The Importance of Non Academic Growth
By Lea Garzotto
It is incredibly easy to get caught up in college, with the never-ending cycle of assignments and extracurriculars being overwhelmed is practically the norm. The pandemic pushed this cycle into overdrive when students lost a lot of the social aspects of our classes and extracurriculars when we went online. For me, this meant that my life began to revolve more and more around school with fewer things to break up the routine. Feeling more than overwhelmed, I decided to take a semester off and try something new.
I moved to Denmark to attend an alternative international school called a højskole. The rough translation of this would be a “folk school,” but essentially it was an international school primarily for those who were in transition periods of their lives. The students came from all over the world and the classes offered included Danish, international relations, art & design, theater, sustainable development, gardening, and so much more. There were activities organized by students to showcase their own cultures and excursions and events organized by the teachers to explore the local region.
Photo: Pictured above are all the students after being taught to paint their names in Japanese after the Japanese cultural evening, organized by students.
The best part was that there were no grades or tests, and as such we were free to explore what we wanted and learn at our own leisure. After spending so much time in the American education system, this form of alternative learning came as a shock. Getting to knit during lectures instead of taking notes took some getting used to, but by the end I was in love with the learning style. I think one of the reasons I loved it so much was that it made me realize how many ways there are to learn and grow.
Pictured above: A collection of food booths where people made cultural staples from their own country and each booth represented a different culture.
Growing up in the American system, I was so used to solely being focused on academic growth as a measure of success but most of the growth that I did in Denmark was quite unrelated to academics. Learning about different cultures by meeting people from all over the world has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and coming back to Michigan, I can see it mirrored in GSP. In many ways, GSP is the more academic version of my time in Denmark because GSP promotes many of the same values and creates a similar environment. GSP has the ability to foster so much personal growth that goes beyond what you would experience in a typical classroom.