Soukeyna Djahira Pitroipa, Alumni - Class of 2021
UWC Costa Rica
‘’Your UWC experience starts when you graduate’’
These are the Words of the UWC Costa Rica 2020 graduates while sharing their lessons learned during and after UWC Costa Rica.
The moment you graduate from UWC is one of the most emotional part of these intense 2 years, it is a melting pot of several feelings. You feel emotional, your heart feels attached to the place but you still have to brutally realize that it is coming to an end, while your family and friends are joyfully celebrating your achievements. Moreover, imagine all this happening while starring at a zoom screen because your school had to evacuate all their students due to COVID contaminations. You feel like an outcast that is still living inside a bubble which doesn’t brust, a bubble which will remain with you for a lifetime due to strong bonds created with your co-years and firsts years. Indeed, they remain the best outcomes of this place, they are the link to a period of your life that you took two years to build by your teenage self, the memories, laughters and tears, they are the witnesses of your highs and lows.
While all these thoughts were processed into my minds and my eyes were holding a million tears from facing the reality of the nearly ending, then came the time for the students speeches. Since UWC Costa Rica is a bilingual school two students from our cohort are elected by our generation to deliver one speech in spanish and another in english.
When the speech in english started, I couldn’t hold the laughters and the tears of joy because he was resuming 2 years of struggles, beautiful memories and internal jokes. It made me travel across my UWC campus from the residential area with my beloved residence Cahuita until the social center, it was a balade through every discussion, unforgettable and inspiring people I ever met. It was as if this speech was comforting me in my bubble, it looked like I never left and the bond with UWC was still there. It reminded me that it wasn’t over, the UWC experience can never be forgotten nor finished, the tights, the events that you spent with such smart and inspiring beings cannot be snacht from you.
You are living in a UWC bubble and the bonds that you created will follow you anywhere because the world is so small that you will always meet one of your favorite co-year across the corner. You just need to keep your mind and heart open to new possibilities then the opportunity to reconnect will be made by the universe because this is how cycles works, any period of your life has an ending but it leaves an opportunity to restart from scratch. This is why UWC will never end, because it is a cycle, it is just ending for the moment as you press the liberating zoom red button ‘’leave the meeting’’ but it is a new phase of your global experience which will restart. Instead, this will occur within the settings of the real world outside of the typical boarding school.
When I finally left the zoom meeting after the final goodbyes, I realize what UWC is truly about: ‘’ It is a cycle framed into a social bubble interconnected to the world’’. Indeed, as UWC students we understand each other better, we have grown and changed through the mission, then outside of our comforting UWC bubble through our interconnectedness we are able bring a bit of our experience inside any place. Usually, the word Alumni emphasize that you are done with the movement, instead it means that, another phase of these two year cycle will start and you need to embrace it because it will open doors that you could have never imagined in your pre-UWC era. Imagine having the opportunity to create a common shared memory with a fragment of the world or having one the strongest bond with a person that lives two hundred thousand miles away from you. It is an opportunity to learn and reach out to the world that you have been outcasted from.
When they say: ‘’Your UWC experience starts when you graduate’’, I would say: ‘’ ‘’ it restarts again when you graduate’’, the amazing faces you encountered and the memories you made will empower you to create great outcomes for the world or even do a world tour.
The world’s realities differ from the UWC bubble but to graduate from this institution helps you understand different faces of the world, then integrate the real world more aware of who you are as a global citizen. Embrace the changes as well as your UWC bubble because you are starting over as a first year but this time in the wilderness of the real world.
These are the Words of the UWC Costa Rica 2020 graduates while sharing their lessons learned during and after UWC Costa Rica.
The moment you graduate from UWC is one of the most emotional part of these intense 2 years, it is a melting pot of several feelings. You feel emotional, your heart feels attached to the place but you still have to brutally realize that it is coming to an end, while your family and friends are joyfully celebrating your achievements. Moreover, imagine all this happening while starring at a zoom screen because your school had to evacuate all their students due to COVID contaminations. You feel like an outcast that is still living inside a bubble which doesn’t brust, a bubble which will remain with you for a lifetime due to strong bonds created with your co-years and firsts years. Indeed, they remain the best outcomes of this place, they are the link to a period of your life that you took two years to build by your teenage self, the memories, laughters and tears, they are the witnesses of your highs and lows.
While all these thoughts were processed into my minds and my eyes were holding a million tears from facing the reality of the nearly ending, then came the time for the students speeches. Since UWC Costa Rica is a bilingual school two students from our cohort are elected by our generation to deliver one speech in spanish and another in english.
When the speech in english started, I couldn’t hold the laughters and the tears of joy because he was resuming 2 years of struggles, beautiful memories and internal jokes. It made me travel across my UWC campus from the residential area with my beloved residence Cahuita until the social center, it was a balade through every discussion, unforgettable and inspiring people I ever met. It was as if this speech was comforting me in my bubble, it looked like I never left and the bond with UWC was still there. It reminded me that it wasn’t over, the UWC experience can never be forgotten nor finished, the tights, the events that you spent with such smart and inspiring beings cannot be snacht from you.
You are living in a UWC bubble and the bonds that you created will follow you anywhere because the world is so small that you will always meet one of your favorite co-year across the corner. You just need to keep your mind and heart open to new possibilities then the opportunity to reconnect will be made by the universe because this is how cycles works, any period of your life has an ending but it leaves an opportunity to restart from scratch. This is why UWC will never end, because it is a cycle, it is just ending for the moment as you press the liberating zoom red button ‘’leave the meeting’’ but it is a new phase of your global experience which will restart. Instead, this will occur within the settings of the real world outside of the typical boarding school.
When I finally left the zoom meeting after the final goodbyes, I realize what UWC is truly about: ‘’ It is a cycle framed into a social bubble interconnected to the world’’. Indeed, as UWC students we understand each other better, we have grown and changed through the mission, then outside of our comforting UWC bubble through our interconnectedness we are able bring a bit of our experience inside any place. Usually, the word Alumni emphasize that you are done with the movement, instead it means that, another phase of these two year cycle will start and you need to embrace it because it will open doors that you could have never imagined in your pre-UWC era. Imagine having the opportunity to create a common shared memory with a fragment of the world or having one the strongest bond with a person that lives two hundred thousand miles away from you. It is an opportunity to learn and reach out to the world that you have been outcasted from.
When they say: ‘’Your UWC experience starts when you graduate’’, I would say: ‘’ ‘’ it restarts again when you graduate’’, the amazing faces you encountered and the memories you made will empower you to create great outcomes for the world or even do a world tour.
The world’s realities differ from the UWC bubble but to graduate from this institution helps you understand different faces of the world, then integrate the real world more aware of who you are as a global citizen. Embrace the changes as well as your UWC bubble because you are starting over as a first year but this time in the wilderness of the real world.
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