Finding Joy in New Places

I took leave for the entirety of the 2016-2017 academic year, in between my sophomore and junior years. As I approached that half-way mark of my time at Brown, I felt like I needed a little bit of space to breathe – time to step back from the pace of the semesters and reflect on what decisions I had already made and what decisions I would be asked to make in the final two years of school. The mental wear and tear of the first two years left me exhausted and overwhelmed, and I decided that time away from Brown could help me come back to it with a fresh energy and respect.

I spent the first eight months of leave (June-January) living at home. I worked two jobs that I loved – one in a restaurant and one in my Dad’s bakery. I went for walks in the woods. I gardened. I started making art again. I read books of my own choosing on my own schedule. In February, I put all my earnings into my own independent ‘study-abroad.’ I spent February on a small farm in coastal Wales, working in exchange for room and board (through Workaway, a network of work opportunities in exchange for room and board). In March, I spent a month in a Spanish language immersion school in Salamanca, Spain. In April, I lived in a convent in Eastern Italy, cooking for a group of Benedictine nuns for three weeks (also through Workaway). For the rest of my time abroad, about four weeks in total spread throughout the trip, I took some incredible train rides through the Alps, visited Paris and Barcelona, went on a road trip through Southern Italy with my mom, and returned to the farm in Wales for the week of my birthday. I flew home in late May, and spent the remaining three months at home again, working the same couple jobs I had earlier in the year.

I loved being on leave. My trip was beautiful and exciting, and I got to spend a year working jobs that filled me with joy and pride. I would have happily taken more semesters away from school, but I felt pressure to get the final two years over with and to spend one more year with my friends before they graduated.

When I returned to Brown, I was intensely uncomfortable. I was out of practice with school – my academic reading and writing skills were slow to come back, and I felt the same crippling self-doubt I had at the beginning of my freshman year. But over time, those skills came back, and I was able to recognize that I had gained some more conscious understanding of what I wanted to get out of Brown, and how I wanted to go about doing it. I gained clarity in how I wanted to develop my independent concentration and momentum to keep my curiosity rolling for the next two years.

Did your leave meet your expectations?

Before I left campus at the end of my sophomore year, I set pretty lofty goals as far as what I would accomplish during leave in terms of academic planning. I definitely did not do that planning in the ways that I expected I would. Rather than actualizing course and career plans, I spent the year thinking critically in communities that challenged and excited me. But in another sense, my leave far out-did my expectations. I learned new skills, found joy in new places, traveled, read, and generally healed.

My advice for students considering or returning from leave:

For those considering leave: if you have any inclination to take leave, do it! The structure of leavetaking at Brown offers a chance to hit pause on your academic education for a moment and to return on your own time. That pause can be what you need it to be – it does not need to be grand or formative (or expensive – leave-taking as a low income student was a particular exercise in creative problem-solving for me). I would also advise anyone considering leave or returning to leave to talk to other leavetakers! These people will understand your questions and discomforts in a unique way. They know tricks for developing fulfilling leaves under many circumstances, and tricks for returning from leave in healthy and successful ways.