Hi, I’m Mica and I’m from Miami. I just graduated high school and now I’m taking a gap year. I’ve been living in Munich, Germany for 6 weeks. I’m excited to share my experiences about this adventure, starting with what led me towards this path.
Today, I describe myself as an average 19-year-old, with highs, lows, strengths, weaknesses, dreams, ideas, and theories. Probably among my strongest drives, is a yearning to belong in a work environment. For a long time, I’ve had the drive to establish a fruitful, healthy relationship with my occupation. As a student in high school, I didn’t like the relationship I had with school and I often found myself feeling less than my peers in class. This particular burden opened up my mind to the reality that perhaps the traditional classroom currently did not have space for my gifts. Even though this uncertainty was frightening, I trusted that I could discover another setting where I could thrive and give back to my community. In the midst of my constant wondering, I received a text from my childhood friend, asking me if I would be willing to do a gap year in Germany with her. At first the idea seemed risky, but after plenty of thought I came to the realization that a gap year could offer the space and freedom I needed to learn more about myself and how my gifts fit into the world.
Here in Munich, I am a student in an international language school completing a 36-week German course. I agreed to this plan because I long to enjoy being a student, and I liked the idea that perhaps learning something new, like German, could be a slow and healthy beginning towards mending the relationship I have with school and work. My vision for this journey is filled with self discovery and acceptance. I feel that I have a lot of big, colorful dreams, but they are still abstract and vague. Rather than being frustrated by this lack of clarity, I hope to learn to love the process of deciphering my dreams and my vocation.
I want to wholeheartedly believe that there is so much more than one’s productivity and work. I picture myself coming back and seeing my education with fresh eyes. I also want big opportunities, like a Gap Year, to seem less unrealistic, and taking this first, scary jump is the perfect start to being an individual who takes chances. Rather than thinking of this year as “the opportunity of a lifetime”; I want to see it as the start to a fuller, more adventurous life.
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