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 Different World
Adolfo Leon Jr
2011-07-08
Hey everyone, my name is Adolfo Leon, Jr. Before I heard about Global Citizen Year I had no idea where I was going after high school. I knew that I wanted to keep studying and attend college, but I was not to excited about it and I did not feel prepared. One day I was...
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 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 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 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 MoreMaking My Own Tools
Michael Winfield
2011-07-06
Hey! I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. I’m an artist, youth mentor, tennis player, humanitarian, nature watcher, and a Global Citizen Year Fellow. I wasn’t raised in a wealthy family. I was born into this world with few tools for success, but as I’m getting older I’m making my own tools to build...
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Why I’m Here
Priyanka Rao
2011-07-05
Traveling has been always a passion of mine, since those initial bus-rides ‘round the Hydrabadi loop (India), which was all my mother could do to quiet my infant cries. Even then, the entrancing rhythm of being in motion, underneath the hum and roll of people talking, brought me home like nothing else could, just as...
Read MoreHow to Speak Without Saying Anything
Madeline Campbell
2011-07-05
When I was little, my family lived in Prince Edward Island, Canada. One of our family friends was Québécois and whenever his family came to visit they would speak mostly in French. Being so little at the time, I had no idea what they were saying, but my then-outgoing self decided to speak up anyway...
Read MoreDiscovering My Differences
Jacklyn Joy Byrd
2011-07-05
For more than 10 generations, my family has lived in the state of Georgia. Why am I, an artistic 18-year-old from Atlanta, the first person in my family to venture out and experience the world? I believe that is the reason I am taking this gap year: to discover what makes me feel so different...
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