The fifth edition of The Goa School’s five-day, in-week immersion program was held from 19-23 March 2025 in Goa. Dates for the next edition will be announced on this page, and advertised on our social media channels.
Feel free to apply for a future batch now. In fact, Fellows may apply to attend the next program at any time. Interviews will be held about a month in advance of each edition. Watch this page to find out when the next edition will go live.
How it works
The Goa School curates a unique list of mentors for every program. Mentors may apply with exciting offers for their sessions, and their willingness to mentor a Fellow for a year. The program is then advertised, giving potential Fellows the chance to learn about the upcoming program. See an example of our mentor line-up from previous programs.
Program components
A typical program has
- A five-day, in-week immersion program Every selected Fellow is required to attend a five-day, in-week program — in Goa or at a pre-announced offsite location — to learn new skills and do some intensive group work as they prepare for the future.
- A year-long mentorship program Every selected Fellow is assigned a personal Mentor, and this relationship lasts for a year. The mentorship relationship is self-directed with the Fellow in the driving seat. The Goa School facilitates the mentorships during this period, and interaction takes place from home or in-person, if both mentor and fellow live in/travel to the same location.
- Networking opportunities The Goa School now has a community of over 70 Fellows, Speakers, Advisors and Mentors. This offers innumerable opportunities for networking, knowledge sharing.
- Talks The Goa School runs a monthly edition of ‘Open Talk’: recorded talks with speakers, mentors and fellows, curated to keep lifelong learning alive. The Goa School’s Open Talk is open to everyone. Fellows and Mentors host these talks from time to time. Please get in touch on theoffice@thegoaschool.org if you have an awesome idea that you want to talk about.
Topics
Each program or talk includes a variety of different topics, curated to encourage self-development, as well as the future of communities, cities and the planet. Whether it includes poetry, philosophy, photography or pottery, we tie those back to, and reflect on, a range of underlying themes including gender, environment, democracy, sustainability and more. Each Fellow is invited to reflect on these topics, and make progress on their self-development plans with their mentors, during the yearlong mentorship program.
Seats
There are only 5-6 seats for Fellows in every five-day immersion program. To become a Fellow at The Goa School, candidates will be competitively selected. Excellent candidates will be able to choose which program to join. See our fellows line up to see how many Fellows graduated from previous batches. Apply to become a Fellow now.
Frequency
The Goa School schedules 1 or 2 five-day contact programs a year, depending on resources. We also hold monthly talks.
Timings
The five-day immersion programs run from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm IST, with group activities in the evenings as well. Follow ups with mentors and fellows are held online, thereafter — usually on holidays, weekends and outside working hours to make it easy for everyone, sometimes across timezones, to attend. Mentorship calls and meetings are agreed upon 1:1 between Fellow and Mentor and between Fellows and the management team.
Structure
Please note that, since the pandemic, we have been offering a ‘hybrid’ program structure in which some Mentors, particularly those located outside India, will Zoom in for online delivery of their sessions for the five-day contact program. Others will deliver their sessions in person. However, all Fellows, The Goa School management team and other facilitators must be available at the meeting location for all five days of the program. If health conditions do not allow us to gather in a room, we will move the program to an outdoor venue.
All follow-up activity after the five-day meet takes place online. We hope that Fellow and Mentors in the same city will meet in person as frequently as possible.