“College is always going to be there. But this kind of experience, a year in a foreign country with all your friends, won’t always be.
For the camp that I go to, Camp Young Judaea, Year Course is just part of it. You go to camp for 10 years, and then you just go on the gap year afterwards. I was never really into it until the summer I went to Israel for a month. In the program, we spent most of the time talking about Year Course while also doing things around Israel. It made me really love Israel, want to do Year Course and go for longer.
I went to Israel right after the Iran-Israel war in the summer. When I was there, I really realized I wanted to do Year Course. On our trip, hearing Israelis share stories about their lives intrigued me. Learning about how they live and what they do ultimately convinced me to go.
It’s just a beautiful country. If you go all the way north, it’s lakes and mountains, and if you go all the way south, it’s sand and desert. It has everything, and it’s just more free than the U.S. feels sometimes. It’s also just more of a community, where my culture and everything began. My Jewish heritage is all there, and it’s definitely going to make me feel more connected to my religious identity. I think that going to Israel is part of my Jewish identity and to make it to the next step in understanding my culture and where I come from.
Picking Year Course over a traditional college experience was a hard choice. All my friends here don’t think I should do it, so there’s a big difference in the dynamics. I’m still going to get the four-year college experience. It’s just an extra year in between.
My parents were really against it at the very beginning when I first brought it up. But it’s the kind of thing where when I put my mind to something, I really want to do it, and that was this.
For the first semester, I’ll be in Jerusalem and go to college there. You get credits, but it’s not traditional classes. It’s like politics of Israel. In my second semester, I was really lucky to get the internship with the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
In Jerusalem, it’s basically a college campus and college life. But obviously, there’s other places to explore. I have classes until 2 p.m., followed by activities and community service with our program. The nights are always free. You can go to the beach, go out with your friends or just hang out in your rooms.
I’m studying international studies in college, so getting real-life experience is huge. I won’t just have to think about these issues, like the politics of Israel, but I also get to hear from people involved. We’ll be listening in on a lot of political talks, and we’ll be there during the elections for the prime minister.
Getting off the waitlist at some schools but having to turn them down because I couldn’t defer is definitely making me second-guess myself. But I know I’m making the right decision for my future.
What excites me the most is just meeting new people and having new experiences in another country. I’m basically living with all my best friends in a foreign country for a year, which is the most amazing experience ever.
I’m not sure what led me exactly, but the big thing is that not everybody has to go on the same path to college. There’s a precedent that you have to go to college first, but this experience shows you can do other things before college and get new experiences.
I’m proud to be Jewish now, but I’m definitely coming back with more pride and experience. And there’s never a wrong thing to do — like why not?“
