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The Unbeaten Path: Gap Year & Travel Panel

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In February, I was invited to participate on a panel about gap years and traveling, particularly for young people seeking opportunities for experiential education. Here is my introduction: Hello,     My name is Claudia and I connected with Alexis through the Liberated Learners' network of which Bucks Learning Cooperative is a member. In 1996, my dad, Ken Danford, co-founded North Star: Self-Directed Learning for Teens . Years later in 2013, he and Joel Hammon founded Liberated Learners. Joel connected with Alexis, which brings us here today. Growing up immersed in self-directed learning is central to my story.      At age 18, I booked a one-way ticket to visit my cousin in Micronesia and ended up living on a 42-square-mile island for seven months. Prior to that, I opted for a wilderness semester program and community college instead of traditional junior and senior years of high school. Upon attending the University of Vermont, I accidentally graduated in two ...
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Playing for Credit: How I Accidentally Graduated from UVM in Five Semesters

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                     It is December 2020 and I just graduated from the University of Vermont (UVM) in five semesters here in Burlington, Vermont, including a study abroad semester. I didn’t set out to complete this four-year degree in the efficient manner that I did. However, now that it happened, I want to share the story of how many little and seemingly incidental decisions along the way led up to this point. A significant part of how I completed a degree in five semesters at UVM was deeming any and all opportunities to accumulate credits as valuable and worth pursuing. For me, these random credits came prior to, and throughout my college experience.             The first college credits I gained came before any real college experience. During the winter of 2016, my junior year of high school, I embarked on a five-month long wilderness adventure program with 12 other students at Kroka Expeditions...
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Why I've Never Had a Confident Answer to the Question "What year of school are you in?”

I distinctly remember standing in a big circle on the first day of ultimate frisbee practice during my second year of college, the fall of 2019. I arrived late after a late afternoon class and heard the intro name/class year/hometown/fun facts and momentarily felt a bit at ease because maybe I'd scape free of this semi-awkward introduction. Of course, the frisbee community is far too warm to ignore late-comers. After a rapid internal debate as my eyes scanned the 50-person circle, I spoke up, "my name is Claudia, I'm a junior," and got some feedback from friends that I played off with, "I know, I'm still getting used to it." It was awkward telling the truth, but not doing so didn’t settle well for me either. Through experimentation, I've learned to state that this is my x semester or year at UVM, rather than use a title such as “sophomore.” Given the former phrase, I am able to answer the question, “what year of school are you in?” in the most simple...
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Coronavirus and our Casablanca Command Center

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      At 2pm, 23 of us were checked into Ryanair flight 3553, scheduled departure time 12:55pm. There was very little leading up to this. We confirmed our booking at 5:45am in the van from Casablanca to Marrakesh that morning after a buzzing 1am hotel conference room session. The previous evening our program director in the US prepared us to hunker down in Morocco until April 1 at the soonest. Rapid changes filled the week leading up to this, and our itinerary hit the fan from initially going to Peru on April 7, to potentially staying in Morocco for the remainder of the semester, to leaving asap. However, the Moroccan government suspended all international passenger flights faster than our asap departure. Also, with no warning.       After the suspension, a few select airlines were permitted to fly for all the dimwits like us stuck in Morocco (I heard 3,000 US citizens but forget the source, plus loads of Europeans). In...
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