All posts by teamcomm

Gap Year Program Update #2

It’s been a busy week down on Eleuthera, and with our Down Island Trip right around the corner, us gappers are excited about all we have experienced and accomplished in the last seven days.

SCUBA 

After grinding away for hours on the elearning, we all passed our final assessments and were able to get out on the water for some real SCUBA training. We started with some confined dives at The Saddle where we learned and practiced skills to get our Open Water Diver certification.  After 4 confined dives over the course of the week, and practicing a bunch of skills both under and above the water, we all received our Open Water Diver certifications on Thursday and began advanced work Sunday.

Pig Slaughter

We awoke on Wednesday morning to a beautiful sunrise and headed over to the farm Continue reading

Alumni Spotlight: Mina Bartovics (S’01)!

Island School alumna, Mina Bartovics (S’01) recently began a 6-month adventure in India! As she travels around, she will be teaching science to women and children, as well as working in a labor and delivery hospital. Instead of sending out mass, impersonal emails to her friends and family, she decided to keep a blog. The Island School has enjoyed following Mina’s first month of adventures and travels on the blog, as well as admiring the beautiful photos. If you are interested to see what Mina has been up to, check out the blog here: http://rowanandmina.wordpress.com/. Safe travels, Mina!

Dartmouth Island School Alumni Group Gathering!

(Left to Right): Katie Gougelet (S’08), Ben Martin-Katz (S’10), Helena Witte (S’08), Chris Megrue (F’06), Gigi Anderson (S’11), Meeta Prakash (F’07), Eliza Becker (S’11)

Last night, the Island School alumni college group at Dartmouth got together to have dinner and reminisce about their days on Eleuthera, sharing stories from their different semesters. They are also planning on putting an Island School team together and participating in the Relay for Life this spring. Way to go!!

Dartmouth is just one of the many college groups the Island School has throughout the country. If you are curious about the other Island School alumni are at your college or university or want to see if you can start a group of your own, contact alumni@islandschool.org to get started. For a full list of groups and their contact information, check out the alumni page of our website here.

Gap Year Update #1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o01WD8fUUKE

When I asked around the copious newcomers that arrived at Cape Eleuthera Institute in the past week or so, if they could describe their experience so far, they responded ultimately with; surreal, funky fresh, refreshing, really salty, filled with lots of lettuce, and extremely informative. Personally, I would not object to any of those, but due to lack of time, as I am a gap year student here at The Cape Eleuthera Institute, and have to finish my prerequisites for SCUBA training, I am only going to focus on the week being “surreal, informative, and refreshing.”

Along with four other gappers (for the sake of an easier flow to this blog post, and a more real description of our time here, I am going to refer to a gap year student as a “gapper”, what everyone else has come to call us), we arrived to the sunny south side of the island Eleuthera, and it immediately seemed as if the luminous sun hovering the enticing, crystal, teal waters sucked out the oxygen from the moment, where we were all amazed Continue reading

Island School Alumni Birthday Celebration

Last week, a number of Island School alumni from Spring 2004 and Fall 2004 got together to celebrate the 25th birthday of Spring 2004 alumna, Lizzie Horvitz! These 5 are just a few of our many alumni living in New York City. It’s always great to hear when alumni get together, especially when they are from different semesters! Next time you get together with other Island School alumni, be sure to send a photo and update to alumni@islandschool.org and you may see your story up here on our blog!

Andrew Gough (S’04), Hillary Bunn (S’04), Lizzie Horvitz (S’04), Patrick DiLoreto (F’04), Hilary Keefe (S’04)