Career Starter’s Guide to Gap Year and Experiential Education by Elizabeth Bezark This is the guide I wish I had seen on my first visit to the Gap Year Association website when I was fresh out of college with a plate that was full of passion for the field, but empty of professional experience. Experiential education can be a challenging field to break into! However, if you stick with it, you’ll make incredible connections and form enriching relationships while you build experience and land your first jobs. I developed a Career Starters Guide to Gap Year and Experiential Education, which…
Elizabeth Bezark
What the Pandemic has Taught Us About Resilience by Emily Rosser and Elizabeth Bezark, with commentary from the wider gap year community What is resilience? How do we achieve it and how do we use it? Individually and collectively. In Option B, Sheryl Sandberg writes about resilience in crisis situations and what people can do to manage our responses to crises. In an excerpt of that book, Sandberg says that: “Resilience doesn’t mean rejecting unpleasant emotions. And letting emotions in doesn’t give them power over us; rather, it gives them room to move through us. Sometimes voicing fear gives us…
Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Gap Year: The Active Learning Process by Elizabeth Bezark Ever since I started curating and editing the GYA blog, the rest of the GYA team has heard time and time again my obsession with the active voice. Action verbs produce strong writing. If my bio on the GYA website didn’t focus on my work in global education and Fair Trade Learning, it would express my strong desire to make the world a better-written place. What does this have to do with experiential education? Keep reading, you’ll see! The terms experiential education, comfort…
REFLECTIVE AND ETHICAL LENSES FOR GAP YEAR PHOTOGRAPHY & STORYTELLING by Elizabeth Bezark Photography and storytelling provide meaningful ways to unpack and share what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown through your gap year experience. Now, the questions are: How are you expressing this? What do your images and captions convey about the places you’ve visited and your experiences there? Read on for GYA’s tips for making your digital documentation intentional, ethical, and reflective! Personal & Relational: One of many things that makes a gap year so meaningful is the people you’ll meet on your journey. As you post…
Self-Assessment Tool for Diversity, Inclusion, & Access 2019 by Elizabeth Bezark What is the DEIA Self-Assessment Tool? Over the course of two years, the Gap Year Association’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) Committee developed a comprehensive Self-Assessment Tool to encourage Gap Year Provider members of GYA to reflect and improve on their DEIA practices in seven key areas. Participating in the self-assessment will deepen Gap Year Providers’ already-existing commitment to leadership within and evolution of the Gap Year Movement through increasing DEIA practices. Read on to see what it’s all about. How does it work? The guided assessment provides…