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Photo by Photo used with permission of Karina Pyrzynski

After graduating early in December, Karina Pyrzynski took a trip to Madrid, Switzerland, Barcelona, and Poland.

As we sit through nine periods a day, many students contemplate whether the things you learn in a classroom translate to the outside world. Karina Pyrzynski is one of the seniors who graduated early as is now learning her lessons through traveling around the world.

“No, I don’t regret [graduating early] at all. [Most people] don’t know what to do and don’t have a point to graduating early and I did,” Pyrzynski said. “School has never been my thing so I’d rather work and figure out something else I’d rather do and enjoy.”

Pyrzynski made the decision to graduate early during her junior year after she was presented with the opportunity to travel through her sister, who is a flight attendant and was able to get her free flights.

“Just as a kid I’ve always gone places with my whole family. Twice a year we would go to Colorado to ski and snowboard and my dad started going to Montana and Utah. Then I started traveling with friends so we went to California and Florida so I’ve just been all over the place,” Pyrzynski said.

After graduating in December, Pyrzynski added to her repertoire of countries she has traveling to by taking a trip to Europe for a month.

“My dad has a friend in Madrid [whose family I stayed with]. Then I went to Switzerland and Lake Geneva with a friend that was studying abroad in Madrid and her sister came and one of her friends came so it was great. After that, I went to Barcelona and my sister flew out there to be with me for like three days and we saw a bunch of stuff like we went to Harper Well, went to Sun Grata Familia the church there so yea we just did a lot of stuff. Then we went to Poland and I have family in Poland so I saw my grandma, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins,” Pyrzynski said.

With time off from school, Pyrzynski doesn’t feel like she has missed out on much since she will be attending prom, walking at graduation, and starting college at the same time as everyone else next year. From her travels, Pyrzynski claims to have learned equally as much as she would have in a classroom setting.

“You’re trained to always learn something new [in our education system] but I don’t think that [my traveling] has affected [my learning experience] because I’m constantly learning new things, culture, and experiences,” Pyrzynski said. “I could have learned [the things I learned traveling] in school, but just being [in the country] and experiencing everything [taught me so much]. For example, in Europe you’re able to drink and stuff so I’m able to walk into a bar and it’s not weird and I’m not carded. Everyone is a lot more mature and people have told me that here but I’ve actually experienced it now and I feel a lot older in a way. I can’t even explain it, it’s awesome.”