BINA Gap Year participant Zoe Cosgrove reflects on her time spent with BINA Gap Year in Israel and how BINA and the program have already taught her essential skills on taking care of herself and the value of learning and experiencing being on your own. Read on to find out more!
“Scary news is: You’re on your own now. Cool news is: You’re on your own now.” When hearing these wise words for the first time when Taylor Swift delivered her speech at NYU, I had no idea how much they would comfort me six months later during my gap year.
Since arriving at BINA nearly three months ago our individual values, personal limits, and newly discovered power have all been put to the test. How can we comfort ourselves on our own for the first time, and not just on our own, but in a new country? Challenges in our gap year are not the same as last year. Homework, school pressure, sports teams, etc are all a thing of the past. This new challenge is navigating life on your own with a constant social scene, Mechina rules, and most importantly learning to strike a balance between prioritizing yourself and putting effort into the program you signed up for.
Luckily for us, we have all been able to talk as a group about the hard moments we’ve had so far because BINA gives us the space for it. Whether that’s in full group discussions called Meliot, when the whole Mechina comes together to decide what is an issue the administration should know about, or our group talks with our smaller, international-only groups to discuss more personal and time-pressing matters. We even get to have scheduled nights where we all get together for fun activities that are purely designed for our laughter and enjoyment.
The undeniable “pro” of going on BINA is that every challenge here – social, religious, or otherwise is teaching us one more thing about who we want to be, how we want to spend our time, what kind of friends we want to have and how to be your own biggest cheerleader.
I’ve never had a better opportunity to reflect on so much of my past, present, and future than in the few months we’ve been on BINA and I cannot wait to look back on this time in my life, incredibly grateful and fortunate to have had this opportunity.
Zoe Cosgrove, BINA Gap Year Participant
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