Baret Scholars

What is the most valuable experience one can have on a gap year?

For our Scholar Ayira Browne, it’s not only learning or seeing something new, it’s having her misconceptions corrected.

What she learned from singer-songwriter Simone White, who visited our Scholars at our Morning Program, is that making music and art may be deeply personal, but it’s a process that happens in community.

By sharing rough drafts of her songs, or even her diaries, with others, she can get feedback about how to improve her work and learn what moves others. To use Ayira’s words, she “makes it more personal by making it impersonal:” not allowing the private nature of her music stop her from making her process collaborative.

As an artist herself and someone interested in how artists make their work, Ayira can take insights and inspiration from someone like Simone as she journeys around the world. It’s these kind of insights, which are just waiting for our Scholars to snatch out of the air, that make a year with Baret a life-changing experience.

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