Filling the Gap with International Experience
Originally Published by Lafayette University Barker Carlock (United States | Senegal ’13) wanted to be a medical anthropologist and worked alongside a triage nurse in Senegal thanks to Global Citizen Year. The program finds opportunities for high school seniors who set aside seven and a half months after graduating to experience another culture, while still keeping […]
Compulsory Education is an oxymoron (back-to-school rant)
Effective education is rarely done TO people. It’s done with them. I had my first professional teaching gig forty years ago this summer. Since then, I’ve taught at institutions like NYU and Tufts, at community colleges, from the stage, one on one and most of all, on the vanguard of digital media. As our […]
Getting Smart: Educating for Global Competencies
Educating for Global Competence: 6 Reasons, 7 Competencies, 8 Strategies, 9 Innovations Everything is global–trade and economics, media and information. Young people are more likely than ever to interact with people from different cultures while at home and on the road. As we become more connected, more interdependent, how do we prepare young people for […]
Students Opt For Gap Year Before College
The Joy Cardin Show interviews Global Citizen Year CEO Abby Falik and Senegal Fellow Sarah Candee (’18). Some recent high school grads are skipping college move-in day and hopping planes to faraway lands. Our guest is a Wisconsin woman who’s spending the next year in Africa instead of a dorm. Plus a gap year […]
First Annual AGA Gap Year Awards are Presented to…
One of the exciting additions to the International Gap Year Conference, in Denver, this year was the inaugural presentation of awards. Delighted by the numerous nominations, the conference committee was pleased to present the following awards for Innovation, Research, Accessibility, and Advancing the Movement. Excellence & Equity in Accessibility This award is presented to […]
How to maximize a gap year — and where to go if you want to travel
A growing trend among high school graduates is to take a year off between graduating and heading off to college. According to the American Gap Association, a gap year is typically taken to “deepen practical, professional and personal awareness.” Some people use this time to relax, others to figure out what career they would like to […]
Place, Intention, And The Problem With TV’s ‘Gap Year’
The Gap Year crew party, worry about their futures, hook-up, inflate each other’s egos, meet interesting strangers, get themselves into trouble and always find a way out. In the end, it’s not that interesting. I should know, because I took a gap year. The opening scene of Hulu’s Gap Year makes clear what the show is really […]
To Be Great, America Needs “Citizen Ambassadors”
By Abby Falik It may seem paradoxical, but the most patriotic thing Americans can do right now is travel abroad. “With shocking speed, [President Trump] has wreaked havoc: hobbling our core alliances, jettisoning American values and abdicating United States leadership of the world.” So wrote Susan Rice, the second former U.S. National Security Advisor to speak out […]
6 Reasons Why Taking a Gap Year Can Be Life-Changing
With contributions to global culture that include amazing street style, perfect croissants, and IKEA Scandi gems, Europeans have a lot of things pretty figured out. Another uber-smart idea that’s classically European? Traveling during a gap year. The concept is becoming more popular with Americans, who are adapting the tradition of spending a year traveling after high school or college into a mid-career break in their […]
The Gift of the “No”
Last week I received a spectacular rejection. The type of “no” that in the early years of building Global Citizen Year would have sent me into existential shock, knocked me off my game for weeks, and ground our progress to a screeching halt. I’d been invited to answer the question, “What would you do if money […]
