@maxkutner
THERE WAS A surge of energy at the annual Gap Year Conference in Boston in May. Attendees, eager to hear the latest from the world of gap years—the time some young people take off between high school and college in order to travel or work—had learned that the movement would be getting a famous new participant: Malia Obama, the president’s eldest daughter.
Malia will attend Harvard University, the White House recently announced—but she won’t be starting this fall as originally expected. Instead, the older first daughter will take a gap year, a practice that has been gaining momentum in the United States over the past decade.