Why I took a gap semester in college and how it impacts me a year later
I recently came across a Medium story by Claire Gong, a tech PM on a break, about her experience thus far with her career break. In her story, Claire discusses the reasons why she took a career break: to build a healthier mindset on productivity, to prioritize her relationships, and to focus on what she wanted to learn. She then lists some life-changing experiences she’s had as a result of her career break, how it’s impacted her, and what’s next.
As a new grad worker also in tech, I really appreciate her candor and can understand her reasoning for wanting to take a break from corporate life. Her story inspired me to reflect on my decision to take a break from school during college and how that decision helped me mature in ways I could not have in school. Even though my gap semester was now more than a year ago, the different pieces of lasting impact of my decision are only now becoming very clear in retrospect.
How I knew I should take a gap semester
Lockdown gave me the itch to travel.
Just a few months into my freshman year, the world went into lockdown.
I went from having a lot of new exposure and stimulation to commuting from my bed to my desk all within my childhood bedroom. A year and a half after participating in online classes and isolating from the world, I felt an unshakable itch to do something radical and move somewhere new. This was a new feeling I had never quite experienced before.
I struggled a lot with insecurity.
The environment I had grown up in and my inner voice had deeply ingrained in me that doing well in school was the only way to succeed in “the real world”. I had never excelled in school, but at the same time, I have always tied a lot of my self-worth to my grades, academic accolades, and more. When I compared myself to my high-achieving Ivy League attending peers, I felt insanely incapable and small in this world.
I also lacked exposure to “the world”. I grew up in a bubble of a suburban town and went to my state university (located a whopping 20 minutes away from where I lived for most of my life). I had also only ever been a student for my entire life and didn’t know a life outside of that.
Overall, I just felt very limited in my ability and exposure. In hindsight, I just needed more proof that I was capable of taking on new things and succeeding at them.
Truthfully, I wanted to drop out.
As a result of my unhealthy perspective on academic achievement, school was a pretty miserable experience for me. It always felt like I was in a game where I was destined to lose, a game where I was chasing an end goal that was moving away from me as quickly as I could run towards it. Basically, I had an unhealthy relationship with school before my gap semester.
Tests, homework, and even just going to class (especially online) were often really difficult and anxiety-inducing for me. I found myself often looking for ways to build side hustles or enter career paths that didn’t require a college degree. I thought about starting an online store, affiliate marketing, writing, or getting my real estate license. Even without my degree, I applied to full-time jobs that required degrees and cold-emailed startups like it was my job. I didn’t end up dropping out of school, but in another world, it really could have happened.
Yet, I still had an inkling that there was more to the world, so I needed to explore it.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the gap semester proved to be a pivotal stepping stone step to either dropping out for good or healthily re-enrolling in university intentionally.
How I took the gap semester
When anyone takes an extended break, people ask a lot of logistical questions. It’s not normalized or common knowledge to make these types of moves, even though they are pretty common.
Funding my gap semester
The decision to take a gap semester is a privileged one. While I had amazing support from my family, who always would let me come stay at home for a gap semester, I didn’t want to take a gap semester to move back home. I wanted to travel, do something new, and expose myself to new things. So, I had to figure out how to fund my gap semester.
Coming into college, I didn’t really know anything about gap years or semesters. I had only heard of people taking them between high school and college, though it was only a short connection in the brain to make when I learned that people could them anytime they wanted in their academic careers. Still, I didn’t know any of this coming into college.
Through joining many different organizations in my first few years of college, I met upperclassmen with their own individual paths in college. In one of my clubs, I met a girl who took a gap semester and moved to Seattle for an internship. I thought that was such a brilliant idea and hack for being able to fund a gap semester, gain exposure, and learn. Since then, I made it a goal to get internships that would allow me to fund my move, expenses, and exposure.
As an ambitious underclassman who knew to keep her options open early on, I always made my semester schedules to maximize my time and requirements. Essentially, I had been setting myself up to graduate one or two semesters early in order to give myself the space to take a gap semester, graduate early, study abroad, take on another major, etc. I was a big planner out of anxiety, but I’m glad I set myself up for the choices that I ended up having.
During my junior year, I had been feeling like I wanted to take a break from school for about a year already. So, I became really committed to getting an off-season internship so I could take a semester of school.
That fall, I recruited very heavily and eventually signed an internship offer for the upcoming spring semester. Check out my post on that internship experience.
What I did during my gap semester
The whole purpose of my gap semester was really to try out new things, evaluate the path I was on, and have some fun. With those things in mind, I chose to do the following during my gap semester:
- Moved to LA (never even been to the West Coast before moving there)
- Moved in with two people I met online
- Fell in love with yoga and meditation
- Dyed my whole head of Asian black hair bright red
- Ended a 5-year relationship
- Went on a dating app date
- Talk to strangers (some of whom I probably shouldn’t have talked to…)
- Walked to the beach every weekend
- Many many drives to Malibu *cue Malibu by Miley Cyrus*
- Spent most of my time alone
Outcomes
I was able to try out a lot of new things, namely because of the big life changes I made as a result of the gap semester. These new experiences certainly did help me try out different things and get a better sense of my life direction. I returned back from my gap semester with a much better sense of what I wanted to do immediately with my career and school. Turns out, I didn’t need to drop out. I just needed a break to develop a healthier relationship with productivity, achievement, and my work in general.
The biggest outcomes of my gap semester were not goals that I had intentionally set out to accomplish, but rather internal mindset shifts that have really helped me to develop the confidence and independence in myself that I lacked for so many years.
Here are some of those mindset learnings
- Your thought processes are valid and logical. Coming to a “wrong” conclusion through sound logic doesn’t make you stupid.
- Don’t feel responsible for what you’re not responsible for. Some things are just out of your control. Stressing over parts of a problem that you don’t have control over is a waste of mental space and energy. Protect your mental space and energy.
- Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship of all. You are the only person you can truly always rely on.
- My life is happening right now and all of the time. It doesn’t start when I start work or school, or just when I am hanging out with people. The in-between-plans time is just as important to my life story as the action. Alone time is sacred and is to be valued.
- Listen and pay attention to your mind, heart, and body. You can feel it when people, paths, or lifestyles are right or wrong for you.
While it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what would have gone differently had I not done the gap semester, I suspect I would not be the person I am today had I not decided to take the leap. With the learnings I took away from the experience, I think it gave me the confidence to carve my own path and feel secure doing so.
Things I did in the past year that probably would not have happened without my gap semester experience.
- Took a breakdancing class — I have no dance background, and it was a class where we had to improv and dance battle constantly.
- Quit my college thesis halfway through my senior year when I didn’t align with my thesis advisor anymore. Saved me a ton of time, energy, and happiness that I put towards other projects that mattered more to me.
- Published my first children’s book. This one required confidence and consistency that I struggled a lot with in years prior. Doing big projects is hard, and embracing a project as an amateur is impossible until you drop your ego.
What’s next?
I came out of my gap semester refreshed and actually excited about going back to school to complete my degree in computer science. I felt like I had developed a healthier relationship with work and a stronger sense of self that has carried me so much over the last year.
While I’ve come a long way from where I was before, I see future potential for burnout, insecurity, and more. My ultimate takeaway from my experience, as well as reading others’ experiences, is that I shouldn’t be afraid to take a break or to pivot when the path that I’m on doesn’t serve me, no matter how much time and energy I’ve already put into it.
Prioritizing what matters most is always going to a good strategy.
Thinking of dropping out? Taking a gap semester? BEEN THERE!! Feel free to comment or email me at ashscaffeinatedthoughts@gmail.com to chat.
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