Gap Year Reflections

Lauren Rhode is currently on a gap year between high school and starting college in fall 2008 at Princeton University. She spent the first three months of her gap year last fall in Morocco with Global Learning Across Borders (Global LAB), a non-profit that runs international immersion gap year programs. Lauren's gap year experience living with a Moroccan family and learning Arabic, working on community service projects, and traveling to Marrakesh and the Sahara desert have given her time to explore her interests and passions without being burdened by assigned curriculum . Lauren says of her gap year...

"My gap year has intensified my desire to learn and experience many things, both at home and abroad. The University lies before me, a great feast. I have spent a year developing a ravenous hunger." Read Lauren's gap year story below.

Gap Year Reflections

by Lauren Rhode

I decided to take a gap year because I needed to explore my interests without being burdened by assigned curriculum. After I graduated from Brookline High School in Massachusetts, and had been accepted at Princeton University, I quickly made a decision and received permission from my Dean of Admissions to defer for a year.
I had two main goals for my year off: to learn Arabic and to work full time.

Global Learning Across Borders (Global LAB), a non-profit that runs international immersion gap year programs, presented at my high school during an assembly about gap year opportunities. Global LAB manages semesters abroad around the world, including one in Morocco. My family was not keen on my planning to wander around Jordan, Syria, or Saudi Arabia, but they were willing to accept plans to live in Morocco. Other options could not compete with Global LAB’s staff, made up of savvy experts who were willing and able to organize a fascinating experience for me in an Arabic language environment.

Last fall, I departed to Morocco for three months in attempt to master Arabic and explore the city of Fes. Granted, my goal of "mastering" Arabic was far fetched (perhaps as far fetched as the promises of a Moroccan who swore he’d discovered ancient dinosaur bones to attract my hand in marriage—I used my Arabic to say “no”), but I caught on enough to put together an amateur film, narrated in both darija (Moroccan Arabic) and English, after a few weeks, and continued from there to develop grammar, vocabulary, and my ability to explain Judaism or respectfully dialogue about “the devils” in American government.

Global LAB sent four students with me to Fes, where I struck a perfect balance between the organization’s support, and freedom to dig into the country on my own. I spent time organized by Global LAB pursuing community service opportunities including medina restoration involving laying bricks, supporting foundations, plastering, and cutting ceiling beams, and also some time working in an orphanage. I also arranged my own Arabic classes, lived with my homestay family, and created a circle of Moroccan friends. I developed an appetite for absorbing the history, observing the traditions, talking to new friends Fatima Zohra about the King and Hisham about rap. An extraordinary travel itinerary with Global LAB allowed me to see Morocco in full, its Heart around Fes, the South through Marrakesh where Africa collides head on with Morocco at Djemaa el Fna, over the High Atlas Mountains, to the Sahara, and finally, instead of returning to the States via Morocco, I saw the North, through Tangier, and across the Strait of Gibraltar. We explored the influence of Muslim architecture in Andalusia before flying back home across the Atlantic.

The pinnacle of my experience was time spent with my homestay family in Fes where I discovered the beauty of language, both spoken and written. After leaving my host mother occasional notes in Arabic for nearly a month, telling her where I was going or when I would be home, I discovered that she was illiterate. Dreadfully ashamed of her illiteracy (normal in a country where the literacy rate hovers around 50 percent), she gradually allowed herself to talk to me and we began working nightly practicing the alphabet and subsequently reading the Qur’an. As I learned to read and write alongside her, I saw language in a new light, the crown jewel of civilization.

The day after returning home from Moroccan desert to a Boston snowstorm, I began to work. I spent the winter and spring dividing time between a small private investment firm where I learned aspects of investment strategy and portfolio analysis; a teaching position as a long-term substitute in the Brookline public school system; and a job teaching Hebrew and Judaic studies at Temple Israel in Boston. I enjoyed working for its own sake without the pressures of formalized study, and was able in the process to financially support my gap year. I have gained perspective from working in these positions that will project me back into the academic world with greater appreciation for the time I have at University and with a vision of the possibilities the future holds.

I successfully realized my gap year goals of learning Arabic and working full time.
These experiences were sandwiched in between three other gap year opportunities. Last summer, I attended a Seeds of Peace (seedsofpeace.org) conflict-dialogue program with Israelis, Palestinians, Pakistanis, Indians, and Afghans. While challenging my understanding of world politics, Seeds forced me to pinpoint and articulate my identity as a proud American in our world today. After Seeds, I traveled with my family to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, and Hong Kong. We gathered with family friends in Kuala Lampur to delve deeper into the linguistic, cultural, and religious mix found in South East Asia. Next week, I will fly to China, where I will live for the final summer of my gap year. I have been invited to return to Xi’an, where I spent a semester during my sophomore year of high school. I will spend mornings brushing up on my study of Chinese and afternoons exploring parts of Xian that I missed when I lived there in 2005. My plans include taking an overnight train to Beijing by 080808, to catch the energy of the Olympics!

During my current gap year I have rediscovered my love for literature, civilization, and life. My time has been action packed, experience intensive, and has given me the reins to control my own education. I’ve had the opportunity to pull, prod, and wrestle with everything from the beauty of language to tax returns. The wrestling with reins feels oddly resonant with how I managed a raging mad camel in the Sahara desert.
My gap year has intensified my desire to learn and experience many things, both at home and abroad. The University lies before me, a great feast. I have spent a year developing a ravenous hunger.

Global LAB's (Learning Across Borders) mission, according to its web site is "to educate and inspire new generations of people to become responsible and committed global citizens in their local communities and beyond. We do this through international cultural immersion and community service programs for young adults; global studies professional development programs for educators; by partnering with schools to help design and implement experiential global curricula and service programs, and through global expeditions that offer exceptional cultural experiences for adults. We believe that international experience is a fundamental component of global education and citizenship in the 21st Century and should be available to all, regardless of financial need."