The Unbeaten Path: Gap Year & Travel Panel

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 Learns. 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 and a half years including a semester abroad. I am now 25-years-old and living in Missoula, Montana, where I work in research administration at the University of Montana.

    To break this down in chronological order, at age 16, I felt underwhelmed in school and became one of 13 students on a semester program with Kroka Expeditions. This was a self-powered circumnavigation of Vermont by backcountry ski, whitewater canoe, rowboat, and mountain bike. By a spontaneous, circumstantial decision, we found ourselves at the 52nd parallel where the thermometer bottomed out at -40 degrees. Experiential learning was at the core of the program and curriculum focused on ecological living, humanities and natural science. After that, I enrolled at Greenfield Community College for all of my senior year of high school. This decision was based on the lifestyle it enabled. I still participated with the high school nordic ski team, and also spent one day a week on a family friend's vegetable farm, apprenticed with a composting toilet expert and worked at a restaurant. I applied to four-year colleges with the intention to defer for a year, and did just that. A "gap year" attracted me because I enjoyed previous opportunities for experiential learning and wanted to pursue other interests in that way.

    In brainstorming options for a wide-open year, one adventurous idea fell within my extended family. My second-cousin Matt lived in Kosrae, Micronesia and and been there for nearly a decade. We connected and he invited me to visit. In preparing to go, he advised that the hardest part was booking the plane ticket, which I interpreted to mean that I committed to something unknown.

    Growing up in western Massachusetts, the ocean was a faraway place with cute towns that sold saltwater taffy. In the North Pacific, on an island that's not on most maps, life revolved around surfing and sometimes we saw dolphins from the road. I learned bits of Kosraean, sampled a handful of the thirty-or-so varieties of bananas and ate other local foods including yellow-fin tuna, coconuts, papaya and breadfruit. I learned about geopolitical circumstances and encountered tunnels from World War II in the jungle. I also learned about scuba diving and did a coral reef conservation project about crown-of-thorn starfish. One day after a dive, a helicopter pilot on a commercial fishing boat gave us a tour of the boat while the crew unloaded tuna. I was there for Christmas and Cultural Day, which are two very celebrated holidays. After meeting each other, Matt and I got along well and simply establishing our relationships as cousins was meaningful itself. In determining what I could contribute to my stay, I wrote blogs for his company, Green Banana Paper, amongst other projects. This adventure had its own set of challenges, mostly relating to gender roles and cultural immersion. Matt and I remain in regular contact and he continues to advise me about how to maximize airline miles.

    One observation in my first semester of college, aside from refusing to eat cavendish bananas for months, was that well after my core group of eight friends formed, we realized that we all took gap years. Collectively, we had an array of unique life experiences from biking across the country to elephant conservation, backpacking in New Zealand, living and working at a ski area, or in San Francisco, Germany... I can't remember them all. the takeaway for me is that we recognized similarities in each other: maturity and a sense of possibility in the world. We had passports with stamps that our parents didn't have, meaning we were inspired by the freedom to follow our interests wherever they may be.

    Graduating from college in two and a half years was an accident because I did not plan for it nor take and excessive course load. The year of credits from community college transferred to UVM and I paid attention to other opportunities to pick up credits.

    One direct piece of advice is to book one-way tickets. It could be a flight, a bus ride, a one-way carpool or whatever other mode of transportation. This enables you to make instinctual decisions about when it's time to go and when it's time to stay. It is a low-risk commitment and a way to stay open to unexpected experiences.

    To bring this full-circle and share a philosophy that inspired my teenage-self, one of North Star's guiding principles is "the best preparation for a meaningful and productive future is a meaningful and productive present."

    Thank you for being here this evening and thank you Alexis, for inviting me to be part of this panel. I am thrilled to be here to answer your questions because I want to help facilitate other people's creative life experiences.