My name is Sophia Thompson and I am going to be taking a gap year this year through the gap year fellows program at FSU. I am very excited about this journey I am going to begin in about two months! I have thought about taking a gap year for quite some time during high school but I never really thought of it as very realistic because of all the costs and I didn’t know universities like FSU existed that support gap years. I have always felt very undecided about what I wanted to do after high school and a gap year always sounded perfect for me. I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and I still live in Wisconsin right now. I always knew I wanted to leave Wisconsin after high school because I dislike the cold weather and I also just want to get to know more parts of the world and move somewhere new. I want to take this gap year because I know it will help me learn more about who I am through new experiences that will challenge me more than I have ever been challenged. I think this year I will meet people who will have a great effect on me and will help grow my perspective of the world and of people in general.
My plans so far are to travel to Italy in October and stay until December while staying with a Montessori school and helping teach English to kids through Work away. After that I’ll go to Argentina and live with my grandparents while volunteering at a center that’s through Omprakash. I’ll do that for about two months as well and then after that I’d like to plan to volunteer some more through Omprakash or workaway possibly in Asia.
Through this journey I hope to learn all that I possibly can about different cultures and different ways of life as well as help in whatever ways I can. I also hope to learn a lot more about myself and have more of a direction after this year as to what I’d like to study.
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