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
A Whole New World
Elizabeth Warren
2011-09-07
I live in a city that is located in a valley between moutains, it’s 9300 miles above sea level, the city is 3 miles wide and 20 miles long, this city is my current home for the next month. This city is Quito, Ecuador. A year ago today I would’t have pictured myself attending Stanford...
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A Gift from God
Joan Hanawi
2011-09-07
It’s funny how quickly things can change—emotions, feelings, attitudes—it’s all fleeting. Like someone pulled the rug out from beneath your feet, but you’re caught in the space between falling helplessly and steadily keeping your balance. You’re caught in limbo. But I guess what I’m learning is that we’re always caught in a state of limbo....
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Day 15 at U.S. Training Institute
Abigail Hindson
2011-09-07
When I began the Global Citizen Year Fall Training at Stanford University just two weeks ago, I felt like I was turning onto a new page in my life—and that I would soon start inking a new chapter onto it. Fourteen days later, I’m certain that I could write a whole book with everything that...
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My Job
Heather Kurtz
2011-09-02
I am so exited. I am on my way to Ecuador. I will be learning Spanish and Quitwa. I am going to live with a family and work on a farm. This is going to be great, and I am so glad you are all here to share it with me. These past weeks have...
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The plunge
Jacob Stern
2011-08-30
Global Citizen Year is damn good looking. But when I met everyone for the first time when US training began, we were truly motley crew. At any given lunch table, I’d catch slang from the cornfields of Iowa, the mountains of New Hampshire, the swamps of Florida, and the hills of San Francisco. Initially, cultures...
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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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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...
Read MoreWhat would you do with a year?
Peter Saudek
2011-08-01
A few short months ago I arrived back to the States after spending 8 months in Ecuador during my Global Citizen Year. In this short movie I have incorporated footage and photographs from the time I spent in Ecuador. The video highlights the main components and aspects of my Global Citzen Year: learning, giving back, exchage,...
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...
Read MoreAnd so I went to teach
Kirin Gupta
2011-07-28
An artist who bridged the distance from Nuku’alofa, Tonga to Washington, D.C. Having begun with Global Citizen Year, a new sort of awareness prompts me to take second glances in places where I would not customarily look carefully. It is something to be grateful for, I am sure, for beyond that understanding, once it can...
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