Sandy shooting in the Galapagos Islands.
A GAP AWAY
A Gap Away helps you plan a gap year with intention and confidence. Sandy’s unique model focuses on empowering you to craft a gap year vision and design a set of experiences that meet your specific purpose. This intentional focus will help you sort through the myriad options available. From the outset her goal is to help you build the skills to plan and execute your own gap year. These skills will serve you well for life, whether planning a semester abroad or spring-break trip, evaluating college course options, self-advocating with professors or employers, or intentionally crafting a life that includes balance and fun.
MEET SANDY STORER
Sandy Storer’s evolution as a gap year specialist is the result of 30 years professional social work experience, a lifetime of adventurous travel, and an appreciation for the value of taking time for personal growth.
With professional experience as a family therapist, school social worker, transition specialist, and pre-college coach, Sandy has an extensive history of helping young adults find, and flourish, on their path. She has worked in clinical, public school, and university settings and has a particular interest in the challenges involved in the transition to college.
Sandy grew up in a family where weeks-long backpacking trips and traipsing about in a Volkswagen camper were the norm. She learned to be comfortable with the unknown, planning on the fly, and solving problems with whatever was at hand. In 2003, seeking to provide that same spirit of adventure for her family, she led her own children (ages 7, 10, and 13) on a gap semester in Central America. It was a pivotal time for her family, collectively and individually.
In 2013, Sandy used a personal gap year to pursue her interest in photography and find a way to make meaning of her hobby. Sandy now donates her photography services, traveling regularly to Uganda with a youth-led non-profit as both a volunteer photographer and trip co-leader. She cannot imagine her life today without the gains from these gap experiences and enthusiastically encourages others to give one a try!
- Gap Year Association Board of Directors
- Member, Gap Year Association Membership Committee
- Member, Gap Year Association Alum Committee
- Member, Independent Education Consultants Association
- Member, National Association of Social Workers
- Family Institute of Cambridge
- LEND Fellowship, UMASS Medical School/Shriver Center
- Masters of Social Work, Boston University
- B.A., Northwestern University
- Registered with Overseas Security Advisory Council (“OSAC”) to receive security alerts and advisories as they emerge.
PLACES SANDY HAS TRAVELED
- Central America
- Mexico
- Caribbean
- South Africa
- Uganda
- Nepal
- Thailand
- Fiji
- Austrailia/New Zealand
- Eastern and Western Europe
- Galapagos Islands
- Throughout the U.S.
“I should like to spend the whole of my life traveling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.”
– WILLIAM HAZLITT
Coaching services for a purposeful and self-directed year of personal growth and fun. Located outside of Boston, MA, A Gap Away is also available for advising via telephone and video.
