By Elijah Fanelli, City Year AmeriCorps member serving on the Bank of America Team at Young Achievers Science and Math K-8 Pilot School.

As a senior in high school applying for colleges, I was woefully ignorant of the other options available to me. I had always been a straight shooter in life, destined to go directly from high school to a decent university, continue on to graduate level work, and then settle down into the daily grind of the working world. Sure, I had a vague understanding of what AmeriCorps was and heard mentions of City Year from NPR and my mother – who, interestingly enough, has spent most of her career working in New Haven Public Schools researching the very same attendance, behavior, and coursework interventions that I carry out here at City Year Boston. It is probable that if I weren’t so stubbornly set on following my pre-conceived “normal” educational track, I would have listened to my mother’s suggestions of taking a gap year after high school into greater consideration. Looking back on that time, I wish I had.

Bank of America Team serving at Young Achievers Science and Mathematics K-8 Pilot School

Fortunately, my path eventually did end up crossing City Year, after an successful semester-long stint in college. I entered City Year as a nineteen-year-old college dropout.

City Year has a habit of attracting passionate people—people who desperately want to change the world (see above). I am one of those people, but before joining the ranks of the Red Jacketed and khaki clad City Year corps members, I certainly did not possess the necessary skills to carry out this life mission. I did not have the organizational or logistical knowledge necessary to plan and execute an event. I did not possess the discipline to get up at 7:00AM and not get home until 9:30PM in pursuit of the change I wanted to see in the world. I did not have the perseverance to push onward when progress was non-existent, or even sliding in a negative direction.

City Year has given me these qualities – or more precisely, City Year has facilitated personal growth for me in many areas. Through the powerful City Year community, structured environment, rigorous training, and strong leadership teams, I have grown in more ways than I ever would have imagined possible in eight short months. Personally, I feel that every American citizen should give a year of service, not just to help improve the lives of others, but also to better themselves as individuals.

I entered City Year as a nineteen-year-old college dropout. I will be leaving City Year as an empowered individual with the tools necessary to successfully complete my education and launch powerfully into a life-long mission to positively change the world.