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| 27 Sep 2026 | |
| Written by Zayed Al Suwaidi | |
| Then and Now |
When were you at JESS? Foundation Stage at Jumeirah to Year 13 at Arabian Ranches - fourteen years, Class of 2025.
Why a gap year? I had an offer for mechanical engineering at Imperial and I deferred it. I wanted one year of building real things before four years of studying them.
And? I am interning at Falcon Ridge Ventures, a hardware start-up in Dubai. I have soldered more circuit boards in six months than in the whole of my IB physics course.
Advice? Talk to alumni. Three JESS graduates in this directory answered my questions about deferring - that is how I found the internship.
Taking a gap year? Find the alumni who did it first.
