Kushal Gautam: What a Chevening Year Does Beyond Your Career

Here is what people expect a scholarship like Chevening to do.

Open doors to prestigious organisations. Fast-track a career. Push you further up the ladder you were already climbing. Make you more competitive in a conventional sense, better title, better institution, better trajectory.

That is not what it did for Kushal Gautam.

What it did was different, and more interesting. It gave him the confidence to start his own company when nobody had asked him to and credibility to grow it. The space to write a technical handbook that an entire sector was missing. The permission to take breaks without treating them as gaps. And eventually, years later, the confidence to take formal dance lessons and perform Shiva Tandava Stotram at Pashupatinath during Shivaratri, his biggest personal highlight of 2026.

None of that was the plan. And all of it, he says, traces back to a year in Durham.

But first, he almost didn't apply.

———

He was in Saptari doing fieldwork, Engineering Manager at a solar company, implementing a water pump project in the field. Days were long. By the time he returned to the hotel each evening, he was exhausted.

The Facebook algorithm decided to show him a post about Chevening. He clicked through, checked his eligibility, and saw the deadline.

Three days.

He had already been applying for other scholarships, Australian Awards, New Zealand Development Scholarship. Rejected by some. Reserve candidate in others. He knew what a proper application required, and three days in Saptari was not it. He thought he'd let it pass and try next year.

But he was returning to Kathmandu the next day. He had a weekend ahead. He dedicated it entirely to the application, and submitted on day three.

———

He didn't have time to send his essays to anyone for review. What he had was the raw material of three and a half years of hands-on engineering work in Nepal's solar sector, and the discipline to present it specifically rather than generally.

He wrote quickly but deliberately. A first draft, pouring everything out. Then the rest of the time refining, cutting abstraction, replacing it with experience. The hardest essay was justifying why the UK specifically. His answer was honest: the limitations of pursuing a renewable energy master's in Nepal were real, and the quality of learning and exposure from UK universities was genuinely higher.

"State specific experiences that enhance your arguments, but remain genuine. Do not inflate them."

He was working as an Engineering Manager at the time, managing projects with direct impact on rural communities. That specificity, grounded in ground-level work, was what he believed made the application stand out. Not a manufactured narrative. A real one.

He walked into the Chevening interview not expecting to get through.

He hadn't had enough time to write essays he was fully confident in. He had prepared by watching YouTube mock interview videos, there were plenty, but he hadn't managed to connect with any Chevening scholars in Nepal beforehand. He went in with what he had.

Surprisingly, he was calm. And then came the question that caught him off guard: why the UK specifically? Not the US. Not Europe. Not Australia. Why the UK?

He answered honestly. He was applying to other countries too. The UK had reputed academic institutions. He wasn't performing a carefully rehearsed answer, he was telling the truth about his situation.

"Being honest helps, I guess."

His advice for anyone shortlisted is built on that same insight: read your essays several times before the interview. The interview's purpose is to test whether what you wrote was genuine, whether you actually believe it. If every word in your application came from real experience and real ambition, you will be able to defend it instinctively. Because you won't be recalling a story. You'll be remembering something that actually happened.

He had been excited about his programme at Durham. What he hadn't anticipated was falling in love with the city itself.

Every corner, every path, every building carried centuries of history. Gothic architecture and cobbled streets. A cathedral visible from almost everywhere. He had researched the course before arriving. The city surprised him.

He had already connected via WhatsApp with fellow Cheveners heading to Durham, from Brazil, Singapore, Malaysia, Venezuela, before he even landed. The university's induction week filled the social gaps. He made friends quickly, largely with Mexicans, and they helped each other find their footing. He never felt lonely.

Through the HostUK programme, which waives the fees for Chevening Scholars, he was placed with a British couple in Scarborough. They were warm and generous, showing him around the local area and giving him a window into British domestic life that no lecture or tour could replicate.

One evening, in conversation, the topic turned to Bollywood songs, remakes and adaptations, the ones that borrow from original compositions in other languages and countries. The elderly husband said something casual, the kind of thing that doesn't announce itself as important:

"Originality in your work is more important than replicating the success of others for commercial recognition. Originality will always remain appreciated in the long term."

Not a professor. Not a mentor. Not a Chevening event. A retired man in Scarborough, at dinner, talking about music.

Kushal has never forgotten it. He abides by it.

Toward the end of his Chevening year, he met a fellow scholar for coffee.

He wasn't planning to start a company. His thinking was oriented toward research, he wanted to join a research institution in Nepal's energy sector. That felt like the right next step after an academic year.

In the conversation, she said: "Kushal, given your experience, why don't you start something of your own when you're back?"

He didn't act on it immediately. He came home, spent about three months meeting people from different sectors, exploring where he fit rather than rushing into the first available role. He explored the research track.

Three months after returning, he founded Quasar Energy Consultants. Six years later it has delivered 50+ projects, supported 320 MW+ of renewable energy capacity, facilitated USD 120+ million in capital, and trained 600+ engineers and technicians. Its clients include IRENA, ICIMOD, GIZ, KfW-funded projects, Dolma Impact Fund, Nepal's commercial banks, and AEPC and provincial governments across Nepal. The independent consulting work he stumbled into became one of Nepal's more consequential renewable energy advisory practices.

"Sometimes, things just evolve, and you only see the connection when you look back."

During his time in the UK, Kushal used the space, the quiet that a focused academic year creates, to write something he had wanted to exist for years but couldn't find.

As a solar energy engineer at SunFarmer in Nepal's early career phase, he had never found a single comprehensive technical handbook on designing solar water pumping systems. Every engineer was piecing together knowledge from scattered sources. He wrote the handbook himself, a one-stop resource, drawn from his fieldwork experience across Saptari, Rautahat, Sarlahi, and beyond.

It was later published by ICIMOD. That handbook was the first of many. He has since authored and co-authored multiple technical publications, training manuals on solar irrigation pumps, feasibility study frameworks for renewable energy irrigation systems, handbooks for on-grid rooftop solar design, decentralised renewable energy guides for agriculture in Nepal. These publications are now used to train engineers and technicians across government and private sectors in Nepal and Bhutan.

Not a startup. Not a fund. A body of technical knowledge, built in a quiet Durham year and still growing, that became foundational infrastructure for an entire sector.

He stepped out of Tribhuvan International Airport and felt the reverse cultural shock immediately. The quiet riverwalks of Durham. The calm, organised streets. The particular stillness of a small English city at night. All of it replaced, instantly, by the noise and density of Kathmandu.

He had learned from friends in the UK that it was okay to take time, to explore where you fit before rushing to fill a gap in the CV. He took that permission seriously. Three months of conversations with people across Nepal's energy sector. Research institutions, private firms, independent consultants. He let things evolve.

The UK had given him something harder to name than a degree or a network. It had given him the sense that taking his own life seriously, all of it, not just the professional parts, was legitimate.

In February 2026, he performed Shiva Tandava Stotram during Shivaratri at Pashupatinath. He had wanted to take formal dance lessons for years. He finally did. He performed. He calls it his biggest personal highlight of the year.

"Taking a break in between careers, switching to interesting fields as your experience evolves, taking your hobbies seriously and making something out of them, these things should be normalised."

He traces that permission back, six years later, to what the Chevening year showed him about what a complete life looks like.

———

Scholarships are supposed to push you up the ladder.

That is the story most people tell, and most people expect. A better job, a faster track, a more impressive title. The scholarship as a career accelerator.

Kushal Gautam's story is about something different. A technical handbook written in a quiet Durham year that engineers in Nepal and Bhutan still reach for. A company founded from a single coffee question he hadn't asked himself. A break taken without apology. A dance performance at Pashupatinath built toward over years, finally realised.

Not up. Outward.

"Taking a break in between careers, switching to interesting fields as your experience evolves, taking your hobbies seriously and making something out of them, these things should be normalised."

He almost didn't apply. Exhausted in Saptari, three days left, already rejected elsewhere. He used a weekend instead.

"Opportunity only comes to those who make the effort, and luck follows suit. What's the worst that can happen, a rejection email? It's four 500-word essays that may take about two days to complete. It's worth it."

Applications for the 2026–27 Chevening Scholarship open in August 2026. 

Is Your Story Next?

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If you are a Chevening Scholar and you believe your story could change how someone sees their own chances, we would love to hear from you. Download the ScholarsNext Chevening Scholar Questionnaire, fill it in at your own pace, and send it to [email protected]. We will draft your story, share it with you for review, and publish it only when you are happy with every word.

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Kushal Gautam is a Chevening Scholar (2018/19), Founder & Managing Director of Quasar Energy Consultants (quasarenergy.org), and author of multiple technical handbooks on renewable energy published by ICIMOD, GIZ, and AEPC. He studied MSc New and Renewable Energy at Durham University. Connect with him on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kushalgautam-4a588260

Story #012, ScholarsNext | Chevening Nepal Series

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