ALUMNI BLOG
To mark our 10th anniversary in 2025, Seguinland Institute hosted a reunion on the Maine coast for over 50 alumni spanning back to 2015. Inspired by their powerful stories of the Good Life, we are excited to launch the Seguinland Alumni Blog. Every other month, we will feature a new alum and explore how their gap year experiences continue to shape their unique journeys.
Vivi Levenberg (she/her) & Ella Springer (she/her)
Fall '25
Often we chatted with each other and other pilgrims, sometimes we listened to music, a few times we sang out loud, but mostly it was silence. A peaceful silence, yes, but at times it also felt quite unproductive—there was so much else we could be doing with our time! But as we often discussed at Seguinland, you don't always need to be productive—that's not the point of life. It's okay to slow down. And when we look back now at the days that may have felt "unproductive" in a modern, capitalist sense, they all added up to something pretty incredible: we walked across an entire country.
Even though the Camino marked the end of our gap years, it reaffirmed many of the things we first learned at Seguinland. For one, we proved to ourselves that we were able to bring the lessons we learned in Maine back to the outside world and implement them. They came with us, mile after mile, and we will continue to carry them with us wherever we go next! These pillars—to slow down, build community with people of all backgrounds and ages through empathy and curiosity, and to trust the path ahead—are lessons that we are really going to hold close as we head to college this fall.
We didn't expect to feel so much continuity between the two very different experiences. Seguinland opened our gap years by showing us a different way of moving through the world, and the Camino closed it by letting us practice that way of living on our own.
Love, Ella and Vivi
To finish off the gap year that began at Seguinland, we chose to walk the Camino Frances together: 500 miles across Spain. Looking back, it feels perfect that Seguinland was the opening chapter and the Camino was the closing one. We went from not knowing of each other's existence a mere 9 months ago to spending close to 1000 hours straight together in a foreign country. Some could say, that's the Seguinland effect!
At Seguinland, we were introduced to a rhythm of life that felt so different and refreshing compared to our high school lives. Slow, quiet mornings, long conversations, shared meals, time outdoors, and the community that forms when people are present. On the Camino, life became simple again: wake up, walk, eat, talk, sleep. Without all of the distractions of our modern world, the small moments that meant so much at Seguinland began to feel big again. Seguinland taught us many things, amongst them: the importance of the simple everyday, how quickly a community can form when people are authentic, and the beauty in slowing down. By the time we arrived on the Camino, we were lucky enough to already be introduced to those ideas, and we got to spend the next 500 miles doing our best to live them.
We noticed it most in our pace. As our bodies got stronger and more used to the daily walking, we expected to speed up. Instead, we slowed down. There was nothing to rush to—the only goal each day was to arrive at the next albergue, eventually. We became known as the "two late American girls," and we didn't care. We always made it in time for dinner. Most days, we'd spend 8-10 hours walking, doing nothing but putting one step in front of the other.
Abby Greendyk (she/her)
May Term '23
An Open Letter
Dear all – Seguinland comes in and out of my mind every day. I am in my last semester of college at Temple University, and as I begin this transition into semi-adulthood, I think often of my life in Maine. I think of the unimaginably early mornings that I fell in love with, drinking tea with my roommates or jumping off the dock, and I think of late nights playing Bananagrams. How can I keep all of those memories alive through reflection and practice when I’m in such a difference space, in such a different life?
The answer I’m finding is that these lives, though they appear so separate, are sisters. During 2024 I studied abroad in a small city in the mountains of northern Spain; I lived completely, and in a new culture. I made unlikely friends and explored my own ancestral ties to a starkly unfamiliar land, I missed my family and the vegetables I loved. In the mornings with sun, which were few and far between, I went to the park near my apartment and did nothing but sit in the sunshine, reaching for the warmth I could find. I sat the same way on a log at the edge of the trees below the Cookhouse a year before.
After Spain, I decided to go home to Austin, Texas, and live there until January with my family. I had missed my home deeply, and I returned to the farm I had worked on the summer before, just after May Term, for another apprenticeship (through Anne Saxelby Legacy Fund!). The farm employs mostly older women who are refugees from around the world, and these women have become some of my most truest friends. I also found friends in my coworkers at Boggy Creek Farm, where I then worked full-time for the fall. We chased chickens, grew the most beautiful broccoli, and I re-grounded. I decided I’d move back after I graduate in two months, even as many of the friends I’ve made are scattering. I’m afraid. I was afraid too as I pulled on to Back River Bend.
What I suppose I’m getting at is that it’s all different and it’s also all the same. The wonders and fears and hurdles I am facing are parallel, and the ways I’ll live them are parallel too. Physical memories remind me what I miss, but all I’ve learned from Maine propels me forward.
Thank you for reading, and keep trying to live the Good Life. I know I am.
Abby
Kaiyun Chen (she/her)
May Terms '17 & '18
Almost eight years later, I still hold my Good Life journals close, with reflections in mind and gifts in heart.
My Good Life journey began on the coast of Maine in 2017, where I received some of life's most beautiful gifts: learning to connect deeply and wholeheartedly with nature, community, and myself. After two terms at Seguinland, I discovered a strength for exploration and a drive for adventure. I traveled and lived across the country, embracing my one “wild and precious life.” About a year ago, I returned to New York City, home where I first immigrated. Here, I work at a social service nonprofit, closely with immigrant and under-resourced communities.
In this fast-paced city and a life full of uncertainties, I continue to ground myself in reflections from my Good Life days. The days of brushing through grass, gazing up at stars, flowing with currents (sometimes against them), and holding tight moments of solitude and community.
These memories and learnings remind me to feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for each passing moment and every individual I encounter. Even during challenging times, which life for sure never lacks, I practice hard to lean into the beauty around me: a smile, the sky, and steps taken alongside some of the best people I met through Good Life. There is beauty all around me, and that is what makes this a good life.
This past June, I returned to Seguinland for a reunion. Seeing the institute’s growth and its continued impact on young people filled me with strength and pride. How fortunate we are to have the support of such an inspiring community, one that fosters connection and invites us to experience life’s awe and wonder together. The Good Life gifted me the value of mindful connection, and I strive to continue sharing beauty and joy by connecting deeply and wholeheartedly with the hearts around me.
Raimundo Ruiz (he/him)
Fall ‘23, Wintering ‘24, Bridge ‘24, May Term ‘24
Following three terms at Seguinland, this fall I find myself in Chile, my home country. I’m attending Lehigh University and through an incredible coincidence (that I still can’t believe) they chose Chile for their first-year study abroad semester program. My time at Seguinland was incredibly transformative. It gave me the awareness and skills to find my own community back home, which led to me volunteering as a sexual health educator, focusing on underserved communities. The community-building aspect has also helped me build strong relationships with my cohort as we venture into uncertainty abroad. I’ve become a more mindful person as well, taking time every day to bring myself back to my
body, spend some quality time in nature, and do any needed reflection. After my time at Seguinland, I feel that I know both the person I want to be, and the kind of people I want to surround myself with so much better. I’ve made friends I talk to nearly daily, and others that surprise me at 3am with a wonderfully delightful photo of a goat. With the support of Seguinland faculty, staff, and the incredible people in my cohorts, I’ve been able to shape my life into something I truly love and, for the first time in a while, I’m genuinely excited to see what the future holds.
Jonathan Nemitz (he/him)
Fall ‘2022
When I was first looking down the barrel of my gap year for Fall 2022- Spring 2023, I was not excited. Unhappy with the college I was attending but unsure of my next steps, I took the leap to try Seguinland on the recommendation of a friend. I saw this detour was nothing but a setback on my academic journey, meaning I wouldn’t graduate until the practically ancient age of 23.
Now, being at that unfathomably advanced age, I have the pleasure of reflecting on the journey that the last three years have sent me on. After my gap year, I finished out my last two years of college at Hamilton College in central New York. The school’s motto, “Know Thyself,” would be just as appropriate at the center of one of Marsha’s visualization drawings as at a liberal arts college, and I took with me Seguinland’s charge to keep asking the big questions and make the most of this life. I declared a major in Religious Studies alongside Sociology and am excited to continue asking the big questions and see how people throughout the ages have answered them at UChicago’s Divinity School in the fall. I also kept busy during central New York’s gray winters by unexpectedly falling in love with the sport of curling, which became part of my sociology thesis about civic engagement and recreational sports leagues.
But no matter where I’ve been the past few years, Maine has never felt far. At a Maine-themed party with some friends at college (you make your own fun in central New York), we were discussing how many times the non-native Mainers had been to the state. I realized that despite having only set foot in Maine two years prior for Fall Semester 2022, the Pine Tree State, and specifically, Seguinland’s campus, has called me back more than nearly every other state not neighboring my native New Jersey. Since first crossing over the Piscataqua River Bridge from New Hampshire, I have come back for a May term, a summer reunion, and a gap-year conference (plus a handful of trips for college curling). Each time, it has truly felt like coming home. More than its natural beauty or the good memories, I always know that visiting Seguinland means interesting conversation, a warm community, and a challenge to consider what could be. That warm community, though now scattered around the globe, is nonetheless always with me. I am so thankful for the many friendships that started at Seguinland and continue strong today, including my wonderful girlfriend.
As I look forward to my next steps, even if they don’t take me back to Georgetown Island, I know Seguinland will still be with me.