Fiona Iyer finds freedom and family during gap year travels

Mind the Gap: First-years in fashion, farming and France

Not all students come to Bowdoin immediately after being admitted. Some take time between high school and college—often referred to as a gap year—to advance their education or gain experiences outside of traditional schooling. This is the first in a series of columns that will profile these students and their experiences between high school and arriving at Bowdoin.
Half French and half Chinese-American, Alessandra Laurent moved to Taiwan after living in Los Angeles during middle school. Having lived and studied in both the United States and Taiwan, Laurent decided to spend her gap year experiencing life in France and connecting to that part of her family’s heritage.
“The idea was to live in that context for a year and understand that part of my identity,” Laurent said.
Laurent chose to study in a pre-college prep program with other secondary school graduates studying to pass exams allowing them entrance into France’s top universities. While she was fluent in French prior to studying in Paris, Laurent found the tasks of writing analytical papers and reading literature in French difficult.
“The whole educational philosophy was really different and foreign to me” said Laurent. “In writing essays, the whole format of the way you construct an argument is different—the way they think about arguing anything is different.”
After assimilating to the French educational system, Laurent has found the transition back to American academics challenging.
“I just had to write my first paper [at Bowdoin] recently and I was like, ‘wait, how do I go about this?’” said Laurent. “I’ve gotten used to defining every single term and analyzing every single notion and organizing it more in the French way.”
Elena Mersereau ’18 also took a gap year, but unlike Laurent, she was not entirely sure of where she would go or what she would do. Originally from Brunswick, Maine, Mersereau decided she needed to see more of the world before starting college.
“I probably wouldn’t have ended up at Bowdoin if I hadn’t taken a gap year. I think it was really necessary for me to get out of Brunswick before I came back for four years,” she said.Mersereau began her gap year in New York City, working as a fashion design intern in the Garment District and later on the Upper East Side.
“I’ve always been interested in art and fashion and that whole world,” said Mersereau, “It sounds very glamorous to be a fashion design intern.”
After a few months, however, Mersereau realized her work in the industry wasn’t as fulfilling as she had hoped.
“At the end of the day, I realized I didn’t feel very good about what I was doing,” she said. “I need to [have] a career that I feel good about and that I can see is reaching people in positive ways.”
So Mersereau changed her course. Leaving the bright lights of the New York fashion world, she spent four months traveling through New Zealand working as an organic farmer.
Mersereau first learned about World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) at the Bowdoin 2017 Admitted Students Weekend. She met a current student who told her about WWOOF. Although she can’t remember his name, she does remember that he wore Vibram FiveFingers Shoes.
Mersereau has never spoken to this student since, but she would like him to know that he changed her life.
After backpacking through New Zealand working on dairy farms and picking hazelnuts, Mersereau has become interested in organic living. She hopes to continue this pursuit in the Bowdoin Organic Garden.
While Mersereau was nervous starting her first year at Bowdoin—worried she wouldn't remember how to do school work—she thinks that her experiences have aided her transition into college life.
“I feel like I have things to offer to people and I have a story to tell, more so than I would have if I had come right out of high school,” she said.
Laurent also believes her gap year helped to prepare her for living at Bowdoin, a small residential community.
“It gave me a year to learn how to be independent before I came to college,” she said.However, Laurent says that her gap year experience has given her a different perspective from those of her peers in the Class of 2018.
Mersereau has noticed that her experience during her gap year has set her apart from her fellow classmates.
“It’s been harder to find people who I connect with because people straight out of high school have a different perspective and a different expectation for college than I do,” she said.Overall though, both students were happy with their experiences, and glad that they made the decision to take a gap year.
“I feel a lot more confident now,” said Mersereau, “More ready for the college experience.”

Mind the Gap: Acting out: first year spends gap year abroad in London

Before she came to Bowdoin, Sarah Guilbault ’18 took a gap semester to study abroad at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and to work in Los Angeles to decide if she wanted to pursue a career in acting.
“I don’t think I’ve really made that decision yet,” she said.
Having lived in London for a year and a half when she was in elementary school, Guilbault’s transition was relatively comfortably.
“It was actually kind of an easier step than going to college because it was kind of like going back home,” she said.
LAMDA, however, might not be everyone’s cup of tea. For 12 hours a day, Guilbault and her peers practiced different acting techniques and dances, sometimes pretending to be animals for an entire day, all in preparation for performing Shakespearean plays every three weeks.
After getting off at her Tube stop every night after 9 p.m., Guilbault would quickly make herself dinner and then memorize all of her lines.
“All you want to do is sleep, and eating is not even really an option,” she said.Her schedule was intense, and Guilbault’s peers would not tolerate horsing around.
Guilbault recalled LAMDA’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” during which the director asked a friend of hers to change his appearance in order to help the cast express fear in seeing his character transformed into a donkey.
Guilbault’s friend entered the stage naked in order to shock the cast—but he didn’t stop there.“Not only is he naked, he has a plastic bag on his head, [is] playing a lute and he has slices of cured meat on his junk, and he starts throwing the cured meat at people, singing to them. It was the most terrifying experience of my entire life,” Guilbault said.
When she could no longer bear all the hamming, Guilbault would explore London, sampling Indian food and what she calls “the best strudel outside of Austria” at a local market.
Guilbault said she loved London’s industrialized glory and close proximity to nature.
“My favorite place in London is called Hampstead Heath” she said. “It’s so beautiful—it’s like you step out of the city and into a forest.”
Guilbault said she has enjoyed the nature surrounding Bowdoin and the friendly people she meets in town. However, she also said the transition to academic life has been difficult.
While she gets back into the groove of essay writing, Guilbault has found a theater crowd at Bowdoin. She is participating in Masque and Gown’s production of “Almost, Maine,” and has been taking Comedy in Performance, taught by Professor of Theater Davis Robinson.
“I get my goofy side out,” said Guilbault of her experience in theater class, “It’s made the transition from pretending to be a tree all day, every day to writing essays a lot easier.”Grades are not Guilbault’s central focus at Bowdoin.
“If I’m going to be an actor, grades don’t matter for anything, but life experience matters for so much and being a better human being and a more intelligent, empathetic person matters a lot. That’s what I’m trying to focus on,” she said. “I’m here to learn as much as I can.”
Although she has made lots of friends at Bowdoin, Guilbault does miss her British friends and intends to visit London over Winter Break. She also said she has dreams of moving to London after she graduates.
“London is the place I always want to be, so I try to go back as much as possible,” she said.

Mind the Gap

Fiona Iyer finds freedom and family during gap year travels

October 3, 2014

Photo courtesy of Fiona Iyer

MAKING IT WORK: Fiona Iyer ’18 (left) prepares items for a photo shoot for American-based startup JuicyFruit, where she worked in Buenos Aires. In addition to her time in Argentina, Iyer spent the other parts of her gap year in South Africa, Italy, and Mauritius.

After participating in a three-week entrepreneurship program, Fiona Iyer ’18 knew she wanted to take a year off before coming to Bowdoin. So, supplied with money from babysitting, she packed her bags and embarked on an adventure to South Africa, Argentina, Mauritius, and Italy.

Iyer started off by spending four months at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa studying entrepreneurial leadership. She was also the marketing director and business strategist of a media-house business run out of the academy.

There she encountered Veda, her entrepreneurial leadership teacher, who became a great source of inspiration for her.

“He was just brilliant,” said Iyer. “He had such a sense of clarity in that he knew what he was passionate about, he knew what he wanted, he knew where he was going. Eventually I want to get to that stage.”

Though she greatly values her time in South Africa, Iyer does not miss the dangers of living there. South Africa has a murder rate of 31.1 per 100,000 people, which is 4.5 times higher than the global average. The academy where she studied was surrounded by barbed wire and electric fences in order to prevent intruders from stepping on campus.

In addition, Iyer found that the legacy of apartheid still resonates in the country.
“We think the inequality between blacks and whites here [in America] is an issue—it’s so exacerbated in South Africa,” she said.

Iyer waitressed at a French café in Johannesburg where she was usually tipped eight or nine times more than the black waitresses.

“I had to stop working there because I didn’t need the money and they did,” said Iyer. “It was just very tense.”

The next leg of Iyer’s journey took her to Buenos Aires, which she says is the part of her gap year she enjoyed most. She initially didn’t have a place to stay and spent her nights sleeping on people’s couches, but ultimately found an apartment and a roommate who became one of her best friends

“I was convinced I was going to stay there,” said Iyer, who was enthralled by the culture, art, and music of the city. She quickly found a job as a graphic designer for the New York-based company Juicy Canvas.

After Argentina, she ended up in Italy.

Iyer was staying on the Amalfi Coast when she took a transcendent bite of crusty bruschetta with spicy extra virgin olive oil and fresh tomatoes. After asking to watch the chef, Patricia, cooking, Patricia proposed that Iyer work in the kitchen (with no working papers) for food and accommodation. In exchange, Iyer would give her English lessons.

“I learned how to cook. That was the most amazing part. The workday was thirteen hours. It was a lot of time,” said Iyer. “It was almost torturous because the Mediterranean Sea was right outside the window so when I was chopping and slicing and being a little sous-chef, I could just see the sea calling to me.”

Iyer found a “warm Italian mama” in Patricia, who didn’t speak any English.

“She always wanted a daughter,” said Iyer. “And she was angling to set me up with one of the other chefs who was her son.”

Iyer said her time in these three countries taught her a lot about herself and the world. But her deepest experience took place on the island of Mauritius, a place where she only stayed for a week—attending a friend’s wedding.

“[Their] family was so big and loud and close,” she said, “That’s when I realized how important family was. And so when I think of my gap year, that was really the most striking moment.”
Iyer had some of the most amazing experiences of her life during her gap year and said she always felt trapped by the thought of having to go back to college. She is having a hard time dealing with the new environment finding that the most difficult part of the transition to Bowdoin is missing the sense of anonymity that she had in the city.

Though it’s tough right now, she is giving Bowdoin a fighting chance.

“Everything is temporary and we have so much choice. We can really do whatever we want,” said Iyer. “It’s your life, you’re living it for yourself. It’s very liberating. You realize that you are never stuck in a place. You can pack your suitcase and go. And I think the thought that I am liberated is making the transition easier.”

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