How It Works
Confused about the best way forward in life? Skeptical of colleges staffed with dogmatic ideologues? Turn your gap year into a powerful experience with The Great Connections!
Don’t sleepwalk from high school to college and pay thousands for a degree you’re not sure is right for you.
If you’re a young person aged 18 to 24, we’ve crafted The Great Connections Gap Experience to develop your autonomy, help get you in the direction right for you, and prepare you to succeed in life.
Real freedom starts within, with self-understanding, self-responsibility, self-direction, determination, and a nimble ability to adapt to life’s challenges.
We will help you “Light Your Own Path” by showing you how you can make the best decisions for yourself while exchanging ideas with other adventurers searching for a better way forward. Gain the tools and habits to excel and leap ahead.
What is the Gap Year Experience?
The Great Connections Gap Year Experience is a nine-month program designed for you to become an active participant in your education so as to discover what kind of life you want and how to achieve it.
In a small group of other seekers, you will explore new and exciting ideas, learn how to connect them with your knowledge and experience, and turn them into action.
For more details, listen to The Great Connections Gap Year Experience Director Marsha Familaro Enright describe your journey in this podcast interview by Lennie Jarratt of The Heartland Institute, below.
Steps to Real Freedom
Step 1: Become your best self
Learn from the greats: read the most influential thinkers across the ideological spectrum, organized to powerfully help you understand and answer the most crucial life questions. See our curriculum page for details of our readings and activities.
Step 2: Develop lifelong allies
Have great conversations about these texts and much more with our powerful collaborative discussion methodology. Disagree and learn from your fellow explorers, expanding your mind through informed, reasoned conversations. You’ll find yourself growing solid friendships with people who appreciate and understand you.
Step 3: Transform your mind and change your life
Our methods and activities will sharpen your ability to reason about any subject and come to your own conclusions. You’ll learn how to write like professionals do—to get something done. You’ll engage in special activities to develop introspection skills and learn how to uncover ideas, values, and motives you don’t fully understand about yourself. Along the way you’ll strengthen and acquire new, valuable expressive and social skills.
Step 4: Connect it all
In the middle of the year, you’ll apply your new-found knowledge and skills to a real-world problem in a small group. Our tutors will help you connect with accomplished professionals in your problem’s field, guide you in developing your solution, and help you analyze your work. With this project and your other work, you’ll create a valuable portfolio to help you get where you want to go.
Step 5: Be ready to take on the world
Your knowledge, skills, and self-confidence will soar. No matter whether you’re aiming at a college program right for you, opening a business, working on your artistic career, or learning a craft or trade, get the crucial knowledge and skills you need for your next step in life.
For the complete details, visit our curriculum page.