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For many young adults, the gap year is a chance to pause, reset, and rethink what comes next. At The Bridge Costa Rica, this process is supported intentionally through Life-Paths Design, a college credit-bearing course (via Western Colorado University) that helps students clarify their strengths and chart realistic next steps. More than a class, Life-Paths Design is a guided exploration of purpose, personal identity, and real-world career possibilities. The course begins with structured self-assessments that help students understand their values, interests, and natural abilities. From there, participants move into hands-on exploration—interviewing professionals in Costa Rica, testing new roles through internships, and reflecting on what feels energizing or meaningful. What makes the experience uniquely powerful is the combination of real-world practice and thoughtful coaching. Students meet regularly with instructors and mentors who help them connect insights from their internship experiences to larger questions: What type of work environment feels right? What skills need strengthening? What steps lead toward a sustainable next chapter?
Life-Paths Design gives young adults something essential: confidence rooted in experience, and a clearer understanding of who they are becoming.
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This fall, The Bridge began its conference season with a meaningful visit to the Young Adult Transition Association (YATA) conference in San Diego, where our Director Dr. Danny Recio connected with professionals dedicated to helping young adults thrive during the transition to independence.  The event proved to be a rich opportunity for collaboration and reflection, highlighting how supportive gap year and gap semester programs like The Bridge provide a vital bridge between high school and college life. Through structured independence, coaching, and real-world experience, participants build confidence, develop life skills, and prepare for purposeful next steps. This year also marks exciting growth for The Bridge. A new partnership with Western Colorado University now allows students to earn up to six college credits during their time in Costa Rica — blending academic exploration with experiential learning, community engagement, and internships. In addition, our young women cohort recently moved into a larger campus, a reflection of growing enrollment and the program’s continued success in creating empowering, supportive environments for all participants. Our Team Is On The RoadEarlier this month, Strategic Enrollment Director Adam Beeson represented The Bridge and New Summit Academy at the North American Boarding School Workshop (NABSW) in London, England, connecting with international agents, boarding schools, and educational consultants from around the world. Looking ahead, our Executive Director Dr. Heather Tracy, will join Danny and Adam at NE NATSAP in Burlington, Vermont, The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) in Boston, Massachusetts, and during visits to boarding schools across New England.
These experiences strengthen The Bridge’s mission: to provide a supportive gap year where young adults embark on a journey of self-discovery and prepare for a purposeful next chapter. At The Bridge, Costa Rica’s Independence Day comes alive as a chance to learn, connect, and grow. Last week, our young adults joined the nation in celebration. Gathering at our new house for young women, our community organized a cafecito campesino filled with music, playful bombas, and colorful traditional dress.  Why Cultural Immersion Matters These moments bring joy and connection - but they also offer much more. Cultural immersion is a catalyst for growth. Research shows that intercultural encounters challenge our mental frameworks (schemas), helping us develop new ways of thinking, relating, and problem-solving. At The Bridge, immersion isn’t an add-on; it’s integral to the academic and therapeutic journey. Students who engage with Costa Rican traditions and community life gain:
In short, immersion fosters the maturity, resilience, and identity development that our students - and their families - seek. The Costa Rican Difference
Costa Rica itself is therapeutic. With its slower pace, emphasis on community, and deep integration with nature, students are invited to pause, connect, and reflect. Named one of the world’s happiest and friendliest countries, Costa Rica embodies Pura Vida - a way of life that prioritizes thriving over merely surviving. For our students, immersion in this environment nurtures belonging, competence, and the confidence to envision a brighter future. At The Bridge, we don’t just celebrate culture - we live it. And through that living, our students grow. We are thrilled to announce a new academic partnership between The Bridge and Western Colorado University that allows our students to earn up to 6 college credits while participating in our supportive gap experience in Costa Rica. Beginning this fall, students can enroll in two college-level courses taught by our Director, Dr. Danny Recio, who now serves as faculty of record for Western Colorado University's Center for Learning and Innovation.  The course offerings include:
Dimensions of Healthy Living A popular course Danny has taught for years at Veritas University, this class explores nine key areas of young adult wellbeing, including physical health, emotional wellness, ethical behavior, relationships, executive functioning, civic engagement, and more. Culture, Community, and Global Citizenship A hands-on, experiential course that brings global issues to life through The Bridge’s signature programming - Aventuras, community service, internships, and cultural immersion - all framed through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This partnership adds an important academic layer to the transformative experience The Bridge already offers, and we’re excited for students to gain both personal growth and college credit from a US university during their time with us! What happens when young adults miss out on key life experiences that once shaped emotional growth and resilience? That’s the question our director, Dr. Danny Recio, explored in a recent episode of the Head Inside Mental Health podcast with host Todd Weatherly. Listen to the full episode here.
In the episode, Danny also shares how The Bridge addresses this gap through Supportive Immersion, a model our team has developed that creates intentional, growth-oriented experiences.
Topics covered include:
For more conversations with Danny, check out his other podcast appearances on our Podcasts page. First, there was one. Then came a second. And by the end of this week, our new house at The Bridge will be alive with energy as four young women settle into their transformative gap experience in Costa Rica. To mark this exciting milestone, we sat down with Fia, the very first participant to arrive, to hear what drew her to The Bridge, her favorite moments so far, her hopes for the months ahead, and what she’d tell anyone considering a supportive gap year with us.
What are you most looking forward to during your gap year? I want to learn all these new skills and tools I can apply to when I actually move out and live on my own. Also, meeting new people, getting the cultural immersion piece, practicing my Spanish and just taking little steps into adulthood. What are you hoping to take away from this experience? Learning things about myself. Finding things that I enjoy and find comfort in. Learning how to live independently. What advice do you have for other young women considering The Bridge? That you should definitely do it. It’s very fun. It's a great experience that not many people get to do. It's a great program where they balance giving you your freedom but also being there to support you. Practicing living with other people, taking care of your chores, doing your responsibilities, and having a fun time.
Our latest interview in the Life After The Bridge series is with James, a 2012 graduate of The Bridge currently pursuing a Doctorate in Psychology from George Fox University. "The Bridge is really where I had the seed planted that I could be happy in life. I was really happy living in Costa Rica, and really happy living at The Bridge."Tune in to hear James' reflections on his supportive gap experience more than a decade after leaving Costa Rica, including:
While the goal of developments in technology is to make life easier for us, people’s self-confidence and personal development require a degree of challenge to improve. If my goal is to get to a town 20 miles away, cars lower the challenge considerably in comparison to walking. If I want to clean my clothes, using a washer and dryer lowers the challenge in comparison to having to go down to the river to wash them by hand. As the curve of technological development grows incredibly steeper, there is a risk that those who have access to it the most will lack enough challenge to develop their skills to deal with technology-unmediated life, the real world as we say. When convenience gets in the way of healthThere are other correlates of health that follow a similar fate. For example, modern life is much more sedentary, once again to those with most access to technologies. This is good because it protects the body from the heavy and risky load of manual labor, but if sedentary people don’t intentionally exercise, their physical health can massively deteriorate. Likewise, modern life provides more calories to feed people’s bodies than ever before. For millions of people, this overabundance of calories leads to illness, to the point that nowadays there are more countries where more people die of overnutrition related issues, than malnutrition issues. The opposite was the case for the vast majority of human history. Both in the case of exercise and nutrition, intentionally designed challenge is necessary for adequate health. Getting off the couch to exercise and restricting ultra-processed foods through a good diet are well known practices for people to be healthy. Mental health needs challenge tooHowever, we do not seem to have dawned on the fact that getting off the couch and going to experience real-world unpredictable, unknown and potentially somewhat risky and uncomfortable situations are necessary for proper health, especially mental health. Additionally, restricting ultra(technology)-processed experiences, such as the kinds that screens and apps provide, is likely essential as well. Humans are an incredibly innovative species, but it's only until very recently in our evolution that we have radically maximized our capacity to create technology that solves all kinds of problems for us. The following chart makes it visually evident how for thousands of years we progressed gradually but very little, but from the industrial revolution onwards, the change is dramatic:  Here’s an interesting fact shared by the most recent Mental State of the World Report (2025): “What is clear is that the greater wealth and economic prosperity of a country does not equate to greater Mind Health and Wellbeing of its population. Most significantly, young adults fare substantially better in less developed regions.”Is it possible that this statistic is a good reason to think that when there is greater wealth there is more access to technology, and with it less access to challenge, and therefore less wellbeing? If so, then it's possible those of us who have plenty of access to all kinds of technology and are not suffering significantly for other reasons should be seeking a healthy dose of challenge. A byproduct of dealing with an adequate amount of challenge is resilience. Also, when people expose themselves to manageable uncertain situations regularly, their problem-solving abilities improve, their self-confidence increases, and their anxiety lowers. Why? The same reason your muscles get stronger when you put them to work. When we are continually practicing how to problem-solve and getting information from our environment on what works and what doesn’t, we become better at predicting what strategies to use, and this helps us become more adaptable. What Comes After Play?In his book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt calls for a play-based childhood to help reduce the epidemic of mental health in young people, where children can play without the supervision of adults, where there is risk and the need for problem-solving. This concept of a play-based childhood matches well to the analogy of the gym of life. But, if children need a play-based childhood, what do young adults need to protect against anxiety as well as develop their self-confidence and resilience? A few words come to mind, like an autonomous-based young adulthood, a contributing young-adulthood, an exploratory young-adulthood. If you’ve read this far down in the blog, maybe you'll share with me what kind of young adulthood we should be encouraging. ##
Dr. Danny Recio, PhD, is Director of The Bridge Costa Rica, Pathfinder Costa Rica, and a co-founder of New Summit Academy Costa Rica. Learn more about Danny here. The Bridge Costa Rica is a unique blend of a gap program – offering cultural immersion, community service, language, adventure travel, and internship opportunities – and a supportive community – providing group and individual coaching as well as a strong sense of safety, support, and guidance toward mastering skills for the adult world. With a campus for young men and a new campus for young women in the town of Atenas, Costa Rica, The Bridge serves young adults ages 17-23.  The Director of The Bridge Costa Rica, Dr. Danny Recio, recently returned from the Small Boarding Schools Association annual conference at Woodside Priory School in Portola Valley, California. Joining an expert panel moderated by Jenney Wilder of allkindsoftherapy.com, Danny offered research-supported insight on the reasons why small boarding schools are uniquely positioned to offer alternatives to traditional college options - such as Supportive Gap Year experiences like The Bridge - because of the strong, trusting relationships these schools have with students and their families. Supportive Gap Year experiences, Danny shared, can help students be better positioned to not only avoid mental illness in the future, but also flourish on their way to adulthood. "In a time where mental health issues are on the rise and guided opportunities to build mental fitness are scarce, gap years emerge as the rites of passage for our time, to go from languishing to flourishing, from mental suffering to mental fitness, and to prepare for the challenges that adulthood inherently brings."Danny was joined on the panel by Matt Woodhall, head of The Woodhall School, and Jake Weld, Chief Strategy Officer for Mansfield Hall.
Learn more about Danny's research and writing on Supportive Gap Year experiences here. When people imagine gap year programs, they often picture carefree adventures like backpacking across Europe, surfing in Bali, or volunteering abroad. While these traditional programs can be life-changing, they often lack the structure and guidance that many young adults need - especially those navigating anxiety, burnout, or mental health setbacks. That’s where supportive gap year programs like The Bridge Costa Rica come in. Unlike traditional gap programs that focus solely on travel or adventure, supportive programs combine experiential learning with therapeutic guidance. At The Bridge, students receive 24/7 support, life coaching, intentional skill-building, and the chance to reflect on their experiences in real time - not years later. Here’s a quick breakdown:
Supportive gap programs are ideal for young adults who may feel stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure of their next steps. They offer the freedom of a gap year with the safety of a supportive community. The takeaway? You don’t have to choose between adventure and emotional safety. With The Bridge Costa Rica, you get both.  Taking a gap year abroad might sound terrifying if you live with anxiety, but the right kind of experience can transform fear into strength. At The Bridge Costa Rica, we understand that anxious young adults don’t need to be “pushed off the cliff” into independence. They need a bridge - a supportive structure that guides them, challenges them safely, and helps them build trust in themselves.  Here’s how we do it:
Many of our students say they’re scared before arriving. But by the end of their program, they’re confident, curious, and capable of handling life’s uncertainties.
If you’re scared to take a leap, don’t worry. We’ll help you build the wings as you fly.  A Supportive Gap Experience for Young WomenComing this March, The Bridge Costa Rica will host a cohort of 6 (ideal) or 8 (max) young women in a beautiful, cozy home with a pool and a view at the edge of the vibrant town of Atenas. The intimate house setting is located in an ideal area of town for participants to engage in the life of our dynamic community. The Bridge Participant ProfileBridge women are seeking to grow in confidence, interdependence, and to develop an identity and clarify their own particular way of going about things to best serve their goals and needs. Bridge women are interested in mattering - in finding what's inside them that they can offer the world around them. They want to find purpose and meaning while building more skills to be able to achieve their goals. The Bridge will be an excellent opportunity for young women seeking to come out of their shell and immerse in a warm and welcoming Costa Rican community. Therefore, we seek young women who would benefit from a built-in community to connect, share, be vulnerable and grow with each other. Students may have just finished high school, or may have tried college or the work world but figured out they need a gap experience to motivate, mature, and solidify some autonomy and executive functioning skills. A Cozy Home in a Vibrant Town Our Executive Director, Heather Tracy, EdD and Danny Recio, Ph.D, Program Director of The Bridge Costa Rica, were thrilled to join the latest episode of the Fear | Less podcast with Zack Schafer to discuss how Supportive Immersion sparks youth resilience. Check out the episode now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.  Tune in to the episode to learn about: 🌴 The origin story and 20-year history of New Summit Academy Costa Rica and The Bridge Costa Rica 🌐 How Supportive Immersion empowers students to develop resilience, purpose, and agency 🌊 The role of Costa Rica’s warm, welcoming culture as a catalyst for transformative growth 💫 And much, much more! From the episode description: "Rather than pushing young people to meet unrealistic expectations of independence, New Summit Academy and The Bridge highlight interdependence, community, and meaningful contribution. This inclusive, values-driven approach encourages learners to step outside their comfort zones, embrace missteps as teachable moments, and ultimately reframe anxiety as a natural part of growth. Whether in the classroom, on an internship, or in daily life, Supportive Immersion showcases how authentic connection, gentle exposure to uncertainty, and steady mentoring fuel both personal and collective well-being."  We are excited to announce a significant expansion of The Bridge Costa Rica with the addition of a house for young women (ages 17-23) in the beautiful town of Atenas. Opening in Spring 2025, the new campus for young women will coincide with the twentieth anniversary of New Summit Academy Costa Rica our supportive boarding school and study abroad experience for adolescent males (ages 14-18) from which The Bridge evolved in 2012. Here's a glimpse at what is ahead... Enrolling Young Women in Spring 2025A dynamic team of professional women at The Bridge is excited and awaiting the arrival of our first female students. We are already accepting referrals and responding to inquiries. Our team is thrilled to offer a separate house in our town specifically designed to meet the needs of young women while maintaining the core vision that has made The Bridge such a success.  The Supportive Immersion ApproachWhile young women will have their own house in a different part of town, our core approach - Supportive Immersion - will remain consistent across both campuses. Female students who enroll at The Bridge will be offered the same unique opportunities for cultural immersion and service, skill-building through internships and academic pursuits, and individual and group coaching that has benefited so many young men in our program for more than a decade.  Now Accepting Referrals for 2025If you know a young woman who would benefit from a supportive gap experience at The Bridge in 2025, please get in touch with [email protected].
Graduates of The Bridge leave Costa Rica not only with the impressive RESUME one builds during a supportive gap experience abroad, but with a unique set of skills, cross-cultural competencies, a clearer understanding of their values, increased autonomy and self-governance, leadership experience, the capacity to see things from different viewpoints, flexibility and adaptability, and a renewed drive to pursue their path. We were fortunate to sit down recently with a few of our graduates who shared perspectives on how their experiences at The Bridge continue to shape their lives years after leaving Costa Rica.
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