Big Year experience

I just concluded my final semester with MEI Academy and after spending 120 days on the program I can confidently recommend this to any high schooler in grade 11 or 12 who is looking for something new. I participated in the “Big Year” meaning I spent my fall semester traveling through Europe and my spring traveling through Asia and it was truly life changing! Not only were the places that I traveled to absolutely magical but the people that I spent my time with were incredible. I love MEI because the size of my program (10-15) allowed me to become friends with people I never expected to. We were all like-minded in the sense that we wanted to learn about the world, but we also were all so unique and I learned so much from my fellow students. The teachers on the trip were also incredible! They were all so supportive and passionate about what they do, which was incredibly refreshing. The majority of the teachers on my trip were young making them approachable and easy to relate to. Some of my teachers changed between semesters but Riley stayed through the entire year and I became very close with her. I of course respected her on a teacher level but when we weren’t in lessons she became a great friend. It might sound very corny but the people I spent time with truly felt like family by the end. I was forced to learn to coexist with people because of proximity which taught me a lot about myself and how differently we all live. Regarding the academics, it was quite difficult to get used to the MEI approach as it is very independent. Most projects that we did had very little guidelines regarding content which allowed us to explore topics that actually interested us and tie it back to the course, teaching us how to think critically. The teachers gave a lot of creative liberty to the students, supporting and even encouraging us to follow through with our “crazy” ideas. I got back from Asia about a month ago and I’m still mourning the experiences that I had and the connections that I made. I truly cannot recommend MEI enough!