How City Year Changed my Life
I originally found out about City Year through a friend who had applied and was accepted into the cohort of Little Rock, AK. At the time, I was working on my MBA and had just quit my job as an Assistant Store Manager for a retail store. I was feeling a bit down-trodden and ill at ease about the prospect of my future and what I really wanted to do in life.
I found out that I really regretted my degrees (both of them) as I should have pursued my passion in life which would have been becoming an English/International Studies/Foreign Language studies major. I tell you this with the utmost conviction: Do what you are passionate about! Do not let others dictate your path in life. Life is too short to live with regrets. And even if you have made the same fumble as I did, it isn’t too late. Life is full of second chances.
The only information that I grasped from what my friend told me about City Year was 1) move to a new city and 2) help with education. That was all I needed to convince me to apply which would give me another year to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and put me on the trajectory to a fulfilling career. I did my initial research to learn all I could about City Year. I found out 2 weeks before I was to begin in Miami my year of service that I had been accepted. That meant 2 weeks of losing my mind trying to get paperwork filled out and securing housing from North Carolina.
I am immensely thankful unto God that I found housing in such a short timespan through the help of Craigslist. If you ever have to take this route, please be sure to insist upon a background check, and skyping to make sure that your contact is legit. I got to live with a Panamanian family for the duration of my stay in Florida. It was one of the best things ever that have ever happened to me in life. They were the most kindest and generous people I have ever met.
Concerning City Year Miami and my first impressions during BTA my thought was: what have I gotten myself into? Everywhere you saw these smiling people cheering and jumping, doing crazy dances, and playing games (team building as they call it). This was definitely not what I signed up for and this just didn’t match with my no-nonsense attitude. Where were the kids that needed help with their school work? After I got over my initial shock of CityYear culture which I later reluctantly acquiesced to and in some parts ignored when I could, I focused my time on trying to make an impact on my students in the area of literacy.
City year gave me the awesome opportunity to function as an ELA (English and Language Arts) corps member. I also had additional coordinator roles which were ELA coordinator and Leadership and Development coordinator. During our service, some of my fellow corps member and I felt blindsided by the additional roles we had to play that we knew nothing about while applying. In hindsight, these roles are some of the best things that can happen to young college graduates or those who just lack experience as they are definitely great resume builders.
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| "CY Baes" - Best team ever! |
When it came to my students and trying to make an impact, I had my good and bad days. There were days in which I felt like packing up and going home as my efforts in the classroom felt pointless when trying to get students to focus on their work. It’s hard to keep up morale when students use derogatory language towards you and hearing them constantly telling you to leave them alone (did I forget to mention that I served at a school that was rated number 1 concerning school fights in all of Florida?). Fortunately this was balanced by the awesome students I got to work with during morning and afternoon tutoring/programming and in the classroom and fully loaded cheesesteaks with fries, a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and Sprite on really bad days, and sharing my woes with my one of my best friends who I consider to be one my sisters.
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| After School Heroes - I miss these students |
It was with this great and awesome lady that I found out what I wanted to do with my life. During one of our normal pow-wows (an informal meeting where we vented, watched Netflix, vibed to Spotify and discussed life in general) we started talking about LACY (Life after City Year) which is one of the pros to City Year as it does help you come up with a comprehensive plan for your career. We discussed the fact that we always wanted to travel and see the world as neither of us had been outside of the U.S. and the farthest I had ever gone was Florida. Strangely enough, we both shared an actual dream that we had in which we saw ourselves in a foreign land helping students in education. We came to the same conclusion: Peace Corps. We both talked about our long-term goal being that of becoming Foreign Service Officers but that is yet to be seen as who knows how life will affect us.
Fortunately for us, the Chief of Staff at the time of our service was an RPCV who helped us with our application process (resume and motivational statement). As of now, my friend has started her service in Uganda and I am awaiting departure in June 2016.
All in all, I recommend City Year as it is a life changing experience for the good as you get to enter into the fight for social justice and positively impact impoverished communities. You will come out as a better person.
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