Take a safari, then go to college

The idea of a gap year, where college students take a break from academics to travel, explore and learn more about themselves, has been slowly catching on in India. How are these young travellers using their year off?

Arjit Agarwal has been obsessed with wildlife since the age of two and even published a book on his favourite animal, the leopard, at the age of 16. Before he signed up to study Ecology in a college in the US, he was clear that he wanted to spend a gap year immersing himself in wildlife parks. He planned 14 safaris for his gap year and managed to gather work experience with conservationists, naturalists, and rangers through this time. Arjit’s favourite trips were to Bandhavgarh National Park, Madhya Pradesh where he had some incredible leopard sightings as well as to Masai Mara in Kenya.

To defer, to take a gap year, a year off, a bridge year — these are ideas that used to be scary for many, but are now being contemplated by many young people at the cusp of adulthood. Taking a gap year between high school and college is not common practice in India but more people are open to the idea now than ever before.

“From our experience, there is a slight increase in students taking gap years as opposed to earlier,” says Nitin Jain, co-founder of On Course, an Indian educational consulting firm. “There are lots of reasons for this. A gap year used to be considered taboo but now that feeling has diminished. There was this idea that college admissions would be harder after taking a gap year but that myth has been busted. Lots of students get into college after taking a break,” he adds.

In fact, Harvard University’s admissions committee encourages admitted students to defer enrollment for one year to travel, pursue a special project or activity, work, or spend time in other meaningful ways. It is believed that students who do this tend to have better grades, better mental health, and end up in leadership roles. Indian students seem to be catching on to this idea because they are voluntarily deferring college applications or even admissions to discover new things before they pick a path, decide their life’s calling, and enter the rat race.

Aarush Khanna from New Delhi’s Shiv Nadar School had excelled in economics throughout his school years but in 2022, he won the Colloquium competition for programming an app that translates sign language to speech. He was in the middle of college applications when he heard of Baret Scholars, a global gap year programme that takes students across seven regions of the world from North America to East Asia. “Which 18-year-old doesn’t want to travel the world? When my college counsellor sent the programme website to us, I thought it was super exciting and knew immediately that I would apply. I haven’t decided between Finance and Computer Science so I am most excited about going to Silicon Valley and meeting tech entrepreneurs and also exploring Sao Paulo in Brazil, the financial capital of Latin America,” he says. The programme gives students exposure through experiences like learning about tiger conservation in India or going on a culinary tour of Italy.

“A student that we worked with took a gap year and used it quite well,” says Nitin. “First, he worked with a professor on a research paper which they completed writing. Then he moved to South Africa for four months where he worked as a radio jockey with a local channel. He met lots of interesting folks and travelled to other parts of the country. It was an exploratory programme with some funding support and it worked out quite well because he eventually got into Stanford after the gap year.”

Often students are not sure about what they want to do with their lives. Instead of picking a degree amid their confusion, it can be a good idea to take a gap year to immerse themselves in various fields and think about what really excites them.