The Catalyze podcast: So you’re thinking of taking a gap year, with Sachi Akmal ’28

Sachi Akmal ’28 visited campus during a break in her International Gap Year to speak with Catalyze host Allyson Horst ’27. 

So far, Sachi has traveled to ten countries over the span of nine months. From climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with fellow incoming scholars to exploring Italian monasteries, Sachi shares some of the highlights from her time abroad. She also touches on some of the more challenging aspects of a gap year, such as coping with loneliness and navigating unfamiliar environments. 

Sachi will join the scholar community at UNC–Chapel Hill this fall as a public policy major.

If you enjoyed this conversation, you can check out our previous gap year episodes, which include studying climate change in the Himalayas and interning at a children’s hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

Morehead-Cain recipients are invited to consider taking a funded gap year between graduating high school and coming to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Music credits

The episode’s intro song is by scholar Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.

How to listen

On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.

Catalyze is hosted and produced by Sarah O’Carroll for the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on social media @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.