A Global Education

Some four years ago, when I’d started feeding my budding interest in anthropology, I’d analogized the human experience to a singular ray of white light diffracting through a prism of geopolitical barriers into a colorful spectrum of cultures. My eight-month journey with Baret Scholars to seven socioeconomic regions of the world with a little over a hundred incredible people my age, because of which I can now recognize Turco-Persian influences in Hindustani classical music and draw parallels between the caste systems in South Asia and West Africa, has only substantiated that understanding. The meticulousness with which Baret curates not only its cohort but also the guests invited to interact with the cohort has exposed me to and connected me with some of the most brilliant minds across national and generational borders. I still run down memory lane and replay Mahmoud Haidar’s talk on enjoying the simple pleasures in life and learning for he sake of it as an act of defiance against its commodification in my head eight months later. The program might only have aimed to let me experience the world before I step into it, but the truth is, it has managed to help me figure out where I fit into the puzzle and how I can leverage that knowledge to become the version of myself I’ve envisioned for the future. I can’t recommend this program enough to any college-aged student interested in immersing themselves in diverse cultures across the globe during their gap year.