Fellow Stories
True gap year stories from Fellows abroad!
Check out the latest blogs from Global Citizen Year Fellows in Brazil, Ecuador, and India!
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The Ultimate Travel Playlist
Emma Sexton
2017-03-22
With love from a fellow bridge year kid, here are the top 10 songs that helped me embrace the highs and lows of spending eight months abroad with Global Citizen Year before selling my sou- I mean, heading to college. Never Come Back Again by Austin Plaine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REUPPN33tBs The Lyrics: I wanna see the world,...
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My Tribute to Thama
Emma Sexton
2017-03-22
20/03/2017 This afternoon, my host grandparents left Pune and flew back to their home in Delhi. Just minutes before they packed into the cozy family car, we all stood in the living room hugging and saying emotional goodbyes. After Thama, my grandma, finished enveloping me in one of the warmest, most loving hugs I’ve...
Read MoreEquality and the Beast
Holly Jacobson
2017-03-20
As most of you know, Disney released their latest live action remake of “Beauty and the Beast”. Before the movie was out in theaters, I would see articles on the web explaining how Emma Watson (who plays Belle) wanted Belle to be an independent, strong, intelligent woman who could build her inventions comfortably. Emma specifically...
Read MoreWhy Mentors Matter
Alejandro Flores Monge
2017-03-19
"Thank you, David Brooks. I’ve been waiting for your wise words since Weds morning," was the first sentence of the Facebook post that made it all click (I couldn’t resist the pun). It was like a sort of circuit, pieces added and connected one step at a time until you flip the power switch and...
Read MoreYou Should Support Empowering Years For A Reason You Didn’t Know (English & Español)
Agustina Romero
2017-03-16
Why did you take a gap year? Why wouldn’t I if I could? I get asked this question so many times because many believe “education” equals sitting down in a classroom for 12, 16, 19 years, and that that’s only how you can gain important skills, making gap years a lazy thing for...
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A Case for More Empathy
Alejandro Flores Monge
2017-03-14
I’m fair skinned, American born, and I effortlessly articulate my White, American accent. There were moments where I struggled in school, but for the most part I managed to keep up with the high-achieving, middle-class White kids at the top of the class. I even went by the name Alex and, for the most...
Read MoreThe Time Will Come
Valencia Meredith
2017-03-07
The time will come When I will wake up And not recognize my surroundings. I will soon remember That I am no longer home. I will wake up in a foreign land Where i can speak everyone’s language But no one will not understand mine. The time will come Where I will...
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The Importance of Being Alone
Alejandro Flores Monge
2017-03-07
Root-cause analysis has become one of my favorites of the terms we’ve learned in our training sessions this year. It’s the notion of finding sustainable solutions to an issue by identifying and tending to the source of the issue, as opposed to bandaging the symptoms. I strongly agree with the philosophy, but I also...
Read MoreA Reflection on Climbing Trees
Emma Sexton
2017-02-23
11/02/2017 When I was a little kid, I loved to climb trees… I grew up in a small, Midwestern town that was home to nothing but a post office, a general store, and a few hundred people at best. Needless to say, there wasn’t a ton of stuff to do; my friends and I...
Read MoreNew Year, New Blog Post
Emma Sexton
2017-02-23
14/01/2017 For a while now, I have been afraid to pick up a pen and actually use it. I’ve been reading and analyzing and musing and observing, just trying to find my own voice somewhere between the lines of my life. Because my words just haven’t what they used to be. Once upon a time,...
Read MoreStories from India
Claire Reichle
2017-02-23
I have been living in India for five months now, which means quite a few things. First and foremost, this means that I have been slacking on my blog posts, with my last and only blog post having been written before Pre-Departure Training (our first week together in California). I have quite a few things...
Read MoreBeing Different
Andres Medina
2017-02-23
I knew, coming into my Global Citizen Year, that not everyone had the correct perception of what an “American” looked like, acted like, or what their background could be. I thought I was prepared to tackle the problem head on and completely change the perceptions of those around me when it came to an “American.”...
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