While many first-year students hung out on the Law Quad and packed the stands at the Big House, fall 2022 had a different backdrop for Nick Friedman and Annabel Filippini: the mountains and rivers of the Indian Himalayas.

The two sport management students weren’t on a study abroad trip. They’re part of Michigan Kinesiology's winter-start programs, which invite up to 50 waitlisted students each to begin their undergraduate courses in January instead of August, leaving them with a gap semester in the fall.

Friedman and Filippini both decided to use that time to explore a part of the world they’d never seen. Independently, they enrolled in Himalayan adventure programs run by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), an organization devoted to teaching its students personal development skills through immersive outdoor recreation.

Friedman says he looked through a variety of “gap” programs. Most felt academic, but NOLS India’s focus on leadership and outdoor skills stood out.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime time window where I could do anything,” Friedman says.

He embarked on NOLS’ semester-long program, during which he trekked up steep peaks, went whitewater rafting on India’s Kali River, and participated in a homestay.

Filippini, meanwhile, took the one-month course focused on cultural immersion and mountaineering. The two never crossed paths during their time in India, but they both say the program made an indelible mark on their plans at U-M and beyond.

For Friedman, the trip unlocked a new interest in international athletics, a path he’d never considered when applying to SoK in hopes of working in football or basketball. In a similar way, Filippini’s gap time exposed her to a whole new paradigm for work.

Before NOLS, she says, she imagined her professional life would fit the “status quo” of working 9 to 5 on weekdays and reserving adventure for the weekends. Now, though, she says, “I’m passionate about exploring, and I’ll try and find ways to make my ‘work’ work
around my adventure time.”