02-21
When I decided to attend Tufts in the spring of 2012, I simultaneously made another life-changing decision — to not go to Tufts. Right away, that is. I deferred my admission until the following year and signed up to spend a year in Ecuador with a program called Global Citizen Year. Global Citizen Year is...
Read More
A Sense of Self
Daniel Schwarz
2013-10-22
A Sense of Self “I don’t know Mom, I just don’t care” (a typical response to why I got a bad grade and how I felt about it). The truth is that I really did care about high school. I always got okay grades because school was easy. Occasionally there would be a...
Read More
Capstone
Kim Asenbeck
2013-09-12
Watch my final capstone video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UncZ9zN8ww&feature=youtu.be.
Read More
the colour of my skin: thoughts on diversity
Emma Anderson
2013-07-10
I am awoken each morning by the sounds of Arabic prayer calls piercing out from the loudspeakers of a nearby mosque into the thick, clicking dark. Not a day goes by that I don’t make a baby cry or a donkey cart-driving seven year-old squeal out “Toubab!” in sickening delight based solely on the fact...
Read More
Colonization and Senegal
Emma Anderson
2013-07-10
Colonization and Its Legacy The world is in a constant state of flux. Empires rise and fall while the nations of the conquered seen to fade back in the shadows of their conquerors. The history of the dominating Romans pervades our ideas of the ancient world and it has always been from the perspective of...
Read MoreThe World of Westernism
Galen Tsongas
2013-07-10
Welcome to the world of Westernism! Come one, come all. Come ALL indeed. How can you improve your beauty, your home, your enjoyment, and your popularity? You can ride the wave of Western civilization for the low price of a piece of your soul. Listen to those voices that tell you to consume, to rid your home of pests,...
Read MoreLeaving Home
Galen Tsongas
2013-07-10
For months I thought about being home in my previous lifestyle and enjoying the life before of every comfort I can imagine. I’ve been seeing clouds that remind me of fog and I feel like I’m being dragged away. I even saw the Statue of Liberty in the clouds in a wash of San Francisco Giants’ Orange. I...
Read More
If You Jump, I Jump
Emily Ford
2013-07-09
Every muscle in my body was taut with terror. My legs trembled and the pole on which I was perched shook along with them. Sucking air deep within my chest, I closed my eyes to the ground 20 feet below. I was frozen for an unbearable and indeterminable amount of time until that recurrent thought...
Read More
Good Water
Peyton Foley
2013-07-09
I sit on a garden wall in the front yard of the dead artist Guayasumin and around me are beautifully placed plants amidst walkways, a mix of green and white. The breathtaking view of little toy buildings that fade into the distance falls steeply before my feet. Quito, Ecuador’s capitol, swims in the basin...
Read More
Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out: The Un-Official Gap Year Motto
Emma Anderson
2013-07-09
Turn On, Tune In, and Drop Out: Discovering the Difference Between Knowledge and Understanding ““Turn on” meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. “Tune in” meant interact harmoniously with the world around you – externalize,...
Read More
Capstone Video
Caroline Blanchard
2013-05-21
My life in Boussoura was filled with smiles and laughter and these beautiful people who made me so incredibly happy as Kadidia Souare. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXd4dHcufKw&feature=player_embedded
Read More