The Beginning of my Future

Aardvark Israel Gap Year was by far the most transformative experience of my adolescence. I had a very interesting experience with planning for a gap year, because of my age. I made the decision to graduate high school early, and move to Israel. However, I needed a program that would allow me to participate from January through the summer. I searched and searched until I found Aardvark Israel. Upon finding the 'one semester' option with Aardvark, I reached out to two friends who had previously been students with Aardvark, received glowing reviews, and decided it was the right option for me.

I arrived in Israel shortly after my 18th birthday, and moved into my amazing apartment in south Tel Aviv. I could not have asked for a better location to live. From the apartment location, you could walk for 10 minutes, and reach the beach, the market, Jaffa, many restaurants, or the central bus station of Tel Aviv that would allow access to the entire country.

Aardvark is the perfect amount of supervision and supervised activities, mixed with a great amount of group touring, and free time. Daily activities included: volunteering/internships/add on tracks in the morning and early afternoon, ulpan and other classes in the mid afternoon, and optional group activities (spray painting workshops, karaoke nights, group shabbat dinners, yoga lessons, etc.) in the evenings. On Tuesdays, and one weekend per month, the staff of Aardvark coordinated a group day trip or overnight trip. Some of these included: a tour of the central bus station, 'Dialogue in the Dark' (a museum about being blind in Israel), sight seeing in Caesarea, camping trips, the list goes on and on. Tiyul Tuesday was for sure a highlight of my time in Israel, and the weekend overnights were something very exciting to look forward to!

My experience was enhanced with Aardvark's Entrepreneurship Track. This add on focused on the start-up culture of Tel Aviv. Two times per week, the students of this track would meet to experience something within the start up community. We visited the Israel Coca-Cola Factory, Facebook's Middle East Headquarters, Venture Capitalist firms, Start-up accelerators, Google's 'outside of America Headquarters', and many more. This was one of the highlights of my Aardvark experience. Experiencing Tel Aviv in a way so different from any other group made this more exciting and something that everyone in the group enjoyed.

Going in to my 'gap year' I was expecting to go to Israel with no structure, run around, and do my own thing, but Aardvark Israel Gap Year is not that. It is so much more! Aardvark was properly structured and positively impacted by wonderful, nurturing and helpful staff. From the counselors, to the rabbis, to the office staff, to the directors, every person who works for Aardvark wants nothing besides the absolute best for their students and participants. These were the people who helped us plan weekend excursions to go hiking on the Israel Trail, who taught many to cook their first meals, who acted as our parents when we needed help, were sick, or needed to see a doctor. The staff of Aardvark were the people who were happy to come to work each day, and this made the most of the participant's experiences. Great staff makes a great gap year, and that is just what the Aardvark Staff did.

My gap year helped me mature, helped me grow as a person, and helped me decide what to do with my future.

My heart belongs in Israel, and this is all because of my experiences on Aardvark. My decision to move to Israel and attend university at IDC was made because of the opportunities Aardvark allowed me.

Aardvark Israel Gap Year was by far the best gap year that I could have asked for.