Baret Scholars Gap Year Program Recently Updated

Before and beyond college, Baret Scholars explores 7 regions of the world, their passions, and their purpose.

Baret Scholars is a global gap year program that brings together a cohort of 180 gap year students from around the world to journey across 7 regions (North and South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, India, and China/Asia), over 180 days, in a semi-structured and self-guided gap year experience.

This will be their best year yet

Baret Scholars is a global learning journey for students taking time before or during college to explore the world with purpose. Over 10 months, students live and learn in seven world regions: New York, São Paulo, Paris, Istanbul, Nairobi, Delhi, and Beijing.

Inspired by Jeanne Baret—the first woman to circumnavigate the globe—the program fosters global awareness, cultural fluency, and personal growth through immersive, place-based learning.

Each city features a Morning Program with speakers ranging from Pulitzer-winning journalists to climate scientists and local activists, offering insight into career paths and regional challenges and perspectives.

Afternoons are open for Independent Exploration—volunteering, language study, local travel—and Seminars, like Starting Things, a class on entrepreneurship led by Baret’s founder, or Creative Writing, taught by one of our Fellows.

Each region ends with a Fellowship, a 7-day thematic deep dive in small groups. Recent examples include examining Brexit and post-colonial politics in London, climbing Kilimanjaro while studying conservation in Tanzania, and supporting tiger preservation in Madhya Pradesh.

Throughout the year, students are guided by a full-time Fellow through a structured advising program. The year culminates in a Capstone Project—a personal expression of each student’s global learning journey.

Baret Scholars offers a truly global, structured, and inspiring gap year—not a break from education, but a powerful extension of it.