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
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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.
Episode transcription
(Allyson)
Welcome to Catalyze. I’m your host, Allison Horst from the class of ’27. We have with us today, Sachi Akmal from the class of ’28. Currently on Morehead-Cain’s International Gap Year program, Sachi has so far visited ten countries over the span of nine months. From climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to exploring Italian monasteries, Sachi has explored so many regions of the world and has immersed herself in the local culture of each place she has visited. Her gap year will conclude this fall as she enters her first year at Carolina as a public policy major.
Thank you, Sachi, for joining us today. Where were you before you came back home to North Carolina? And why did you come back home this weekend?
(Sachi)
Well, first, thank you for having me, Allyson. I just spent six weeks in Morocco and had a quick layover in London before I came back to North Carolina to regroup before I take for my next and final international segment of my gap year, which will be in Japan. So, I just wanted to stop by and say hi to some of my friends here at UNC, including you. Yeah, that’s why I’m here.
(Allyson)
It’s so exciting seeing you. I love when you get to come back and just hearing all your stories. And just joining us today in itself is just so awesome.
(Sachi)
I know, yeah.
(Allyson)
But what ultimately motivated you to participate in the Morehead-Cain International Gap Year program?
(Sachi)
This is something I struggled to answer myself because I don’t think it was one defining factor, and it was something that simmered in my mind for a long time. And even when I made that concrete decision to take a gap year, I still did not fully process it. I think I’m doing that finally now, almost 70 percent the way through with my gap year. But I think the first time I was introduced to it was at Discovery Weekend, and I didn’t even start to consider it as a viable option for myself until that weekend. And meeting some scholars who had been on gap years, talking to Ann Smith, who recommended it. I think it’s one of her top recommendations to take that time off. So yeah, it was just something that was simmering after Discovery Weekend. I was still considering whether I’d even accept the scholarship or not. And I think it was at a Charlotte alumni event where my parents met Ann Smith, and she brought up the idea of a gap year as well. And then on the car ride home, when they were like, “Oh, this might be something you might want to look into.” Then it finally started falling into place because I was really apprehensive about what my parents would think because, as the child of Indian immigrants, that’s not something that most of them see in their children’s future, to take time off from school. That’s a very bizarre idea. But I think talking to Ann, understanding all the resources that would be available to me, how it would be very hard for me to fall on my face. Even if I did, I would learn something from that with something very valuable. That’s ultimately what led me to take that step and defer my enrollment for a year.
(Allyson)
I can speak for at least myself in regretting not taking a gap year, especially after looking at your photos. I was just saying this before, but I was in midterm season, and I would just see all your photos, and you just traveling around the world, and I was like, “Wow, that could be me.”
(Sachi)
I was in that position last year, too, when I was deciding whether to take the scholarship, I finally started following some of the current gappers, and seeing their pictures was like… I was like, “Wait, that could be me somehow. I don’t really know what steps I need to do to get there, but it could be me because people have done it before.” But also, social media can be deceiving. It’s really cool to see those glamorous shots in these cool locations. But I think we’ll get into this. But there are a lot of aspects to a gap year that are unexpected and can be difficult to manage. It’s not all what you see on social media.
(Allyson)
Then, on that note, I’m assuming that you planned quite a bit for all your travels ahead of time, but what were the spontaneous moments that weren’t necessarily planned? As well as how much planning did really go into it. Was it months, weeks? Can you quantify that?
(Sachi)
I think after speaking to a lot of my fellow gappers when we met up in Tanzania in January, I realized that I probably was one of the few scholars who did less planning. I met some people who applied to college, and even the Morehead-Cain, knowing that they would take a gap year. And they had been planning for, I guess, a year at that point, just applying to programs and stuff like that. But for me, it was a lot more spontaneous. I didn’t think I’d do any international travel until that very Tanzania trip. I must thank my parents for this, but I got to backpack Europe for two months before that, from September to November. And that was a very last-minute decision because two of my friends that I knew from Charlotte, they’re twins. Shout out to Katerina and Philip. They were planning to backpack Europe together, and they heard that I was taking a gap year, so they invited me. It was so last minute. They were leaving in a week. And I didn’t even bring it up with my parents because flight tickets at that point were super expensive. But they had the foresight that I lacked to know that this would be a great way to get used to traveling, to deal with people who had connections in Europe, to work as a group to figure out logistics and stuff like that. And it’s made the rest of my gap year so much smoother because I built a lot of those skills earlier. But yeah, a lot of my plans were spontaneous, booking that flight. That was very last minute. I ended up leading planning for the Tanzania trip, so that started early. But yeah, I think it was a good mix. And something I learned was that when planning your gap year, at some point, you just have to go for it. You can’t expect to have everything figured out before you step foot in a country, which is scary. But it’s better to make those decisions rather than hold off and then eventually never get to the place that you’ve been dreaming about.
(Allyson)
Yeah. Then you were saying your hesitation traveling internationally. Prior to this gap year, did you travel often internationally, or how was that seen?
(Sachi)
So, the way I like to put it is when my family had enough money to book international tickets, we were always going to India to see our family. Other than India and the U.S. and some road trips to Canada and Mexico, I’d never really seen much of the world. And I was very grateful to even see India. I actually lived in India for three years. And living in India, living in a different country, opened my eyes to so many things and made me realize the value of just spending time in a different place because you come across so many things that you didn’t even know would be different or so many things that you didn’t even know your eyes had to be open to. And that’s the mentality I went into, going to as many parts of the world that I hadn’t seen already, to just hope to be surprised or hope to have my eyes opened. And that happened everywhere I went.
(Allyson)
And then you were writing in your blog post about—in Vienna—you were talking about tourist versus traveler dilemma when visiting new places. How did you find ways to immerse yourself in the local community in places that you travel to?
(Sachi)
Yeah. I think the more I’ve traveled, I mean, I did that blog post, I think that was my second stop while backpacking in Europe. I think I realized that you can’t ever not be a tourist. You can be a decent tourist, or you can be a great tourist that actually engages with the community and tries to get to know people who live there, which can be very tricky, especially in Europe. I found that it’s difficult to immerse yourself within actual European society. It’s more so the traveler community in Europe, which is also very fascinating. But I found immersion whenever I somehow got to know somebody who lives in Europe. So, one of my favorite stops in Europe was in Berlin because I met a German traveler in Italy who was originally from Berlin, and she told me to stop by and see her if I ever made my way there. And that was an incredible time because I stayed with her and her family. I met all her friends at school, and she was just my personal tour guide, telling me all these interesting facts about Germany and German culture in Berlin in particular. I learned so much about the school system just by observing her, and I was very fortunate to have some small moments like that. But one of my—some of the most valuable experiences was recently when I was in Morocco, and I was staying with a host family. That was so different to anything else I had experienced that year because it’s so different to live and eat and go to the public bath house with a local family, especially a local family that doesn’t speak English. And so, you’re forced to… Well, I had to communicate with them in French and the little bit of Arabic that I was picking up. And that was so much more immersive and so much more valuable. And I wish I’d done more homestays earlier in my year.
(Allyson)
You were just talking about Morocco. How did that homestay come to be? Is there a website that you just signed up? Or how did that happen?
(Sachi)
I was looking for… I knew I wanted to go to Morocco at some point during my gap year, but I didn’t have any connections there, and I didn’t have any travel buddies either. I was looking for some stable positioning that would make it easier for me as a solo female traveler to get to Morocco. I heard about this language school. I went on their website, and they offer ways to get homestays. I did it through that school. One day, I just randomly, I just showed up at their door. I didn’t really know much about my host family, but they ended up being the sweetest people ever, which I think is quite typical with host families. You have to be very sweet and accommodating to even think about hosting people from other countries.
(Allyson)
You were just talking about safety as a female solo traveler. How have you balanced safety with an immersive experience and meeting these new people that you find across the world?
(Sachi)
Yeah. Well, I think the more immersed I am in something, the safer it tends to be because I’m with people who live there or people who are used to traveling. And I think this is interesting, and you’ll hear this a lot from people who have had the opportunity to travel outside the U.S., but a lot of places are just simply safer than the U.S., which was a very interesting feeling to know that you could be in a public space at night. And the probability of someone having a gun was near zero compared to the U.S., where you can almost expect that. So, a lot of things were in that way much safer. I still did a lot to manage my safety. For most of the year, I was traveling with other people who had a lot of common sense and street-smart skills to know how to avoid situations like that. Then when I was in Morocco, I was living with a host family. I had a very stable schedule. I knew how to avoid situations that could be potentially dangerous. But overall, I found the places that I traveled to much safer than some areas in the U.S.
(Allyson)
Was there ever a specific moment that you’re like, I feel unsafe right now? How did you work to mitigate that situation?
(Sachi)
I think certainly there were some moments where I felt unsafe. Fortunately, most of those moments, I was with other people, and we could put our minds together on how to avoid a situation or how to deal with it. But even when I was on my own, my greatest defense was my earbuds. I would just have my earbuds in, and even if I weren’t listening to anything, it would be a way to avoid unwanted interactions without coming off as rude because coming off as rude is a way to get into dangerous situations, as well. But yeah, fortunately, most of my unsafe experiences, I was able to manage with the help of others.
(Allyson)
Then on the same note, I guess, of unsafe: when you climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with fellow gappers, how was that experience in general? Can you just speak to that?
(Sachi)
Oh, my gosh. The funny thing about the Tanzania trip is that it was one of the motivating factors to take a gap year because for listeners who don’t know, it’s become a tradition for Morehead gappers. I think we were the fourth consecutive year to plan a Tanzania trip with a hike, a safari, and some other exploration in the country. When I heard about that first, I was like, that is such a unique tradition to have. The fact that I could easily become part of that is insane. Planning the trip without the help of a travel agency was a lot, but because we had so many years of research and contacts to fall back on, it was a manageable process. The experience was quite unforgettable, as you could assume. There were so many factors that made it an incredible experience. I think what most people want to hear about is what were the views like from the top, and certainly they were incredible. But I think, at least, I knew even before I got on the plane to Tanzania that the most valuable thing I would take away was the connections I was building with my fellow gappers.
It was such a lovely point in my gap year when so many people had been in so many different places in the world, and we were all converging at one point doing something incredibly physically and mentally difficult to get really close quickly. And finally, to be in this environment where we all had experiences that we could relate to each other with. Because a lot of my year, especially when I went home for the holidays, was a little tricky talking to my hometown friends about experiences that weren’t relatable, and it’s hard to come off as down to earth when you’ve done all these things. But that was a very refreshing environment to be in.
(Allyson)
And how long was the trip in total? From base camp to summit?
(Sachi)
So, what we learned is that there are a bunch different routes you can take to get to the top, ranging from eight days to four days. And we picked the route with the highest percentage of summitting success, which ended up being seven days and six nights. So, we spent six days climbing up the mountain and then one day descending. And the reason it takes so long to climb up the mountain is because you change elevation a lot to slowly get acclimated to it, because the number the one factor that affects your chance at summitting is altitude sickness. So, I think the reason this route has so much success is because you reach high elevations, and then you go back down to get your oxygen levels back up so you can get acclimated to the altitude. And that way, you can reach the summit with more success. But summit day itself was probably the toughest day I’ve had mentally and physically. But what made it great was finally getting to the top with these people that I’d only met five days ago and really basking in that moment. It was a great moment in my gap year because it was one of the only things I knew I wanted to do when I first took it. And to finally reach that point was incredible.
(Allyson)
We met during our OL [Outdoor Leadership] this past summer in Alaska in the Talkeetna Mountains. We both can speak upon how hard that was mentally and physically. How did Alaska, I guess, level up in a way to Mount Kilimanjaro?
(Sachi)
Well, I think Alaska was, and my NOLS course was such a formative experience. I knew it would be. I really wanted to take it before my gap year. People have the option to take it during their gap year or even after. But I knew I was embarking on something that would require a lot more of a sense of independence and a sense of confidence that I could take care of myself. So, Alaska really whipped me up into shape in that way, and it made hiking Mount Kilimanjaro not any easier than it is, but it gave me a sense that I could do it. If I could spend a month in the Alaskan wilderness, I could spend a week on Mount Kilimanjaro. And the parallels were interesting, or the lack of parallels, because I think while NOLS was more about the journey and you had so many different goals you could accomplish, like personal, interpersonal, or just wilderness skills. There was only one goal on Mount Kilimanjaro, and that was reaching the summit. And because of that, the way we went about the journey was up to us. We could make the most of it, or we could just hone in on that one goal and let a lot of things fall apart.
It really wasn’t a teamwork-oriented thing. It’s a very individual accomplishment. But I think with the group that I was in, with it all being Moreheads who had been traveling and really cared about getting to know each other, it became a great experience in that way as well. So, both were great experiences, but Mount Kilimanjaro had the potential to become a lot more individual and maybe not as fulfilling in some ways as the NOLS course was for me.
(Allyson)
Wow. I found that that’s interesting in the sense of what your goal is during that. You’re just looking straight ahead. I’m going to summit this mountain. But it’s hard on these NOLS and Outward Bound courses, how it’s just so—you’re not necessarily reaching a point per se. It’s more of your personal journey. I never considered that. That’s an interesting perspective that you had.
(Sachi)
Another thing was, well, a lot of the laws in Tanzania make it so make it easier for you to focus on that one goal. In Alaska, you knew we had a lot of cooking mishaps, tent mishaps. In Tanzania, because we were hiking with a hike organization, they did the cooking for us. They set up our tents for us so that we could focus on climbing the mountain, which is just a very different experience because you have the privilege not to worry about your survival in those aspects and more so just staying healthy and getting to the top.
(Allyson)
Then you were saying you had other activities after Kilimanjaro. Can you talk a little bit about that? I think there was a safari of some sort. It sounded amazing.
(Sachi)
Yeah. We spent a total of three and a half weeks in Tanzania, and it started with the hike. And then, we had a couple of days of rest that were much needed before we did a four-day safari in the Serengeti National Park. And we worked with the same safari organization that the past three years [of Morehead-Cain gappers] had worked with as well. So, we had a great relationship with their safari guide. And that was a great experience for a lot of people on the trip who were really interested in environmental conservation and just animal lovers in general. And then we spent the last few days on our trip traveling to Dar es Salaam and taking the ferry to Zanzibar and just enjoying each other’s company, doing some sightseeing, and really spending some time together before we all split ways again by the end of January.
(Allyson)
Yeah, and you’ve done so many experiences just this far. And so, you have a stipend. For every gap year, they have a stipend from Morehead-Cain. And how do you work to maximize your budget and just plan through that?
(Sachi)
I think when we’re talking about maximizing funding, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean timewise because, technically, my funding only got me through two and a half months of an entire year. But in my mind, that was still maximized in many ways because the places I was traveling to were expensive to get to, and the experiences I was seeking out were also expensive, but they were experiences I knew I really wanted to have, and I was comfortable spending a more concentrated amount in a short period of time having the other parts of my gap year be not so well-funded just so that I knew I would be able to see as much of the world as I wanted to and have all the experiences that I wanted to. But that isn’t to say that the Morehead-Cain stipend can’t last the entire year because I have a lot of friends who also took gap years who are very creative with how they set out their experiences to make sure that the stipend did cover the entire year. And I think gap years can look so, so different for everybody. The stuff that you hear about from Morehead-Cain, including podcasts and articles, really like to highlight these more glamorous experiences.
But we would really need 100 Morehead-Cain Scholars in this room to talk about their gap year experiences to really highlight what a year off looks like financially, the experiences that those include, the parts of the world that that includes, just even personal development that people experience as well. And I think that’ll be a better way to experience it.
(Allyson)
And then you’re talking a little bit about advice and that way of thinking. So, I know I talk to a lot of high school seniors when they’re here for Discovery Weekend, and a lot of them are very excited about taking a gap year. And they’re a little frightened sometimes. What you were saying, they’re hung up on the financial aspect of it. Is there other advice that you can give to these high school seniors to mitigate their worries about a gap year?
(Sachi)
Well, I think I should go back to where I was mentally when I made the decision to take a gap year because, at the end of the day, it was a very logical decision. I could put exactly on paper why I decided to take a year off. And the way I saw it was that Morehead-Cain uniquely was providing so many connections and resources that would make it very hard for me to fall on my face when making this crazy decision or seeking out experiences or seeking out people to meet across the world. And the Advising team has a lot of mechanisms in place to give you enough freedom to seek out those experiences yourself but also make sure you’re getting fulfilled out of what you’re doing throughout the gap year. So, we have mid-year check-ins. We must submit monthly reports when we’re using our funding. There’s a lot of ways to make sure that—well, the advising team really is working for you and making sure that you’re getting a lot out of the year. And I think the easiest way to put it is that everyone I’ve talked to who took a gap year has never regretted it. And that is, I think, a crazy statistic, 100 percent satisfaction rate. And I was like, well, it’s going to be very hard for me to regret taking this time off, too. And I might not be able to see that right now, but I feel like at the end of the year, and I certainly see it already, I do not regret making that decision. So, I think if you can get into the mindset that you’re not going to regret it, all the things will slowly follow in suit. All the experiences you didn’t dream of having will slowly present themselves to you. And yeah, I think when I reflect on this year, I feel really fulfilled when I think of my experiences, and I think about the fact that I could not have had them otherwise.
(Allyson)
And you were just talking about all your experiences and being on top of the world, essentially. How do all these experiences fit into the mold of, how does that prepare you for Carolina? Now you’re thinking about registration this upcoming fall, how are you feeling about, do you feel prepared to take on this new chapter of your life?
(Sachi)
Certainly. In a lot of ways, obviously, I wanted to see a lot of the world and travel, but I knew that while doing that, I was also building a lot of personal skills regarding my ability to take care of myself, my ability to mitigate stress, work with logistics. And I think that, well, I felt that way after Alaska. And then after having used those skills in the urban world, I feel very much prepared to take on any challenges at Carolina.
(Allyson)
You’ve traveled so many places and you’ve seen so many things, and you’ve already come back to North Carolina, and sometimes I bet it gets lonely, and you’ve most definitely missed your family. Can you speak to how you handle that loneliness as a traveler?
(Sachi)
Something I realized after I came back from my very first trip, which was the two months in Europe, which had been the longest I’d been away from home, was that it felt so good to be home. And I knew that if I was going to get through this year, I had to build in time to be home and see my family again and see my friends again, which was difficult to admit because so many of the people I met up in Tanzania with or I was just following on social media, spent almost their entire year abroad and never went home once. And I felt that I was being weak in some way, that I needed to come home so often to regroup and get my bearings. But I had a countdown in my mind if I really needed it about when I’d be able to see my family next. And that’s something that helped me get through the year. And then, eventually, the promise of being on the UNC campus in the fall. Some of my favorite moments while I was in Tanzania with the rest of the gap year scholars was dreaming about what our life would be at UNC and seeing each other, visiting each other at our dorms, eating at the dining hall together, taking classes together. It was something that we all really looked forward to. And I think being away from home so much made it that much more exciting.
(Allyson)
And you were just talking about what you’re looking forward to at Carolina. Is there anything at Carolina that you’re like, I’m so excited for?
(Sachi)
If I had to condense it to two things, I would say friends and a schedule because those were two things that were always a toss-up during my gap year. Sometimes I had great friends that I could laugh and joke with, and sometimes I didn’t. And for sure, I did not have a schedule. I’m someone who thrives on routine, and not having that this year was challenging and something I needed to experience. But I cannot wait to have routine at Carolina and go to classes and meet up with my friends for lunch, and live in a dorm with people I traveled with over this gap year as well. And to finally be and have that sense of community and maybe go to some basketball games. Yeah, very, very excited to come to Carolina this fall.
(Allyson)
Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Sachi. I’m so excited to see where you go next.
(Sachi)
Thank you so much for having me.
