After seniors receive their high school diplomas on their much awaited graduation day, Kiran Vodrahalli will be the only one pursuing a different path from the others.

While his peers attend college next year, Kiran plans to gain experience in the work field at Intel and matriculate in college in the fall of 2012.

Since he skipped a grade in kindergarten, Kiran is a year younger than most of the seniors. However, age is not the only reason that Kiran decided to begin college a year later.

“It’s always good, in my opinion, to sort of get a bearing of what you want to do before going to college. I’m just extending that by a year and in the meantime, doing some cool stuff that I may not otherwise get the opportunity to do,” Kiran said.

Starting from this summer, Kiran will be interning at the Intel Corporation located in Santa Clara. His research mentor from the summer, who currently works at Intel, suggested that he apply for the internship. Since he is interested in computer science, electrical engineering, and physics, Kiran plans to do research related to human-computer interactions.

In addition, Kiran hopes to go on a solo backpacking trip across Europe for about a month. After taking AP Art History and AP English this year, he wishes to visit the places he has studied in class.

“I’ve never been to Europe,” Kiran said. “It would be really cool for me to go to Italy and sort of experience everything I studied. It’s not just in [my] imagination anymore.”

While Kiran knows that taking a gap year will separate him from his current classmates, he is not worried because he will still stay in touch with his friends. Instead, he is excited to explore new opportunities.

“I’m not being predetermined by whatever the usual thing to do is,” Kiran said. “Usually you go through high school, you get to college, then you go to grad school, you find a job, and it’s all so linear. But [taking a gap year] is not as linear. It’s not just like going in one direction.”