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.

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.

Earlier 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.

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.

​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.

Tune in to hear James' reflections on his supportive gap experience more than a decade after leaving Costa Rica, including:

• How a visit to the Bribri indigenous community in Costa Rica helped shape his perspective and worldview
  
• Why he still carries a seed from Costa Rica with him nearly 15 years later as a reminder of the seeds that were planted in him at The Bridge
  
• The reasons a structured and supportive community was so powerful for his sense of self and confidence
  
• How living in a different country allowed him to focus on personal growth during his gap experience

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.

There 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.

However, 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):

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.

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.

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.

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.