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
Roots and Wings
Devani Santos
2012-07-11
Sometimes it feels like I’m setting myself up for continuous heartbreak. Every place I go consumes me and I become so attached to the people I meet. They become friends, family, loved ones, a huge part of me, and then I’m off again. The people I love with all of my being are all over...
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Far From Normal
Jojo Guerrero
2012-07-10
A year passes by in a blink of an eye. You go to sleep one night feeling and being a certain way, then you wake up and everything has changed. I know all too well what a year can do. If you asked me a year ago, “What are you going to be doing next...
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Dream Come True
Julia Carter
2012-07-10
I first heard about Global Citizen Year during my sophomore year of high school. My older brother discovered the program and thought the mission of the program was both important and unique; something his sister would thrive in. Being only a sophomore, the thought of taking a year off from college did not seem like...
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What’s Your Story
Ava Hoffman
2012-07-10
In my senior year Existentialism class, my teacher, Ms. Workman, introduced me to the existential extraordinaire Albert Camus. In The Plague, set in the French-settled town of Oran, Algeria, Camus describes a scene in which the main character, Dr. Rieux, and his friend, Tarrou, momentarily escape the plague-stricken town for a breath of fresh air...
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Liberation By Multiculturalism
Drew Hayes
2012-07-10
I remember a family friend, who had recently emigrated from the Philippines to my hometown in Minnesota, describing her bilingualism as “having two machines in my head.” Makes sense, I thought, just like people have machines in their heads for doing math or playing instruments. As I grew older, though, I came to believe her...
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A Member of the Family
Jayshawn Anderson
2012-07-10
I have fallen in love twice now. In the past year, I have spent almost three months in Ecuador. That is to say, I have spent a quarter of the past 365 days here in ¨El Mitad del Mundo.¨ Last summer, I was here for a month with Global Routes constructing bleachers and bathrooms for...
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A Story of Contrast
Kim Asenbeck
2012-07-10
This is a story of contrast: small and big, here and there, old and new. My mother, Edna, is one of nine. I am convinced that in naming her children, my grandmother pulled out a book of baby names, flipped to “E”, and skimmed down the column, picking out names. My aunts and uncles, all...
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This I Believe
Camille LeBlanc
2012-07-10
I can be a little compulsive. On paper, I write just above the line so the words hover perfectly—never touching, never slanting; the spacing is regular, the letters consistent. When I highlight, I always keep a tissue nearby to dab the excess ink that forms in a small (large) puddle at the end of the...
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My Life Trajectory
Joshua Reason
2012-07-10
My road to taking a gap year has been a long and interesting one. I recently graduated from a private high school in Atherton, California where gap years were always presented as “Backpacking across Europe”; although gap years looked fun and exciting, I had yet to hear a story that justified putting college on hold...
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It Takes a Bus
Winson Law
2012-05-22
I was listening to music on the way to Downtown Seattle when a few seats away on the bus, I heard a rhythmic string of familiar words that someone once told me sounded like poured water over Spanish. In the usual way that I eavesdrop on the bus, I tilted my head to the four...
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My Story…
Mariah Donnelly
2012-05-08
One of the main events that occurred during re-entry in California was the Donor Dinner Night. During this event we had some of our Global Citizen Year donors join the fellows and the rest of the Global Citizen Year staff as we shared our new stories, pictures, videos, and skits from the all-different countries. That...
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ALUMNI POST: Tears for Fears…and Joy
Michael Stivers
2012-05-07
A roar of applause erupted. The lights flickered on. The projector was turned off. We all stood up and as was expected many began to shed tears. Fellows embraced each other with forceful grasps. As if letting go would allow this experience to pass. For fifty-four Fellows, eight months of curiosity, struggle, persistence, and triumph...
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