Many of our students go on to post-secondary education. Many have incredible stories that can be told to impress an audience. Many meet the superficial metrics for “success” in our society - good grades, working toward high-status degrees, jobs and organizations.
It’s great.
But honestly, we don’t really care about those things. They can sometimes be indicators of a person thriving, but they are not how we measure success at Discover Year.
We measure success by the distance each individual student has travelled down his or her own path to significance.
Are they comfortable in their own skin? Have they developed the courage to confront the difficult things in life head-on? Are they pursuing the things that make best use of their unique gifts and bring joy to the world? Are they digging into adventures that will bring meaning to their life, regardless of conventional wisdom? Are they intentionally surrounding themselves with great people that will support and push them and make them better? Do they tell those people how much they care about them? Do they wake up each day grateful for the opportunity to navigate life’s greatest challenges and triumphs? Do they do their very best to truly understand others before judging them? Do they fundamentally value and respect other people as human beings?
These are the things we care about, and by these metrics, we are very successful.