Qian's Journey to Vanguard Gap Year

A Vanguard Story

By HoneyRock Center for Leadership Development

November 30^th, 2021

Miika Forsyth VG '22 interviewed Qian to hear more about his journey to Vanguard—where he's from, what he needed out of a gap year, and what he's found at Vanguard.

Meet Qian.

Miika: Tell us a bit about yourself—where you’re from and who your family is.

Qian: I’m Qian Lim. I was born in Toronto, Canada, but I moved to Shanghai, China when I was less than a year old. I lived there for about ten years before moving to Brooklyn, New York, where I’ve lived for the past eight years. I’m nineteen years old, I have a twin and two younger brothers. My twin is attending the University of Toronto while I am here, at Vanguard.

M: Right before you came to Vanguard, what was life looking like for you?

Q: Well, before Vanguard Covid played a big part in my life. My entire senior year was spent behind a computer. The first time I went back into the building was to pick up my cap and gown for graduation.

I feel like I missed out on a lot of social aspects of high school. I’m very introverted and was pretty socially isolated back in New York. I didn’t have many good friends, and I was a homebody. On top of that, I spent most of my time playing video games and watching TV shows.

You could say I was very unsociable, and Covid just encouraged that part of me. I was socially starved.

M: Do you feel like Vanguard has changed that at all?

Q: Yes. I decided to come to Vanguard because I figured I needed to be social. I needed to learn and grow. I wanted to know and understand myself better. I wanted to interact with people. My house was my comfort zone and I would have gladly just stayed there. But I knew I couldn't do that.

Vanguard is not necessarily what I wanted but what I needed. I made myself come to this program, where you live in a community with people, to end that cycle of isolation. It’s been really good, I feel like I’ve developed a lot. I didn’t realize how much being with other people would teach me about myself.

M: What did community look like in your life before coming here?

Q: Before I got here, my church was falling apart. All the pastors had left and the interim pastor who came in was having a lot of conflict with the congregation. All the leadership of our church told our congregation to deal with it. Then, there was my school. I was pretty much nobody, I didn’t have many friends, so there wasn’t much of a community aspect there either.

I didn’t have much of a community experience before coming here, so HoneyRock is a really big change.

M: How has Vanguard influenced your meaning of community?

Q: I had a much more shallow view of what community looked like before coming here. When I got to Vanguard I realized how HoneyRock is such an intense and concentrated form of community, which I like. It’s a lot different than my view of community back home, because before it was more of a chore to interact with others in a meaningful way.

M: So besides those aspects of community and socialization, is there anything else that drew you to the program?

Q: I have a lot of different reasons for coming to this program. One was personal development. Another was I didn’t know what I wanted to major in yet. I also figured I needed a year off from online schooling and schooling in general, because of the context of my senior year. Ultimately there were a bunch of reasons that added up and together made me choose Vanguard. I knew that I wanted to take a gap year.

My dad also had a huge influence on my choice to come to Vanguard. He had found out about the program when I was applying to Wheaton, and believed it was the best option for me this year.

M: On the topic of where we are now, how do you see HoneyRock as a place apart, specifically through your experience as a Vanguard?

Q: My Vanguard experience has definitely not been what I was expecting. I knew it was a community program and I was going to build relationships with these people, but I didn’t understand how much it would affect me. How much it would impact my life. I didn’t understand how caring and loving people at this program were going to be.

I guess you could say I had a surface-level understanding of this program. I just thought, “Oh, people live together, people work together, and you’ll make friends here.” But it’s so much more than that. Vanguard has given me the space to pursue real friendships with others. Here, everyone is just so focused on each other in the best ways. That’s been so cool to see.

M: What was your vision of this year before coming to Vanguard?

Q: I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much. I thought it would be tedious, living so close to the same people for so long. We’re working together, living together, eating together. We see each other every day. I thought this year was going to be something I had to get over with. Now that I’m here, this is something that I don’t want to end.