The Brown Ledge Gap Year will begin with a documentary training session at Brown Ledge Camp in late August. The camp is located on Malletts Bay on the shores of Lake Champlain, just north of Burlington, Vermont. Participants will spend four weeks learning the essentials of video production, audio production and digital photography and examining the history, techniques and ethics of documentary work. We will introduce the cities we will be living in and set up individual community-service projects and internships. In addition to this work and study, there will be many opportunities for fun and relaxation (including waterskiing, sailing, tennis, and other activities), taking advantage of the Lake and the camp's facilities.

After the training session, we will take a road trip to Salt Lake City, which is remarkable for its Mormon influence, its stunning surroundings and as a site for examining the environmental and land-use battles of the West. We will live in Salt Lake for six weeks, experiencing what it is like to live independently in a new city. Participants will work half-time doing an internship or community service job, developing job skills and learning more about the city. Finally, they will create their own documentary, using the medium of their choice-video, audio, photographic, written, or some combination thereof.

After Salt Lake, we will move on to New Orleans, where we will repeat the process of adjusting to a new city and a new job, of learning about the issues and identifying documentary subjects. The formal part of the program will end before the winter holidays, but program staffers will continue to offer advice and counsel to help participants make the most of the rest of the year. At the beginning of June, we will reconnect in Vermont to see each other again and compare experiences.

The Brown Ledge Gap Year has several goals:

• To give young people on the cusp of adulthood a hands-on experience in independent living. To that end, participants will work together in a small community of peers to successfully maintain and run a house, cook meals, and live together in ways that are respectful, meaningful, and sustainable. They will be guided in this experience by Resident Directors in the program, who will help the young people master these important life skills.
• To provide young people with meaningful work. Participants will help find and design their own internships and volunteer positions in two different cities over the course of their time in the program. Finding and holding these jobs will give them a very real sense of what it means to be responsible to and for others and how to navigate the work world that they will soon be entering.
• To expose young people to the variety and vitality of American cities through residencies in cities that are geographically and culturally very different from each other and, potentially, from their own home towns or cities.
• To enable young people to take control of the powerful tools of our digital age. All participants will be trained to create documents of their experiences using digital photography, video, audio, and other forms of reportage.
• To encourage young people to analyze and synthesize the world around them. By making documentary videos, audio stories, or photo essays, participants in the program will be actively engaged in the struggle to make sense of issues and to tell important stories in ways that can be seen and understood by others.
• To prepare young people for the college years by giving them the learned experience of organizing their time, working independently, meeting responsibilities, reaching goals, and living in community through a supportive, guided program.

We have advised your child that researching all of his/her options about Gap Year programs is imperative to a successful Gap Year experience. You will want to do your own research as well. You may have concerns about your child taking a year off before going to college or taking a semester, or year, off during college. We hope that our web-site and your additional research will allay any of your fears. The concept of a Gap Year has begun to gain momentum in the United States after being very popular in other parts of the world for the past few decades. Almost all schools will defer a student's acceptance if the student presents a thoughtful plan for his/her Gap Year. Anecdotal research has shown that students who take a Gap Year enter, or return to, college with a better sense of self and are more focused and motivated in their studies.

Your child will gain the following from the Brown Ledge Gap Year experience:

Through Documentaries

• will learn documentary technique. Novices will learn how to use equipment and software; those with more experience will hone their skills and deepen their understanding of documentary style and structure.
• will learn how to think through a documentary production, how to frame a question, how to elicit needed information, how to construct an argument out of other people's words and images. In short, how to understand the world and communicate that understanding.

Through Community Service and/or Internships

• will learn about the issue that is at the heart of his/her work, whether it is immigration, homelessness, law or broadcasting, she/he will learn about that issue directly and personally.
• will learn the skills that a particular job requires, whether it is teaching or construction or office work.
• will learn how you feel about the work. Your child may discover from working in a clinic that she does not want to go to medical school, or he may learn from working in a classroom that teaching is the job for him.

Through Living and Traveling

• will learn the basic life skills of cooking and cleaning and living with other people, and will learn how to make smart decisions about how to live his/her life.
• will learn how to adapt to, and navigate, a new city.
• will learn about three very different parts of America, and about what a big and varied country it is.

$14,500, which includes program costs, room and board, transportation, equipment and supplies. Your only other costs will be transportation to Vermont, transportation from New Orleans, and spending money. To encourage early enrollment, those who complete their applications and enroll by June 1 will get a $500 discount.