My Gap Year Taught Me to Invent My Own Path
By Zach Olmstead
I was supposed to graduate college this year…but instead I’m a dropout living in San Francisco, creating stuff all day.
Wait, what? Rewind, please. How’d that happen?
Back in high school I would’ve never thought my college career was going to end up this way. Three different colleges in two and a half years, and now I’m a dropout? That doesn’t sound like a fun four year college experience. No way, that couldn’t happen to me. But looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way: I’ve lived in a different city or country every fall for the past 4 years, and now have numerous amazing experiences that I wouldn’t have if I went the traditional route.
And let’s rephrase that earlier sentence:
Now I’m an inventor, entrepreneur, and world-traveling dropout. I’d take that over the traditional piece of paper with a university logo on it any day.
Halloween 2015 was a very influential day for young Z. I remember trying to pump myself up to go out and party. I even bought a shooting sleeve to complete my basketball player costume. My friend texted me that they were pre-gaming at his house, and that I should come since it was bound to be a wild night. I didn’t want to go out. At all. I didn’t want to be on campus. And most importantly, I didn’t want to be the average college kid, just blindly following the system, while thousands and thousands of dollars of my parents’ hard-earned money goes down the drain. I always knew I wanted to create my own path. It was time to align my thoughts, words, and actions.
I didn’t end up going out. I decided to do some research on alternative options to college. After maybe an hour or so, I found UnCollege Gap Year. The program looked pretty interesting, focused on traveling and self-directed and experiential learning. I watched one of the videos of a previous fellow, who landed an internship and got hired for the job right after his internship was done. And bam! I started my application, but then I thought you know, this program is perfect… too perfect, and for that reason it just has to be too good to be true. So, I stopped the application and saved the site to my bookmarks.
Something was telling me “drop out,” and I knew I had to follow my intuition. After many long conversations with family and friends (most people told me to at least finish out the year) the final decision was made: I was going to drop out of college. It was exhilarating. I wanted my life to be something worth remembering, and I knew that when I turned 90 and looked back on my life, I would be so glad that I made this decision.
I didn’t really have a plan, but I thought I was going to start some sort of business. There was that little voice of intuition again: “Whaddabout that too-good-to-be-true gap year program, UnCollege?”
So, I mentioned it to my parents again, and they were still doubtful. They told me that if I brought them a detailed spreadsheet of all the costs and exactly what the program was all about, I could possibly go. So I did just that, and convinced them. I talked a few times with Gabe, one of the coaches/program specialists at UnCollege, and it was after those conversations that I knew this was going to be an awesome experience. I just didn’t know it was going to be this awesome.
Ilhabela, Brazil was the voyage phase of the gap year. It was a ten-week volunteering experience in which I helped teach sports to middle schoolers. I remember arriving at the hostel in Ilhabela at 3AM — I looked into this crammed room with two bunk beds and thought “Oh shit! What did I just get myself into, I have to live here for ten weeks?” But it was actually incredible.
The three other UnCollege fellows that were in Brazil as well are some of my best friends now. We went to Rio and saw the Olympics (boxing and ping pong), and we also ventured to Sao Paolo, where a couple we met at the hostel weeks earlier ended up showing us around for a whole day. My favorite days were probably those that consisted of hiking and exploring the various beaches along the island.
We formed very strong bonds with some of the hostel workers, and some of the people who were just vacationing at the hostel for a week. It’s such a strange phenomenon: How can such close bonds form over such a short period of time? Maybe because both parties know that you may never see each other again, but who knows? That’s just one of the many things I’ve learned in the past year. The slow pace of life made me realize that I need to slow down a little and remember to enjoy life day by day. I also learned a lot from the kids I interacted with at the school. They would be in gym class running around in flip-flops or no shoes at all, having the time of their life. They rarely frowned. An especially interesting moment was when they crumbled up a piece of aluminum foil and used it as a soccer ball. It was a pretty great ten weeks, but I’d say the best ten weeks of my life was Launch phase.
Launch phase is a ten week self-directed learning experience. We had two hour workshops every day on real world skills (cold emailing, public speaking, retirement finance, etc.) Along with that came some really awesome coaches (S/O Jonjon and Gabeski!). Every fellow meets once a week with their coach to discuss their past week’s goal completion and the following week’s goals. Goals can range from flossing everyday to launching a business. Launch Phase for me was mainly about exploring. I’m interested in basically everything, and changed my major every semester while I was in college, adding up to a grand total of six times.
So, I had three main projects: MinuteMan Z, value investing, and inventing random stuff. MinuteMan Z was a YouTube channel I created in which I documented about a minute of my life every day for 100 days. The goal of this was to get out of my shell a bit more, and learn about video editing. Alright, fine, the real goal was to go viral and somehow get paid for it…unfortunately didn’t happen. I am also intrigued with the stock market, so I learned about Benjamin Graham’s value investing techniques (good ol’ Benji was Warren Buffett’s teacher). I ended up putting together a portfolio of twelve companies that I have fake invested in, and will be keeping track of for a while until I feel comfortable enough to go at it with real money.
The third project, ‘inventing, is what it was all about for me. My goal was to prototype one of my crazy ideas per week. But after the infamous bed toilet, an innovation that allows guys to pee off the side of a bed into a water bottle, solving the problem of having to get up during the night (sorry ladies, there’s no female version…yet), the prototypes just kept on coming!
I ended up learning all about silicone mold-making and made over twelve different variations of bouncy balls. That was when I stumbled across one product that I was extremely excited about: Zorm Ballz. It’s a really cool stress ball in which you can break the inside of the ball. I ended up taking the leap and starting a business called Zorm Ballz. After about a month of running Zorm Ballz, I realized I didn’t really enjoy running a business. The administrative aspects of it, like contacting customers and advertising, wasn’t clicking with me. What gets me excited is the creation. I used to feel like a failure because I’d have all these business ideas, create the prototype, and then just leave it at that. But I realize I love creating stuff.
Understanding this was crucial. I’ve been learning CAD software and 3D printing and invention pretty much every day. I used to think of myself as a failure — partly because I never followed through with my business ideas, and partly because I can never focus on one project at a time.. Now that I’m inventing random stuff, I have the freedom of choosing whatever project I’m feeling that day, while still focusing on becoming the best at one thing: creating. I call myself a toy inventor.I just make toys and other random things.. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, even though this has been the most uncertain and uncomfortable time of my life. I don’t have a strict plan for the future, but that’s the joy of life — not knowing what’s next!
Zach Olmstead is a non-conformist, inventor, entrepreneur. You can learn more about his gap year program at UnCollege.org
