Mikaela and Dallas during their trades class

The Northern Youth Abroad Next Program is helping and guiding individuals to take the next steps after high school, or at least lead participants in the right direction. This is exactly why I applied to the program, and it has been great so far.

On the first day arriving to campus, I was pretty excited because knowing at the end of the summer I would have gained knowledge about post-secondary and how the whole experience works. I became comfortable pretty quick with being on a college, in the city, and using the bus routes. There’s lots of help and guidance along the way. We were given a tour of Algonquin College so now I know my way around. The gym tour was my favourite part, and learning new exercises with our Group Leader Lindsay.

Mikaela’s picture frame

On the first day of construction class I had no enthusiasm whatsoever, since I have little interest in trades. However, once I finished all the hand sawing, wood filling and sanding I realized that I had made something all on my own and I was proud of it. I was able to complete it even though I didn’t want to do it. Now I have a beautiful picture frame that I built, and will eventually have built a dog house too.

Let’s Talk Science is my favourite sessions. It is a refresh of some of the classes that I enjoyed in high school, but also learning new material. We also had a session about the power of transformation and a few of the things the lady said really stuck with me.

There’s still so much to do and to learn. It’s a great experience overall, and we are all going through it together – the ups, the downs and all the fun!