Gabriela Gomes, Grade 12
UWCRBC
No one knows the universal answer for what UWC is truly about.
How could one know?
Knowing what UWC is truly about concerns every single of us in a very unique way. This truth relies on the lawyers of who we are through the lens of the intensive and rare experience that the UWC path brings us.
For me, this lens is still very much under construction. I just finished my first year at UWC College and there is a lot ahead and behind this substance of time. So, for now, I can only tell what UWC is truly about within this substance of time through my own lenses.
My starting point is at UWC Robert Bosch College in Freiburg, Germany. A place many call home. Or just a house. Where nearly 200 students come together from all over the world and one of them ended up being me.
Here, some of these people ended up being my friends, colleagues, strangers, listeners, guiders, or even family. Some have helped me lose, doubt and find myself. And in the meantime, I have had remarkable memories with them.
However, there is this one specific moment in UWC RBC that has helped me construct my perspective around what UWC is truly about.
This moment was when I saw a half of my community and home, as I knew, leave me.
When my second years left, I could feel how this house is a home that we actively habit as nomadic, but we need to treat as permanent inhabitants. The UWC home I first met was suddenly slipping through my fingers. It was not easy to accept that what I had known for a year would dramatically change in its form, texture and composition. That agony made me look back in time and reflect on what this place, mission and experience were really about for me. I recognized the sweet and sour, the deep and shallow, the sound and flimsy of it.
UWC was about finding myself and others who are not easy to find. A place where you put so much out there without being left empty. A place where you commit yourself to build a community and home for everyone to feel comfortable, heard, respected and cared bout. It is about challenging, struggling and learning about yourself and your surroundings. Surroundings that are completely out of our comfort box and may request you to unlearn what you thought was sound. I found myself freer to be who I am, to speak up and engage with loving people in changing this world's struggles. UWC is about discovering the world beyond your path through inspiring and loving people, who might even make you cry when they leave. And when we leave, we have the role of taking all of our community's struggles and grace with us. Get them out there to be seen and heard. We take our home with us to change this world for the better, as we try to also become better.
After all, we are just passengers in this place, which by its uniqueness becomes home.
How could one know?
Knowing what UWC is truly about concerns every single of us in a very unique way. This truth relies on the lawyers of who we are through the lens of the intensive and rare experience that the UWC path brings us.
For me, this lens is still very much under construction. I just finished my first year at UWC College and there is a lot ahead and behind this substance of time. So, for now, I can only tell what UWC is truly about within this substance of time through my own lenses.
My starting point is at UWC Robert Bosch College in Freiburg, Germany. A place many call home. Or just a house. Where nearly 200 students come together from all over the world and one of them ended up being me.
Here, some of these people ended up being my friends, colleagues, strangers, listeners, guiders, or even family. Some have helped me lose, doubt and find myself. And in the meantime, I have had remarkable memories with them.
However, there is this one specific moment in UWC RBC that has helped me construct my perspective around what UWC is truly about.
This moment was when I saw a half of my community and home, as I knew, leave me.
When my second years left, I could feel how this house is a home that we actively habit as nomadic, but we need to treat as permanent inhabitants. The UWC home I first met was suddenly slipping through my fingers. It was not easy to accept that what I had known for a year would dramatically change in its form, texture and composition. That agony made me look back in time and reflect on what this place, mission and experience were really about for me. I recognized the sweet and sour, the deep and shallow, the sound and flimsy of it.
UWC was about finding myself and others who are not easy to find. A place where you put so much out there without being left empty. A place where you commit yourself to build a community and home for everyone to feel comfortable, heard, respected and cared bout. It is about challenging, struggling and learning about yourself and your surroundings. Surroundings that are completely out of our comfort box and may request you to unlearn what you thought was sound. I found myself freer to be who I am, to speak up and engage with loving people in changing this world's struggles. UWC is about discovering the world beyond your path through inspiring and loving people, who might even make you cry when they leave. And when we leave, we have the role of taking all of our community's struggles and grace with us. Get them out there to be seen and heard. We take our home with us to change this world for the better, as we try to also become better.
After all, we are just passengers in this place, which by its uniqueness becomes home.
www.unitedworldwide.co