Unplugging Connects Sophie ’22 to Her Priorities
How much do you need to disconnect from the everyday in order to reconnect with yourself?
For Sophie ’22, that answer required more than switching off her phone; she traveled to The Island School in the Bahamas for a semester and found a deeper connection to her priorities and aspirations.
For Sophie ’22, that answer required more than switching off her phone; she traveled to The Island School in the Bahamas for a semester and found a deeper connection to her priorities and aspirations.
“The process helped me realize what matters most to me,” says Sophie, a day student. “I had to try to reinvent myself according to what I really wanted, had to ask myself what I hold dear, what I wanted to carry back. It’s easy to forget how much one person can impact the world, but I learned a lot about how I could have an impact.”
Sophie didn’t always appreciate life at The Island School, which accepts high school sophomores and juniors for a semester or for a summer. She was far from her home and family in Vermont, and only permitted one phone call per week. Days began at 6:15 a.m. with an all-school meeting. If any student arrived late, the whole group did pushups or planks. By 6:30, she was off for morning exercise–typically running, swimming, biking, or combinations thereof, no matter the weather. The final physical test of the semester was a mini-triathlon comprised of a 1.5-mile swim, 13-mile bike ride, and a three-mile run, which she completed in a storm.
Then came a full day of classes focusing on the Bahamian ecosystem, sustainability, climate, and other scientific topics. The school’s goal is to teach students how to live sustainably in a twenty-first century environment. Sophie attests to the awareness the program offered her.
“I took a human ecology class there that was by far my favorite class I’ve ever taken anytime, anywhere,” Sophie says. “I came away interested in climate change and helping figure out how to solve some of the world’s biggest problems through mechanical engineering and human-centered design. Say you have a village without electricity–based on its natural resources, what solution can you create to best address that problem? That’s the work I want to do.”
Sophie completed her semester abroad in Spring 2021 and returned to KUA this past fall. As a STEM Scholar, she’s using the knowledge she gained at The Island School to inform her projects and to engage with KUA’s continued sustainability efforts on campus. She feels lucky that she was able to study abroad, and grateful to have found such clarity during the experience.
“I spent a lot of time reflecting while I was in the Bahamas, and now I’m trying to keep up some of the habits I formed, like writing on a regular basis,” says Sophie, who on campus plays soccer and holds numerous leadership roles. “I have a stronger sense of who I am and who I’m not, but even now, after having been back for months, I still have moments when I wish I could go back and do it again.”
