Written by Angela Paulson: A current student who enrolled in our inaugural class in September, 2021.
Before coming to Denver Gap Year, I had never even been in the state of Colorado and hadn’t been away from home for more than about a week at a time. Denver has definitely been a change of pace from where I grew up, starting with the fact that the metro area has roughly 3.3x the population of my home state of South Dakota, and 3000x the population of my hometown. Since my arrival, I’ve had many people ask what it’s been like to make the move from my home to Denver, so I thought I’d share an overview of what the transition has been like for me so far.
Living in a small town does have some perks, but there’s always been something intriguing to me about big cities. Since I was younger, I’ve loved seeing all the different places and unknown faces that cities hold and looking out the car window at the city lights after the sky has gone dark for the night. On my first full day here, we headed out into the city with a list of clues that led us to a number of Denver’s top spots from historic sites to ice cream and eventually up a mountain. By the end of it, I was starting to give recommendations to one of my family members that recently moved to Colorado. Even with all we did that day, we barely skimmed the surface of what the city holds, and to me that didn’t seem overwhelming, but rather inviting.
One thing that’s great about Denver in particular, is that you don’t have to choose between the liveliness of the city and the serenity of nature. Where I’m from, you don’t have to go far to find places of peace and fresh air, and I thought this would be one thing I might miss in moving to a bigger place. However, since coming here, I’ve had the opportunity to visit some of the best outdoor spaces in the area, from Rocky Mountain National Park to Maroon Bells and a number of places in between, and they’ve all been within a day trip from the city. I’ve been able to get to experience the energy of Denver without having to look far for a quick escape and some great views.
The last and probably most significant factor that has made my journey out here go smoothly has been the people. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought, “What on earth was I thinking, maybe this was a bad idea,” as I pulled up in front the house I had never been to before filled with people I had never met before, knowing that this was where I would be spending the next months of my life. By the end of supper that night, the feeling of stranger-ness had, at least for the most part, had subsided. (It helped that we had chicken fajitas, which is one of my favorites) I definitely still had some acclimating to do, but ever since my arrival, the other members of the house, staff, and community have been nothing but welcoming to me. Everyone has shown genuine interest in and support for me, and in coming to a completely new place, that has been one of the most important things I could have asked for.