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Video Closed Captions

John Luria:
The Bridge Year Program really started with

John Luria:
the Princeton in the World report when Princeton was looking at ways in which to respond to

John Luria:
globalization and how to prepare its students for living in a globalized world.

John Luria:
This is the inaugural year. We started the program with 20 students.

John Luria:
Princeton's currently partnering with ProWorld Service Corps in Peru. World Learning is our partner in Ghana and Serbia.

John Luria:
And we're working with Where There Be Dragons in India.

Lizzie Martin:
The opportunity to travel across the world

Lizzie Martin:
and do really meaningful service with an incredible group of people really appealed to me. Not

Lizzie Martin:
having traveled internationally before, I felt like seeing more of the world and living

Lizzie Martin:
a completely different kind of life would be a good transition between high school and college.

Cole Freeman:
The living conditions are surprising because

Cole Freeman:
I expected them to not be as modern as they were. I mean, even though we don't have running

Cole Freeman:
water, it's much more modern than I thought.

John Luria:
The program allows them to contribute to community-based

John Luria:
initiatives in their host community. This gives them a much better sense of what it

John Luria:
means to be a global citizen, to serve society and the world, and definitely a better understanding

John Luria:
and a stronger commitment to Princeton's informal motto, "In the nation's service and in the

John Luria:
service of all nations."

David Hammer:
Right now, I'm working on building cleaner-burning stoves and water filters, which I think is a good project because there's a

David Hammer:
real tangible benefit. But I mean, honestly, I feel like I'm getting more out of it than the people I'm helping.

Shaina Watrous:
I feel like for the women in the red light

Shaina Watrous:
district who have been used as tools, for them to see that a girl from a different country

Shaina Watrous:
cares about them and is coming every day and wants to know their story, I think it probably

Shaina Watrous:
really gives them new hope and new vigor to keep fighting for their rights.

Nick Ricci:
One of the greatest benefits of the Bridge Year is it gives us the ability to empathize.

John Luria:
I've been really impressed and really inspired by the students that are on the program this year.

John Luria:
It's a challenging program. I think

John Luria:
that that interaction with Bridge Year students and students who might not have gone, what that will do is

John Luria:
provide an opportunity for greater international perspectives, greater

John Luria:
international understanding. It's a benefit to the community as a whole.

Leah Bushin:
A few weeks ago, we went up to a really high community, a two-and-a-half-hour hike up.

Leah Bushin:
It was just so isolated the five of us commented on

Leah Bushin:
how far away we felt from everything, and I guess we just realized how different our life is.

Ashley Vinson:
It's actually made me want to travel so much more.

Alex Rafter:
Yeah, if anything, every day here we think

Alex Rafter:
of a new country that we want to go to. What I've learned in Serbia is just really to appreciate

Alex Rafter:
everything as much as I can. And I feel like I've been living in the moment a lot more while I'm here.

Ashley Vinson:
I don't know exactly how Princeton's going

Ashley Vinson:
to be when we get there. I can't make a road map to navigate perfectly or anything like that. But

Ashley Vinson:
I can know that I will be able to adjust, because this is the kind of experience

Ashley Vinson:
that never before would I have thought that I could adjust to or get through, even.

Ashley Vinson:
I wasn't sure that I was prepared for this, and now I know that I'm prepared for Princeton.