While her peers sat in university lecture halls studying calculus, chemistry and classics, Darien High School graduate Morgan Collins toured India, Nepal and Tibet, where she lived among the poorest of the poor, and learned—first hand—the richness of a simple life. 

"The experience allowed me to re-enter college with a sense of purpose," said Collins, now a Religion and Art History major at Trinity College in Hartford.

After graduating DHS, Collins embarked on a gap year program with LEAPNOW, a California-based business that offers study, travel and internships in 126 counties.

LEAPNOW is just one of a number of companies that cater to high school graduates interested in taking a pre-collegiate gap year, a traditionally English practice with roots in the Victorian era "grand tour."

A full eight-month program such as Collins's costs nearly $32,000, and because it is qualifies for college credit, federal aid is available.

Before the trip, Collins said she had trouble understanding how a rickshaw driver could survive and support a family on the 50 cents-a-day she had read he typically earned wheeling a two-passenger foot-propelled cart.

During her time abroad, not only did Collins hire a rickshaw driver to take her to class in Hindi in northern India, but she also spent 10 days living with a very poor Tibetan couple, who, when they first married, had the equivalent of $7 in life savings.

"In my year, I got a solid sense of what kind of person I am, what my strengths are and what I have to offer the world," she said.

Living quarters were spare and primitive; water was heated with electric coils dipped into a bucket, and there was no privacy. Food was simple too, often doughy rolls filled with vegetables, similar to spring rolls, Collins said.

"I ate a lot of white rice and was never hungry."

But for Collins, the experience was sublime. She delighted in joining the woman on her early-morning devotional walks to the monastery and participating in days of quiet meditation.

Collins traveled with a group of eight students and two LeapNOW leaders for the first part of the program. Later on, Collins traveled independently and then buddied up with a traveling companion with similar interests.

She said a highlight of the experience was attending lectures given by the Dalai Lama while staying at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

Mid-way through the program, during a retreat back at LEAPNow headquarters in California, Collins and her peers rejoined parents in a ritualitic "rite of passage" release into adulthood ceremony.

Parents brought with them something to let go, and something to keep.

Collins's mother, an artist, brought a dish, hand-painted with the words: "be perfect" and "be accomplished."

During the ceremony, she smashed the plate to pieces and set it afire, symbolically releasing her daughter from pressures of western society.

And to keep: an inspirational collage with a portrait of Collins and an image of Buddha.

"LEAPNOW opened my eyes to the world," Collins said.

She dreams of becoming a group leader for a gap year program herself when she graduates this spring.