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This month we’re featuring an interview with Laurel Chor, Class of 2007 whom, despite having gotten into one of the top universities in the United States, decided to defer university for a year so she can travel in South America and in Africa, seeing the real world with her own eyes.
Taking a Gap Year is common for European students – in recent years Britain’s Prince William, took a much-publicized G.Y. in Guatemala - but they are not common for students heading to American Universities.
It’s clear that Laurel is breaking a few social taboos with regards to her taking Gap Year to travel, alone, as a young Chinese girl in the many developing nations of South America and later, in Africa. She has been raising eyebrows on her journey, both with those she meets en route, and with those who have heard about her life broadening experiences that have been a direct result of the diversity of her adventures and experiences in service to others.
Laurel chose to listen to her own inner voice, even when her fellow classmates assumed her decision to take a Gap Year meant she’d not gotten into a good university. (Click here for Laurel’s article from iCUBED.us’s August features)
In addition to her adventurous spirit and her determination to be “powerful” which she defines as “having influence and making a difference in people’s lives”, her admiration for Medecins sans Frontieres has steered her towards a career in medicine, “also because I’m good in biology”.
About her decision to study medicine, she said her defining moment happened the summer before her senior year when she went to Mongolia with Habitat for Humanity. At age sixteen she decided that she wanted to help people by becoming a doctor.
Before that, Laurel had considered a career in advertising, but after her Spirituality through Service class at school, and then seeing first hand the poverty in many parts of Asia, in places like Nepal, India, and Mongolia, she said smiling softly, “I can’t know what’s going on, and go into a 'fashion' career.”
At one time, when she was five years old, she’d wanted to be a forest ranger, now, she wants to help solve large scale problems and one way of doing that, she thinks, is to be in the health care services, getting an in depth understanding of all aspects of nutrition and of different diseases. Laurel plans to have a career in public health so that she can move onto a later career in formulating world health policies.
Laurel is truly a person who isn’t living life with blinders on. And it’s very clear how sharp her vision is when you see the stunning photos she has taken. It’s easy to imagine that she’d have no problem being a highly paid fashion photographer but it’s refreshing to meet a person who isn’t looking for the quickest and easiest way to make a living, and is instead willing to use all of her talents to be a “powerful” force for good works.
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Laurel Chor's interview
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