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
Life as we know it
Lindsay Saligman
2014-07-30
A few weeks ago, as we walked across our high school’s parking lot, a friend of mine turned to me and said soberly “this is the end of life as we know it.” The first thing that came to my mind upon hearing this was the first thing that always comes to my mind upon...
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Just Getting Started
Grace Mannix
2014-07-30
Maybe not going to college right after graduating high school makes you nervous. Maybe you can only afford it with monetary help. Maybe there are requirements you aren’t sure you can meet. Maybe all of the vaccinations you have to get, especially for diseases you haven’t even heard of, are a little intimidating. Perhaps you’re...
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The Beginning
Eustacia Meyer
2014-07-30
Hello, my name is Eustacia Meyer, but most people call me Staci. I was born in Iowa and have lived in Ohio for most of my life. I have never really had the chance to leave the Midwest, so taking a bridge year in a foreign country was a shock to most of my family....
Read More Mixed Faces
Danielle Spencer
2014-07-30
When people ask me the obvious, just graduated High School, question “so where are your going to school next year?” I can never help but to laugh and just blurt out “Africa” and watch the looks on people’s faces. I have gotten so many mixed reviews and mixed faces from my questioners. There are those,...
Read More A Whole New World
Hadiyah Grubish
2014-07-30
Hey y’all! First off, I cannot believe that this bridge year is actually happening for me. As my departure date grows nearer, I can’t help but to feel scared, excited, and nervous all at the same time. This is something completely new and different. I’m not sure how to prepare myself for exactly how big...
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Six Degrees of Separation
Juno Fullerton
2014-07-30
The “Six degrees of separation” theory is pretty simple. Originated by Frigyes Karinthy in the late 1920s, it suggests that every person on this earth is six or fewer steps away from another person. It suggests that no matter how far apart two people are in the world, it will take a maximum of six steps,...
Read More Starting the Journey
Kali Nelson
2014-07-30
I have always known adventure, and have always gone out looking for it. The need to explore and see things for myself is one of the strongest forces guiding my way. I always loved getting outside and climbing a tree just to see the rest of the world around me. My junior year of high...
Read More Oh how the time flies by…
Lucas Weber
2014-07-29
It seems like everything is happening at once. From trying to figure out how to navigate through my High School freshman year, to figuring out the layout Hunter College in senior year, where I took college classes, to grabbing my diploma in front of family and friends. Looking back, everything seems like a blur, but...
Read MoreThe Next Step
Tyler Rivera
2014-07-10
“Where are you going to school?” “What are you majoring in?” “Where are you staying?” The sounds of senior year. While many of my classmates had answers to these questions, I didn’t. The only answers I was able to offer was simply, “I don’t know”. And that was the truth. I didn’t know. Until recently...
Read MoreHome.
Lauren Holt
2013-06-17
“I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears, and the dragons of home, under ones’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe.”
Read MoreComing Home
Lauren Holt
2013-03-06
Coming home was when my Global Citizen Year really began. In the weeks proceeding my departure, I was so overwhelmed with making final lesson plans for my students and planning out all my goodbyes for everyone who had shaped my experience, that I didn’t take much time for myself to reflect and actually comprehend that...
Read MoreClockwork
Welcome Frye
2012-02-17
One February morning, I woke up to a refreshing scent of untouched nature and a soothing sound of trickling rain drops, in addition to a ghastly rash under the band of my watch. At first, I assumed the rash was one of the many effects of the bug-ridden jungle, as it couldn’t have been the...
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