When most seniors will be decorating their dorm rooms and buying textbooks in the fall, senior Nick Edge will be packing his Chacos and hiking clothes in preparation for his three-month long trip to South America through the abroad program Adventures Cross Country.
Edge decided to take a gap year and travel in the ACC program to Ecuador, Peru and Chile. There he will be staying and helping local communities with construction work and human resources while also studying environmental issues including the climate change in the Patagonia’s and the deforestation of the Amazon River with 15 other selected students for the program.
Though Edge is studying and helping the community during his trip, he will also spend time participating in white water rafting excursions and hiking to the top of Machu Picchu. He believes this trip will be thrilling and amusing, but also hopes to gain friendships with different people and feel more welcoming to diversity in his life.
“I feel like this trip will make me more of a worldly citizen and be more aware of what’s around me back at home,” Edge said. “Going through a trip like this will give me a new way of thinking when it comes to certain things.”
He first had the idea to take a gap year when traveling to Peru last summer through the same program, helping the community by building greenhouses while also touring the cities. Since that service trip was only two weeks, Edge wanted to experience the cultural impact he made again but on a deeper level.
“The two week summer program I did last year was mostly just traveling around Peru, learning about the community and teaching kids English,” Edge said. “This trip is a whole new level of different experiences in various countries.”
After learning about how his sister’s gap year in Africa expanded her mindset when living through cultural diversity and impacted her by making lifelong friends, Edge was finally convinced he needed to apply for the ACC program.
“I’m excited for Nick to see another country and see how their culture is different,” Caroline Edge, Nick’s sister, said. “I love the new independence of these trips, so I hope he feels he gained some worldly knowledge and is more prepared for college life.”
Even though he is pressing pause on his college experience at Elon University next year, Edge believes this trip will help give him a realization for himself of what he wants for his future.
“It’s a big interest of mine to do this trip because you get to learn about different aspects of the world we live in,” Edge said. “I’m excited to look at different cultures and get to learn about different people and lifestyles.”